The Germ Factory is in full production

I am germy. I cough. A lot. My nose and head aren't congested, but I cough. A lot. I wake up in the middle of the night and can tell that I haven't coughed and it feels good. And then my cough reflex wakes up and goes to work. Good thing I brought Sudafed, bad thing I left the Robitussin at home. But, considering I'm on a weekly dose of Lariam, get Sudafed twice daily and a half a sleeping pill when I wake up between 2:30-3:00am- perhaps adding the Robi would be a little excessive. So, I just don't shake hands and I cough into my clothes.

I wish I had more productive things to write about- like all the cool ways we're serving and all that. But, today is only our first full day so we've done things like eat a buffet breakfast (Zambian sausage... not a good idea), have prayer and communion, and hold a medical team meeting where we meet each other and discuss all the things we have no idea we'll be doing. All we've been told is that the staff at the children's hospital is very excited we're here and apparently the chief medical supervisor for the province is too. For anyone that didn't know, we are still waiting to see if the MD's will still be able to practice. The Zambian Medical Board requires a certain form called a certificate of good standing to practice here and that doesn't exist in US medicine. I think we call it a background check. But anyway, we've found as much as we can about our 4 MD's, printed it and the university is trying to get it sorted out before we go into the hospital on Tuesday. The nurses will be shadowing the staff so that will be cool. That's something I do a lot of. I'm well trained in that.

We've decided that we just need to memorize mealtimes and the rest usually falls into place. Like this afternoon, we have no idea what we're doing but we do know lunch is at 1pm. Food is good. There is a kitchen team from the US and they are doing a good job of keeping us fed.

And that's about it. It's a bright, sunny. breezy day here and everyone is getting along fine. Tomorrow will be kind of weird, we will be carted all over Ndola to different sites, meeting the mayor (!) and other city officials, meeting the hopsital staff briefly, going to a tree planting ceremony- kind of like Americans on parade. Which doesn't make me feel awkward in the slightest.

Is it bad that when I do finally cough, I see people try to slyly and subtlely shift out of my general direction? I see what they're doing....