A bachelor's legs are his garden...

This is a Lubwisi proverb that was just told to me by Pat, one of the team members. It means that a bachelor gets his food by walking to other people's houses and being fed there. So far, that's been my experience here, as I've had dinner every night at the houses of other team members. (And Pat told me this when I was eating with she and Heidi). It's been a great way to get to know the other people on the team here.

Today there was more of the reality hitting me, as we did the clinic for motherless babies. These kids were brought by their caretakers - aunts, sisters, grandmothers - to be examined by the doctors, weighed, and have food distributed. The food was mostly for the caretakers who have taken over breast-feeding of the infants. So many of the children were unbelievably small and malnourished. But there were many heroines among their caretakers, women who have taken on children not their own, taken on breast feeding them, have carried them here for miles, and who carry them, along with a heavy load of beans and milk, those many miles back to there homes. Other health workers told me the histories of some of the kids: some are great recovery stories, some apparently hopeless. One thing that struck me was the "child health chart" - a chart with a series of curves, representing a weight to age ratio. One curve was labelled "normal weight child," the next one down "low weight child," and the last "very low weight child." One these charts, all that these caretakers can hope for or aim for is to keep children on the "very low weight child" line, because then they have a chance to survive. There seems to be no thought of the "normal weight line," and many of the babies fell significantly below the "very low weight" line. It was pointed out that, in America, most babies are significantly above the normal weight line. It's hard to deal with such stark contrasts - the realities of life here are simply different (and harder) than in America. What does it mean for me to be a wealthy American in light of that? There are so many things like this flying through my head that I barely know what to do with them.

And with that, the internet is about to be switched back off. Goodnight.