T-2

My room was cold and dark, which was unusual and amazing. I slept more soundly than I have any other night in Juanga. 

I woke up around 7 and went for a run. It had been a while since I'd run hard and it was one of my last days here so I wanted to make it count. Astonishingly, because I didn't eat dinner the night before, I didn't have to cut my run short to poop. I ran the usual route and then, ignoring the boundaries, ran out to the big bridge. It added about 45 minutes to the run and was beautiful. It was a cloudy and cool morning perfect for running and right when I started heading back from the middle of the bridge, it started pouring. I love when it starts to rain halfway through. 

I was pleasantly tired when I got back and after a shower and breakfast, I went to sit in the outpatient area. The surgeon was coming today so it was busy. The new doctor doesn't like talking much, so I watched the steady crowd of patients. Several assumed I was a doctor too and started talking to me in Odia before my few known phrases corrected their misconception. I had some time to think and wrote down some important thoughts in my notebook. The surgeon arived before lunch. He really is like a visiting celebrity here. Or a conductor. The way things change when he's around is a spectacle. After a quick lunch, we scrubbed up for surgery. Biku has been busy all day planning for the picnic in a couple of days. 

There were 5 operations and they took about an hour each. The surgeon took frequent breaks for tea and I don't think he liked my suggestion that he change gloves afterwards. I'm not sure how forceful to be when making suggestions like this. There's a fine line that I haven't found. I also suggested to Hari, who was assisting, that the patients shouldn't be wearing their own clothes into the operating room. I'm going to follow up with biku on these. Acting through him seems like the best bet towards making some small and important changes. 

Dinner was around 9:30 and I heard from Connor who made it back to America. He was stopped and interrogated by New York customs agents for about an hour but it's probably just because of his beard. I'm expecting to encounter similar "random" selection. 

-AB

I want to bring home a few of these.