Just realised this is my last entry! Had a busy couple of weeks after returning from safari. Said goodbye to my Aussie housemate and was joined by two Swedish nurses, who are also working at the hospital, and it's been quite nice showing them around a bit. As one of the longest standing volunteers, it's also been a bit odd teaching the others some Swahili and showing them how everything here works. It's amazing how much you can pick up without realising!

Due to a few public holidays and other one-offs, the hospital's been surprisingly quiet recently and I haven't seen any surgery as the patients have, slightly ironically, been too interesting for this hospital to deal with! The paralysed patient came back with his untreatable back injury confirmed about which, none of the doctors here seem sure what to do! We've also had a man with pancreatitis, quite a few paediatric emergencies and lots of the usual infections. One surgery I did see was a fractured tibia and fibula from a road traffic accident. With only an epidural (which had to be redone anyway) the hapless patient had a rod inserted down the center of her bone. Moreover, the surgeon was very indelicate about twisting her leg around before operating and at one point, even used her other leg as a support for sawing the end off the rod! Still, at least it was nice to be able to see this patient looking well on ward round a few days later with some very promising X-rays to show, when others have not been nearly so lucky. One of these unfortunates who resonated particularly with me was a 12 year old HIV patient who's been in and out of hospital since I came here (I think I mentioned him earlier having uncontrolled bleeding from his nose and mouth) and who passed away from severe pneumonia. Also, there're an increasing number of seriously ill children around often from silly things like drinking insetiscide left in an old water bottle, anthrax from eating an old dead goat and one particularly awful case of a child burnt all over his/her (too distorted to tell) body from a match lit near a gas canister. I've just spent the last half hour listening to them screaming down the hospital which their burns are cleaned.

Otherwise, my free time has been mainly taken up with doing all those last minute chores which biuld up so quickly but also visiting locals and my fellow volunteers from round the globe. Many people have already started asking me about what I'll miss the most about travelling and I think meeting people from everywhere and anywhere, from all walks of life, but all with something in common definitely comes near the top of the list. Also, I'll miss the many moments where I just stop and think about how surreal, amazing, unusual etc whatever I'm doing at that moment is. The most recent one was last weekend when I went to visit one of the Sister's homes. I was on my way when ity hit me that I'm sitting in a dala dala (the crazy, overcrowded minibuses which serve as public transport) chatting to an African nun on the way to her house. How many other people can say that in the world at this moment?! I've also been on another walking safari where we saw a few animals and got a comparitively authentic insight in to village life (which included trying the locals' favourite beverage of banana beer...), and also played piano for the weekly service in an international church I've attended a few times. I think I escaped with my dignity vaguely intact so all in all it's been a nice end to my trip.

Cannot wait to see you all!

xxx