Our new home

I apologize for taking so long to get this next post completed. It has been a busy week as we finally moved into our new home on the Kilema Hospital Compound. It is a nice little house that is overlooking a valley with Kilimanjaro behind us. We have banana trees in front and a pig pen behind (well, about 20 feet behind but it sure sounds like they are on our back step. Their lovely odour wafts through the house at different times of the day as the wind shifts. The sow and her piglets make a huge racket that sounds like a scene from Jurassic Park. It usually happens about every three hours or so as the piglets go in for their next meal. She is not a happy camper when this happens...and who can blame her!
The floor is concrete but polished and smooth. We have only cold water at present but purchased the tank on Monday and hope to have the hot water installed soon. Hannah cries very time we have to take a shower. Roman and Jack do a lot of yelling as well to try to get through it. We have a two burner electric hot plate and a small fridge. We have three bedrooms and each bed has a mosquito net. The windows have screens but somehow the bugs just seem to make it in. We are quite settled and happy in its simplicity. The bird sounds in the morning are incredible and I love to sit on our little porch in the morning and look out over the valley. The pigs and the church bells have been waking us up rather early. Jack is in a routine now with the school work we brought and is back practicing violin. The house up the hill next to us belongs to the local doctor and he has two children, Jackson (10) and Yeska (6). The speak no Engligh and my kids speak no Swahili but everyone seems to manage quite well. There is always a lot of giggling going on. Hannah tends to boss them around (although I don't think they know it), 'come Yeska, sit here, no , sit over here, here is the yellow pencil crayon, you can use this one". Yeska smiles and tries to carry out the orders as best she can. Pictures to follow soon. The new Canadian caravaners arrived on Sunday evening and we have three docs, a nurse and a logistics person in our house (so Roman and the kids and I are all in one room in two beds) as well until March 11th. They are great company and we have had a lot of laughs, Patrick Falloon is a chiropractor who worked next to me yesterday at the dispensary and the patients just loved him. I don't think they had ever been 'touched' that way before. The Smile-O -Meter was really high all day yesterday at our first clinic day with this group. I saw quite a bit of suspected HIV and referred a bunch of people for counselling. There was quite a bit of tropical medicine and the rest of the stuff was similar to the first caravan, with sick babies, abdo pain, rashes etc. Yes, for all you who think you might have read incorrectly, I am seeing babies!! And, doing a lot of cuddling.
We will be quite busy until the 9th of March when this group packs up and then things should hopefully get back to 'normal'. Jack and Hannah will participate in two upcoming orphan days where the groups (about 250 in one and 100 in the other) come to the hospital grounds for food, games, clothing, medical care etc. I am not really sure what they will think of the whole thing but I am sure they will remember it for a long time. The plan is for Roman and Jack to participate in some home visits in late March and April when they will deliver clothes and bedding to the villages (way in the bush) to the huts where some of these children live. They will go with the local home-based care workers who are supported, in part through CACHA's orphan program. Jack seems to be processing everything in his own mostly positive way.
More to come in a few days on how this caravan has run and any interesting cases for all you docs who are reading).
Thanks to all of you who have posted comments. It is nice to hear from you! (Yes, Allison it worked!).
Take care.