chitty chitty bang bang... the little bajaji that could

nameeta and i went to the hospital to round again this morning.  we left sue at home to recover a bit from her busy last two weeks.

we had arranged for our bajaji guy (who we now know is named Edwin) to pick us up this morning at 8:30 to get to the hospital by 9... so, around 8:40, when he hadn't arrived, we decided to try our luck getting a taxi.  we stood on the road with not a car in sight until suddenly the little bajaji came barrelling down kinondoni road.  it was like he was racing to the finish line at the end of his hard trained for marathon, or to pick up the crazy mzungus to take them to the hospital.  we threw up our hands and screamed whooo hoooo!  he apologized for being late but was at church (a fair excuse, i think), and we all hopped in and off he zoomed to the hospital. 

this morning, we were faced with our second in-hospital death.  one of the little patients who had been hospitalized for a while with neuroblastoma and fever/neutropenia who had seemingly been getting better died overnight.  her parents had left by the time we got there, but we can only imagine their grief and sadness. 

we wanted to sit and talk with the mom of the newest patient with neuroblastoma, but we are going to wait for more of her family to arrive so we can decide what path to go on with his treatment. 

the children were a little less busy this morning, though they were all still very interested in my glasses.  i might have to leave them here when we go.

last night, we went on a shopping spree - tanzania style.  we bought lots of fun souveniers to bring home with us.  and, we had drinks at a lovely ocean side restaurant followed by a delicious dinner at another ocean side hotel/restaurant.  it was great people watching.  randomly some british guy came up to us to see where we were from, feed us a story about he was here doing philanthropic work for a rich dying 95 year old man, take our picture (on a dare from his buddies at the bar), and offer to buy us drinks.  with the help of Dee's irish sauciness, we shooed him away so we could enjoy our dinner. 

i keep waiting to get use to the heat... it hasn't happened yet.  it's still hot.