Kijabe

I am staying in Kijabe on the grounds of this hospital. Carola serves as a pediatrician here. I've been going over with her in the evenings to check on her patients. Last night there was a wee one in ICU, Alexander. He is intubated with a collapsed lung. He is better this morning. Down in the pediatric ward we saw three more last night, a teeny tiny newborn with an enlarged heart, a dehydrated lethargic baby with meningitis and the prettiest little girl you ever did see with long lashes and perfect lips sound asleep after having unexplained seizures. Carola danced among them all, taking care to listen and to read charts and to order and administrate meds and insert IV's. I just sat there and prayed for each one, for healing and that no one would not throw up, myself included. 

While she is at work I sit on her veranda with the Karen Blixen view of Africa and watch the pesky baboons. We have a dog, Emma, a St. Bernard. She mostly keeps the baboons away, but they come close when she naps in the sun. I make countless cups of tea and sit under itchy plaid Masai blankets and sip. I perform my usual flips between books, one chapter here another there, mixing modern Christianity with the Rhodesian war. 

We are about to go to the shops. It is shops plural because there are two of them, but only two. One with mostly fruit and vegetables and stunning roses and the other with packaged items; boxed milk, spaghetti, biscuits, chocolate, tinned vegetables and eggs. 

Sunday we leave for Nairobi and we fly to Mombasa Monday morning. 
XO, 
G