23 Left

I’m back! Barcelona…the climate, the culture, café society, strolling, talking…it was just exactly what I wanted and needed! But Iberia 3722 was going to Dakar, and I was on it. We touched down at 8:35 last night, exactly the moment it was scheduled. It was a packed flight, not another row, not another body, not another bag could have been squeezed onto that jet. I’ve seen sardines with more room in their tins.

Interesting to fly during Ramadan. Lots of passengers missed dinner. Around 7:15 there was intense interest in the right side of the plane, the west-facing side. As the sun slipped below the horizon, a special snack tray emerged from the galley: coffee or brewed tea with a four-cookie snack pack. Whether it was a Ramadan special was unclear, but the effect was immediate: blood sugar was restored to normal, conversation and laughter picked up. It actually got a little rowdy in the last five rows. Not rowdy bad…just lots of fist-bumping and “bro-ing” and what sounded like trash-talkin’ in French and Woloff.

Although Paul was somewhere at the airport, we never found each other so I took a cab to the house…pleased to arrive safely, not pleased to have been lied to by the driver who wanted more money, although we had agreed to a fare before leaving the airport lot. It was great to see Ba waiting by the front gate, catch up with Nathalie on hospital affairs, tease Paul about forgetting what I look like, and give Seal a hug this morning before he went to school.

Good things continue to happen, as people learn about the hospital project. Nathalie and Paul contributed 10 boxes of clothes to a Qu’ran school on Saturday, which led to a meeting with the local hospital director, who wants our mobile unit to provide additional support for his staff. Service needs are so great, that his hospital distributes care tickets for one hour every morning and then has to close down because capacity has been reached. Nathalie and I were just speculating that patients probably arrive at 5 am to get in line, hoping to get one of available tickets. The Hospital of Hope will be able to relieve some of this desperate need for healthcare, at least one day a week.

Help and hope. That’s exactly what we’re delivering.