4 down, 13 to go

The home alone report:  about a third of the way through the long stretch.  Only a snippet of news from Sudan confirming safe arrival, heat, good contacts and lots to see.  Meanwhile back on the ranch . . . Luke was the fourth team member to succumb to a very nasty virus last night, headache, chills, fever, nausea.  I’ve been anxious about each person who falls ill, second-guessing myself on advice and management and not wanting to miss something dire like malaria or meningitis . . So in that way each additional sick person makes the likelihood of a bothersome but survivable pathogen higher, and is oddly reassuring.  Unless the additional person is me of course!  I’m realizing how much I depend on Scott’s second opinion particularly for adults, and missing the ability to process team needs with him.  Not to mention the handful of sick neighbors and friends who seem to collect in my kitubbi at 8 am and 6 pm daily, or the complicated cases at the hospital like a teenage boy with a startlingly opaque chest xray, or emails about bank account numbers that I don’t deal with normally.  9 more days feels very long.