Mango Rains

My favorite sound in the world is rain on a tin roof...which I have actually never heard in the states, only abroad. Woke up this morning to a fairly overcast sky but the last several mornings have been overcast. This one was more windy then the other mornings have been, with the smell of an oncoming rain in the air, and shortly after I arrived at breakfast the heavens opened and the rain began. We are currently in the dry season, and there is red dust everywhere. I had asked a few days ago if it ever rained in the dry season. Today I got my answer! However it is a very early rain. Usually rain doesn't start falling again until February, and sporadically at that. They call them "mango rains" because the mangos begin to ripen shortly after the rains start.

It rained most of the morning and many of the roofs at the ETC are tin. (Except the tents, mind you). I didn't actually go in to the high risk zone today. I was responsible for assigning tasks and had to re-arrange the assignment more than half a dozen times before everyone was happy! This afternoon I was not in charge but I was assigned to be the nurse outside of the wards, the gopher nurse if you will. I am getting better at remembering names although I have many more to learn.

Today we got one admission. We have lost all but one of the women that attended the funeral last week. :'-( We also admitted the husband of one of the pregnant ladies we lost more than a week
ago. He was hiccuping when he came in and hiccups are a very bad sign with Ebola. His blood test results aren't back yet...but he has most of the symptoms of Ebola, unfortunately. I do not know if he has more children. I imagine he does.

We are seeing our patient census numbers dropping-we have 6 patients currently. We were able to discharge 7(!) yesterday, all Ebola-free. Several of them came in with malaria and left our ETC feeling and looking a good deal better. That was encouraging to see--especially since we haven't had any Ebola survivors this week. It has been a very trying week on our staff, and we got another positive Ebola result today. (Not the husband, his is still pending). But we will all be shocked if his result comes back negative.

Thank you for praying for us, please continue to do so. My cough is essentially gone, aided by the gift of rain which decreased the dust and the fact that I didn't get a chlorinated wash down at all today. Oh! I counted the steps! If you count all the handwashings which are quite frequent, it is about 25 steps to doff PPE. Useless trivia fun fact for your next dinner party ;-)