My Friend Leonard

I am up early again. I have been waking up at 6AM most days. Probably because of the rooster outside my window that starts squawking as soon as the sun starts shining. Here’s a little update on the patients at the hospital… The girl with the burns is doing well. Haven’t seen her in a few days, but she smiles at us most times we see her. The boy who we gave the teddy bear to… he is so friggen cute! He is medically discharged, but can’t go home until his family can afford to pay the hospital bill. Hopefully he can go soon. We had a few other notable patients. The first one was a mother who had given birth through the night. We were working the next day and happened to go into her room- we can’t remember why we went in. She had been bleeding very heavily, several hours after giving birth, which is abnormal. It is called a post-partum hemorrhage, and it is usually considered an emergency. She had lost so much blood that she was weak and tired and hadn’t fed the baby. The baby was severely dehydrated. Both mom and babe were in pretty serious states. We were able to rehydrate the baby with IV fluids and we encouraged staff to re-assess the mom and help stop the bleeding. They are both doing well now, and I think have gone home. There was another very special mama who had some complications during her pregnancy. She had a scheduled cesarean last week. The baby had some respiratory difficulties and we were all very worried. We had been visiting every day. Yesterday, when we got there, the baby was no longer in the nursery- he was in his mom’s room, and doing much better. We were so relieved.
Last Thursday evening, we baked chocolate chip cookies to bring to the kids in the feeding program at the children’s home. We don’t think that they have ever had anything like them before, so we were pretty excited. On Friday, we helped serve their lunch, and then we passed out the cookies. Before we left for Kenya, my Grampy, Stewart, gave me a bunch of Canadian flags to bring. After we passed out the cookies, we handed out the flags to each child. Then it was time for the kids to go home. Watching them all in their adorable little outfits walking down the road and waving their flags was one of the proudest moments of my life. Thanks for all the flags, Gramper! The kids loved them!!
I think it is about time I talk about my new friend, Leonard. He is a pretty funny guy. He is probably reading this right now and will quote it back to me word-for-word the next time I see him. We’re not really sure what he does. First, we understood that he was a nurse and had been trained in Italy. However, apparently we misunderstood him (he would never lie!!) and the real story is that he went to Italy before and he WANTS to be a nurse. So his job at the hospital is an “assistant,” I guess. He also helps people move. We saw him the other day outside of the neighbor’s house, standing on top of a truck with a bunch of furniture. He threw his arms up into the air and yelled: “I am the tallest!” The other day, Amy, Allison and I set out to go for a walk, and we ran into Leonard, who looked very smart in his little red vest. We asked him to join us on our walk. Because he is a bit slim, he had to go in and put on something for warmth. He took us on this road that we had never been on before. We were a little worried because it was getting late and we had to be home before dark. And sure enough, we arrived home at 6:05PM. Just like he said. Later that evening, he came over to our disco party, which consisted of Allison, Amy, Stephanie and I drinking wine and beer, and Leonard drinking mango juice. The girls played a game of Sociable. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is a drinking game played with a deck of cards. Each card has a task. For example, the Ace is the “sociable” card, and everyone drinks. There is a rule card, where someone makes up a rule (like you can’t say anyone’s name) and every time someone breaks the rule, they have to take a drink. One of the cards is the “category” card. Someone picks a category and everyone has to say something that belongs in that category. The first person that can’t think of something has to drink. One of our categories was “Funny things that Leonard said.” It included these gems:
-“Oh, please no.”
-“I am the tallest!”
-“Please apply to be my friend.”
-“Ouch.” (as he ran into a branch).
-“You are all invited to the funeral of my cell phone. Please bring airtime and extra chargers. Don’t forget your manners. Amy Somersault will read the eulegy. It was a good phone.”
These may all be you-had-to-be-there moments, but we think they’re funny. Leonard provides us with non-stop entertainment. We won’t be giving him the red card anytime soon- that is, unless he ditches us to clean his shoes again.