Good medical outcomes. Bad shoes.

The recent days at the hospital have contained a fair amount of joy.  A young adult with multiple abscesses within the abdomen who has been sick in the hospital for weeks was able to go home.  A young child with problems including meningitis and a brain abscess who has been admitted for over a month has finally had the fever go down and is eating some.  A newly-admitted young child with a badly-infected leg, distended abdomen, and pneumonia has turned the corner and is starting to improve after a very worrisome couple of days.  All these patient and more have recently done far better than could possibly have been expected.  These are the times, when you can not explain the good things which are happening to the patients on the basis of the medical care available, that you understand what it means to have others praying for the patients and the work here.

I was walking back up the long hill from the marketplace a couple of weeks ago when I got caught in the rain (it is hard to blame anyone but yourself when you get "caught" in the rain during monsoon season in Cameroon).  I was wearing my regular street shoes and was having great difficulty negotiating the steep muddy hill.  As I stood there motionless, contemplating my next step, a young man came striding down the hill wearing his sandals.  I pointed to my shoes and he smiled.  He continued on his way down the hill but stopped after a few steps, turned to me and said only, "This is Africa."  He then continued on his way confidently down the hill.  I have taken his implied advice.  Now, when I am cleaning my sandals and washing the mud from between my toes, I think, "At least I do not have a broken wrist.".  Yet.