Sept. 19, 2014

Various sounds are heard. Some are pleasant and some not so
pleasant. We hear the crickets or some kind of insect very loud in
the evenings. Early mornings we hear the doves cooing and pecking on
the metal roof. During the night we hear the fruit bats making their
calls and noises. In the mornings and evenings we hear the children
playing on the swings at the school sometimes very late at night.
Some evenings and days we hear the drums and “music” for church but
sometimes hear it for the dancing. Especially early mornings we hear
the roosters crowing and maybe the dogs barking. Sometimes we hear
the babies crying at the hospital and sometimes we hear wailing or
crying of relatives as another has succumbed to their illness often
very soon after their arrival too late for medicine to benefit.

Sometimes at night I hear the “knock, knock” of a nurse at the door
wanting some help with someone at the hospital most commonly an
obstetrical problem. One may hear a motorcycle go by or may hear a
donkey bray. We have our fans going which helps muffle some of the
other sounds at night BUT may awaken me if the fan does not sound
right or the speed is being variable as when the generator is not
acting right. Prefer to hear the sound of the generator being steady
not being irregular or the sound of voltage regulator clicking a lot.
We have had lots of problems with our electricity even the main
switch of the generator going off so apparently a big short in the
system somewhere causing severe electrical drain. I have finally
disconnected the batteries of the “backup system” and so far the power
and generator are being very steady since then. So I think the
batteries were shorting out the system. 

We also have other sounds if you listen for them such as tweeting 

of fire finches and of sunbirds.  Found a neatly sewn pendulous nest 

quite small and heard the mother bird and father bird tweeting. 

It is a “Beautiful Sunbird” which is the name but also the description 

with scarlet chest with yellow sides and irredescent green over most

of it and long tail streamers. The nest is right in Danae’s yard in a thorn tree. 

Might hear the rattling sounds of the Buffalo Weaver bird or the staccato

noises of the gray shrikes and fiscals and sometimes the music of the African
thrush under our kitchen window.

This week has been sad for some people in that we have had 3 that we
opened in surgery that had inoperable cancer. Two were bladder
cancer and one was colon cancer with huge periaortic nodes. One
fortunately died the next day. Another was a huge mass in the
epigastrium that had the appearance of metastatic disease on echo.
Another boy became jaundiced after receiving a unit of blood for Hgb
of 4 but also receiving quinine and Fansidar which has sulfa so
possible GP6D deficiency or ? We had another 3 yr boy with a large
bladder stone and another man with prostatic urethra stones.

Mason and Kim’s house is getting closer to being finished with most of
the electric and plumbing in with the help of Nick from Moundou being
up here for a time while Scott and Bekki are back in the USA.

Our emails are drbland@sbcglobal.net and dfbland01@gmail.com
Love,  Rollin and Dolores