Day 15

First, here is a picture of the painting that I was writing about in the previous post.

Can't wait to hang that baby up.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty awful. A combination of many things but probably my body's less than subtle hint that it is time to start thinking about going home. Point taken, body. The whole way out to Bhatarapurnam, I was curled up in the fetal position as waves of stomach cramps and nausea came and went. Blessedly, as we pulled up to the center, I felt better and was able to work without difficulty. That was an answer to prayer!

We worked hard at the colony today and saw 48 patients. Our little wound care corner (which is a stool and a couple of chairs) was quite busy, always with people waiting. In fact, we started to run out of supplies. By the end, we had used all the gloves, so I had to use the same pair, scrubbing them with alcohol swabs between patients. It went against everything I was used to in the hospital, where I am constantly changing gloves. But medical care with limited supplies in a rural area gives the experience a bit of a Florence Nightingale touch.

So I'm kind of in love with this sweet girl. Meet Jayamary...

She just came to live at the school a few months ago and her English isn't much. When she's not in her school uniform, she wears this red dress. It is too big for her so she is always pushing the sleeves back up that fall off her little shoulders. In the house, she is the youngest and gets picked on a bit. She doesn't play much with the other kids and I have made it a habit to look for her when we go to play with them. Today, I found her scooping up handfuls of sand into a ziplock bag. I knelt next to her and began drawing pictures in the sand. She laughed and played for a minute before smiling shyly and running back into the hostel. But as we were walking to prayer time later, she found me and put her beautiful brown hand in mine, then snuggled next to me during the prayer. It made me with I could stay longer to develop that relationship of trust with her and make sure she always feels loved.

Oh and here I am with Sagayamary. She is also quite adorable and loves to sing "Five Little Speckled Frogs". I'll have to see if I can get a video of that.