The past two days I have spent the morning in language school, and the
afternoons in clinic. Language school is progressing nicely, I can
actually say a few sentences and understand a few things. One of the
most important things to be able to understand here are greetings.
Ethiopians are very big on greetings. They involve lots of words, eye
contact and shaking with your right hand. In fact, they consider it
quite rude if you do not administer a proper greeting. They will tell
others that 'so-and-so is mad at me, they didn't greet me!' If you do
not want to be seen as a rude ferengi, knowing greetings is quite
helpful.

Clinic this week is in Gabriel (last week it was Lideta). We are not
in the midst of tough slums, but we are able to help people of a
different kebele (which is a sub-city). We had a real building next
to a church with bathrooms (instead of the hole in the ground which
was at our clinic in Lideta). Monday was a little slow, but today we
were really busy. I sat with Linda, who is an acute care nurse
practitioner, and we saw patients with the aid of a translator.

Most of the patients were HIV+, single women with children. One woman,
who is HIV+ and has lost her husband, came in for a large abscess on
her leg that was full of puss. She wanted help because she wants to be
very cautious for daughter, who is 4 years old and HIV-. We drained
the puss completely and put her on Bactrium as a prophylactic for
respiratory infection that is common with HIV+ patients. Another
patient was a small HIV+ boy whose mom was also HIV+, but not is other
two siblings. He was so tiny for a 7-year-old and very quiet. He had a
fungal rash on his face and pnuemonia in his lungs. We gave him a
course of amoxocillin and a fungicidal cream for his face. He is on
ARV's and just finished a 6 month course of TB treatment.

It's been great having the full medical team here. It's an
encouragement to treat people who have no access to medical care.