15 minutes

Every day I go to the admissions tent at 1pm.  During the day the patients have had vitals taken, seen the dr, and answered a thousand questions before being admitted for surgery.  My translators and I have a good system and the patients flow right through.  Of course every once in awhile something random happens.  Yesterday was strange because I had 12 patients and 11 were children.  While drawing blood not one of them cried.  Today two of the patients were gone when we went to draw the blood.  This is kind of strange and several of us went to investigate.  The two men were tired of sitting and left to go get sweets.  Grown men.  The children were still there.  Sitting exactly where they were supposed to be, but the men took off.  It was strange then but seems kind of funny now.  I was irritated that they were wasting my time and stood under the tent fuming.  Then a tiny little hand grabbed mine.  The little girl was one of the patients being admitted for surgery tomorrow.  Even though I had drawn her blood earlier she still wanted a hug from me and that is kind of unusual.  We spent the next 15 minutes skipping around the dock, throwing rocks into the giant rain puddle, and playing ring around the rosy with another boy.  The little boy had surgery months ago and comes back for therapy in the tent next to admissions.  He walked up to me and pointed to his arm and said "you juk me"  in krio that is basically that I stabbed him.  It amazes me that months later he remembers that I drew his blood.  We tested out his improved legs as he begged me to run faster around the dock.  If all had gone to plan,  I wouldn't have stopped outside to play.  I would have done my job and missed out on the best 15 minutes of my day.