After Africa

We have been home from Africa for over a week now.  Finally getting over the jet lag and back on schedule.  Eric had a few extra days away from home attending a basketball camp in Provo.  Marty and I have started a new era.  He is working as my "scribe".  He follows me everywhere at work completing my paperwork and doing my discharge instructions and tracking down the lab work.  He sits at a computer right next to me when we are not in a patient's room.  My job at the hospital is evolving with the addition of scribes and other changes in the facility and the manner we do billing.  It will be interesting to see how things all work out.
Our trip to Africa already seems distant.  The days off from our home routine went by so fast.  Some fun things I remember about our trip:  Eric making Marty sit by the fat lady on one of our long flights.  Watching Marty's duffle bag with all of his mountain gear stay on the tarmac next to the plane in Nairobi, Kenya as our small plane leaves on our flight to Tanzania.  Then paying 20 dollars to have a young Tanzanian strap the duffle onto his small motorcycle and ride through the winding hills and villages to catch up to our expedition van on the morning we begin our climb up Kilimanjaro.  Marty offering to leave his wedding ring as collateral to rent a headlamp in our attempt to re-outfit him before the duffle arrives. The woman shop owner giving Marty the look of pity as he did so.  Getting our raft flipped in the class 5 rapid on the Zambezi River called "The Terminator" and then thinking that I had drowned Marty's friend Keith as I looked over at him and saw him face down in the water as we struggled to keep our heads out of the water in the lower sections of this huge rapid.  The close encounter we had with a family of elephants at Lake Manyara while on safari.  The stare down I had with a young male lion in the Ngorongoro Crater.  Finding the chapel in Lusaka on Sunday morning and meeting the Saints in Zambia.  Cold showers.  The extreme poverty.  Walking the streets of Keith & George's neighborhood.  Summiting Kilimanjaro with 300 hundred young african males.  Watching the sun rise on the summit of Kilimanjaro with a minus 20 degree wind chill.  Laughing at Eric as he attempts to choke down mangos and porridge for the 7th morning in a row.  Reading "Crime and Punishment" in my tent realizing that I have a knack for picking depressing books to read on my climbing expeditions.  Learning how to use a "squat toilet".  Discovering a Colobus monkey in the rain forest on the flanks of the mountain.  Taking a shower in a waterfall at our second camp.  Watching with amazement as our porters carry our duffel bags balanced on their heads up the mountain.  Hundreds of happy children run and wave at us as we travel by their homes.  The banana market in one of the villages at the base of Kilimanjaro.  A Mosai herdsman walking with his cows and goats in the bush.  The grass hut villages of rural Zambia.  Mosquito nets over our beds.  Watching 3 full length movies, sleeping (sort of) for 8 hours and still having lots of extra time to fill on our 16 hour flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta.  Arriving home to beautiful St. George on a hot sunny afternoon.