Prayer Call hehe

When we got to work this morning, Miles told me that he was awoken at 6:20-ish am by prayer call, and I realized that I have never spoken about it!! Because there is such a heavy Muslim population here in South Africa, some parts of town have loudspeakers on the outside of buildings that are very loud and make it known when it is time to pray. The man that comes over the loudspeaker is almost chanting in Arabic, and I believe it’s a recording because five times a day when it’s prayer time, the same exact chant comes over the city. It’s quite annoying actually. There isn’t even a loudspeaker in our neighborhood (it was banned lol)—the closest one is like a three minute drive away and you can STILL hear it!! We can hear it in the hospital while we work too. I would die if it was next door to my house.
Across the street, the Vangate mall is Muslim owned, so ever restaurant in the mall has to be strictly halaal, which pretty much means Muslim-friendly or non-pork serving. It’s surprising that huge chain restaurants will change their menus for the sake of running their business in places like this, but they do. At one of our favorites, Mugg & Bean, instead of serving bacon on certain items in their menu, they serve “Macon” in Vangate, and truthfully, Miles and I have absolutely no idea what that’s even supposed to mean. It sounds gross though so we avoid it haha.

Since nothing too eventful was going on in orthopedic surgery besides plate and screw removals, we decided to peak into general surgery. A man was already on the table when we arrived. He was a 76 year old man that had had his leg amputated a few years prior to the operation because of sepsis. He was getting a debridement done, and then was stitched back together. I guess whenever you have an amputation done because of something like sepsis, they periodically cut open the leg where it looks infected, and burn all of the infectious or possibly infectious areas away to keep it ‘clean’ and then stitch him back together. It sounds terrible. His whole leg came off in the amputation too—he didn’t even have a nub, it was chopped off from the hipbone, so when I first came in I actually thought they were operating on his lower abdomen.

After the debridement was complete, the gynecologist came in to do some evacuations—he actually had three lined up but we only watched one. I didn’t even know what that meant before the surgery. I had to ask the doctor who explained to me that after a miscarriage, they have to remove all of the blood clots, tissues, and ‘debris’ left behind to avoid infection and sepsis. It was kind of sad to see, but I think it was interesting and good for me to experience at least once. The rest of the day was quite dull and uneventful.

Miles came over after work again, and Joan made us curry (the first one I have had since Durban, and it’s slightly different), rootie, and homemade salsa. It was SO yummy! She’s such a good cook, and she’s so cute! Miles and I were peering over her shoulder trying to learn how she was making everything and she explained it all to us in detail. She so goofy and sweet, I’m going to miss her a lot!