The bus ride takes 8hrs, and I admit, I slept through most of it. However, I did wake up enough times to have a glimpse of the countryside. It's monsoon season, so everything is of a bright green, luscious color. The dirt is very red. The sky is very blue. It might seem like a stupid description, but it is very beautiful and hard to describe. No billboards or ads anywhere, just dirt, vegetation, and every once in a while, little huts and villages. Just tiny little huts made of mud-bricks and thatched roofs. I will try to sneak some pictures, but foreigners are not allowed to take pictures in public without a permit from the government...
I did snap one surreptitious picture out the window at one of the stops... ;) 
Anyway, I arrived at the clinic, took a quick (cold) shower, and jumped straight in. When I got to the wards, Dr. Scott was still busy with surgery, so I joined Bekki (Dr. Scott's wife) and Will (a physiotherapist who is also volunteering for 3 weeks) and did their rounds of physical therapy with the patients. Will doesn't speak French, so I started translating for him and thus interacting with the patients and getting to know more about their situation. Most are here for broken bones due to motorcycle accidents. Some have had open fractures FOR MONTHS before they get here, and at that point, infection has spread to the bone and it's very difficult to do anything... The pain threshhold of these people is incredible!! This one patient, we were trying to mobilize his knee, and I asked if it hurt. He said "yes" in a very calm, steady voice. So we continued to move his leg, focusing on the knee. Not a peep from him. Then I looked at his face, and he was literally rolling his eyes and sweating from the pain. They won't say a thing. They don't cry out and yell at you to stop. They trust that you, "the nasara doctor"* knows better...
*Of course, I'm not a doctor (yet!), neither is Will or Bekki, but to them, it makes no difference. They trust us just the same...
(Nasara=white)
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