I tried to explain to the girls at lunch how funny phonetics drills were last week. I think they got it. I did, for a brief moment, have clarity about the future, thinking, language is what I love best. I need to go in that direction. Only I don't know what "go in that direction" means just yet.

Getting antsy without a job. Also a little leary of a committment that will hold me here (and make my life boring??) I suppose you always want to just turn around and go somewhere else after you've been home for a bit.

Now recording a little Ethiopia for today...

One day Allison and Kristine and I were walking around the compound. Allison has a little plastic doll named Leah whose eyes close when she lays down, just like most dolls. Her face, arms and legs are plastic, and her torso is made of cloth. She asked Abba Milki, the day guard, to hold it while she picked berries or petted Norman the baby calf or something. I noticed Abba Milki holding the doll with both hands at arms length, just staring at it, obviously amazed. I walked up and showed him how she could go to sleep. Then he said, “She’s only missing a soul.” Like she was so real looking that she could have been alive. (“Lubu doowa dhifteeti? Lubu doowa injiru?)

Here's Abba Milki, in a self requested photo, I think it was the day before I left. He came and said, "Take a picture of the old man."

How long will it be until I smell a smoky hut again, and see it oozing smoke from the outside, or see the sun set over a cornfield? What about the walk to the market?

A man named Shey Kamal came to the clinic a few months ago. He was intensely thoughtful with a sweet smile. He pulled an omeprazole packet out of his pocket and asked if by any chance we had any of that medicine as it had provided him with great relief from his self-described chronic, severe heartburn. We had some, and we sold him two packs of ten, twenty in all, for 8 birr. He also pointed out that his tongue hurt, and on examination, his tongue had deep fissures in it. I asked about a variety of other signs, and he didn’t seem to have anything clearly related. I looked in Mary’s book and she kept referencing tertiary syphilis- I either didn’t know how to ask about that or didn’t seem to get very far with other symptoms. Then he said, in response to my question, that yes, he did get gastric juices into his mouth sometimes with his heartburn. I thought perhaps his problems were related, and suggested that the omeprazole might help that.

When we were out on our campaign, probably in late May, maybe a month after he had come in, we walked out in Decha Gibe to the “left” of the market/market road. We had sat down on the ground for a very temporary little station, Yacob, Shannon from Texas, and I. Shey Kamal came walking up, and said he had gotten up early that morning to come because he heard we had come. He pointed to a far hill and said his house was “on the other side of that one.” He squatted down in front of me and asked about his tongue again. It was still hurting, and when he showed me, still painfully cracked looking. His heartburn was ok, he was taking his pills and still had four left. I asked if he remembered taking antibiotics (“bullets”- “tiyitii”- meaning capsules) and he said yes, he had taken something he described to be Ampicillin. I didn’t know what else to suggest. I thought the book had mentioned leprosy, so I asked him if he was having any numbness or tingling. He said no, but my fingers don’t feel quite right, and that started recently. So Yacob seemed to think maybe he did have some sort of early leprosy. I hoped so too, just to find a regimen that would help this man. He said, “What is your name again?” I apologized and said, we didn’t bring medicine out here during this campaign, only vaccinations. You need to come down and see us. He agreed to, and said he hoped he could get more omeprazole. I tried to warn him that we had recently run out in the clinic. I felt so bad for all the miles he had covered to see us and to get help. I never saw him after that.