Happy Birthday KCMC!!

So Tuesday the 6th marked the 41st birthday of the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center. It was a great day indeed. We woke up without power. Awesome. We attended a mastectomy and a hip fracture pinning. A couple of our Norwegian house mates joined us, Ingrid 1 and Ingrid 2. The Mastectomy was for a breast cancer unlike anything we had ever seen. The entire nipple of the right breast was completely scabbed over because the tissue was so friable. She well qualified for Stage 4 status with nodal involvement on both sides. She will not live much longer. Then we saw a hip pinning that was completed by a visiting Canadian surgeon. He had to use tools from the 1950s and supplies and techniques from the 1970s. He was a very impressive surgeon.

That afternoon, we joined our Swedish friends and Ingrid 1 to town for food and shopping. At the Kilimanjaro Coffee Lounge, I had the most amazing milk shake - Avocado! I know it sounds gross, but was a most pleasant, refreshing surprise. I am gonna recreate them in the states for everyone I know!! After we finished our tasty treats, we went for a little shopping. We set up our painting class. Yes, we are taking a painting class in town. They are going to teach us to paint African paintings and we get to keep ours. We can't wait. Talk about the best souvenir ever. We also stopped at the hot bread shop. AMAZING!!!! It is like a full service bakery with loaves of fresh bread for about a $1. So awesome. We bought this delicious cheese loaf. We later made pizza bread with veggies using the bread. It was the best thing we had made yet! Later that night, I stayed in and finished reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Thelma joined the Norwegians for dinner at the Leopard Hotel.

Wednesday was a bunch of the same. Turns out that this week is seminar week - Emergency Radiology. Interesting topic since they only have x-ray and ultrasound here at the moment. So needless to say, there are a bunch of lectures over the coarse of 3 days on a topic that really doesn't fit here. Anyways, we went to a few lectures and called it a day at about Tea Break. Because the country was once under British control, they still have some of England's pastimes, tea breaks and driving on the left side of the road.

That afternoon we stayed in and read. The Norwegians put in a full day of teaching about sex to kids in schools. They said it was quite interesting. So we all stayed in and ordered Chinese food for dinner. Funny story, they deliver it on a bicycle. Unfortunately, he came in a car this time. The food from Panda Chinese is really good and they are of course the only delivery service. I never thought that I would be able to order Chinese delivery in Africa. We had to order out because there was no power once again. Awesome. We played Uno by candlelight until the food came. That night, Thelma tried to put on a pair of shorts for bed. She stepped on the of the shorts and they made a huge ripping sound. No hole made, but we laughed hysterically. No surprise there.