It’s been a crazy week.

Last Sunday one of the Aunties here passed away. She was a former orphan who grew up here, and had then worked here throughout her life. She’d suffered from ill health & Alzheimer’s for quite some time, and her passing away was not unexpected. Her body was placed on blocks of ice in the church building for people to visit throughout the night. In the morning our carpenter built a casket, some of the ladies decorated it, and the funeral was held that afternoon. She was buried in the orphanage graveyard, under the shady mango trees.

Wednesday, one of the older girls mentioned she had a splinter in her arm. It had been there a week, and she’d been squeezing it, but it wouldn’t come out. I told her to come with me & I’d at least put some antiseptic on it, so it didn’t get infected. I then got Brad to come have a look – he seemed to think he could get it out (with her approval). So he went to the work bench, got some pliers, and after some squeezing & pulling, out came a 1.5cm long splinter. So we plied her with antiseptic & a band-aid & sent her on her way.

Thursday, one of the girls was bought in asking for ice for her eye which was very swollen. Ice is currently hard to find, as the electricity is pretty much off all throughout the days at the moment. But we found her some & she was given some Panadol. Later, the eye seemed even worse, but the there was no ice to be had. There was mixed stories about what had happened, something about banging her eye on the bed. But it now appears that she may have fallen victim to the dreaded Rove Beetle (the spider-lick wound Brad had recently). We just hope no scars are left on her beautiful little face after it heals. These beetles are nasty.

Saturday night, one of the small girls was bought into the room whilst we were having supper. She’d been found in her bed with high fever, pretty much unresponsive/unconscious. She’d been running around just hours before. After sponging her down, she was rushed to the nearest hospital. At the mention of needing to be given an injection, she miraculously awoke. She was still a very sick little girl, and obviously wasn’t faking her fever, but she definitely must be afraid of injections.

Sunday – a day of rest…not so… Our plan was to have a “siesta”, after popping down to the shop at the end of our driveway & splurging on a bottle of coke – our first soft drink for a month. We were sprawled on our bed under the fan trying to keep cool when the mobile rang & Priscilla called Brad to urgently come help in putting out the field which had just erupted in flames. Many from the farm used wet hessian and broken branches to beat at the flames and poured buckets of water in front of the fire and managed, after an hour, to get it under control. We were lucky, since the wheat had all been harvested and only stubble remained otherwise the damage could have been a lot worse. A bit of excitement for the arvo, but after a quick bucket bath Brad was back to teaching year 10’s for their business studies exam the following day.

Never a dull moment round here…