why aren't you girls voting?

Today we were mistaken for Americans but what the people wondered was why we weren't in the US voting for Obama. Believe me, we would if we could!

Today was our first day in the OR at the private hospital. It is quite well equiped and the staff are great. Still, there are lots of frustrations. Today we did two beautiful spinals but there was no effect whatsoever. The bupivacaine was not expired but must have been bad. How frustrating is that? We had to convert to general twice in one day for spinals that went in easily.

This is so amazing. There are a huge number of nurses and doctors here who are volunteers from Cuba. Cuba pays their salaries and Rwanda provides them with accomodation and a small food allowance. They volunteer for two years. If Cuba can be this generous we should be able to do more.

A few other things. The neonatal ICU is excellently equiped and run; it could easily have been in North America. We met fantastic nurse anesthetist, Janviere, who is as sharp as they come. We also found that orthopedic surgeons are the same everywhere.

We have been overwhelmed at people's gratitude for our teaching. They are so incredibly welcoming and warm.

We have spent the past four hours sitting out on our deck, listening to the birds, burning mosquito coils and working like fiends to prepare our power point presentations for tomorrow. It's great to be on line in paradise.