Spinning tops and patient education

    I got schooled today... schooled, in the fine art of spinning a top, by a five year old. I personally blame my lack of fine motor skills on the swaying ship... port, starboard, port, starboard.... but then the kid was on the ship too, so oh well, there goes that excuse! Sparks of joy in the middle of the workday. This little one also speaks no English, but is finely honed in the art of mimicry, so if you laugh, he laughs, anyone says anything, he repeats it. So cute! Little things...

    There was also the sweetest 8 month old - and baby squeaks are the same in every language... baabaa, gooes and dribbles everywhere. Teething on everything he could lay his hands on and doing very merry rounds amongst all the nurses who could't just leave that big-eyed baby there just looking up at you! He was probably wondering who all these crazy white women were for all we know... so sweet.

    Part of the fun and very different from home is how we really lump all the patients together on the same ward, men, women and children. Apparently they get all depressed if you separate them, and they just don't understand what medical isolation for infection control purposes is. There's nothing quicker to send them into depression and that part is really sad, actually. So if you have to do something private with a patient like a dressing change, you hang up a curtain around the bed, but boy it had better come down the second you're done! And they let you know!

    It's all very communal to say the least.  A great example is when you're trying to teach the patient in bed 13 about what to expect for surgery... if he speaks one of the tribal dialects, he usually stares up at you with a blank look of confusion - until the person 3 beds over volunteers to translate and yells the instructions over at him in Krio, Temne, Susu, Limbo or any of the various other dialects there are around. Then bed 8 offers his opinion on the matter, bed 7 tells him how it went for him, bed 11 starts yelling at bed 8 and general confusion ensues and you hope the poor patient you started with isn't so overwhelmed that nothing is registering at all. You can't help but laugh. The other end of the spectrum is that the patient very politely says "yes, yes, yes", smiling to your every question until you realize he don't speak English and he just doesn't want to be rude by telling you he didn't understand a word you just said.
    
   It works the same way with people offering directions in the streets by the way, if they don't know the way to something, they wouldn't dare be rude enough to say that they don't know, so they merrily and in full confidence point you in what ends up being the opposite direction and then tell you to ask from there..... sheesh. Hilarious until you drive around for 4 hours to get somewhere half an hour away!