On Friday I tried to get a surgery consult, and it was soooooo difficult to find someone. One of the nurses told me to call Ward D (surgical ward), and they told me no surgeons there, and to call the on call surgeon's direct phone...which I called many many times and no one picked up, and then they told me to try ward B, O, A, T, P (haha..."boat"), ...and probably some other letter. And with each call, no one would pick up until I stayed on the line for >1 minute and called multiple times. Of course, no surgeon at any of those and each told me to call another ward, and then finally I found the receptionist and asked him to try to call the surgeon, and then he told me the direct phone number was the wrong one, and he called some big surgeon boss who then gave me the right number. I'm kicking myself thinking, why didn't you tell me this earlier?!! ....well it's because this receptionist has a habit of disappearing and not being at the desk. But luckily, I got a hold of the surgeon, who came at 4:15pm, and managed to send the patient to get the procedure done before 5pm on a Friday. Sighs...it's just hard to reach people... But it was amazing they still managed to get something done at the end of a Friday. I was amazed.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Friday, November 27, 2015
Day to Day in Lesotho
Daily commute:
Consists of barely waking up in time (7:25) to leave at 7:40am. Getting in ZaZa (my 3-door 4WD Mitsubishi Pajero). Get out of my gated complex and wave bye to the guard/gardener.
Take a left onto a small road, and then ensues the daily adventure of avoiding potholes, combies (the local minivan-bus) and taxis. It actually makes driving kind of exciting! Trying to drive fast to make it to work on time, but only so fast so that I can slow down enough not to go flying over speed bumps or killing my suspension over the potholes. And the the illegal things combies do...man, the list goes on. They would just stop in the middle of the road, drive on the wrong side of the street, even see them backing up in a large street.
Part of the route in the morning involves going on some dirt road too. My friends KP and MZ recently went on ATV rides, and truth be told, I was a little jealous, but in reality, who needs ATV's when you've got Lesotho dirt roads?
At the Baylor Clinic of Excellence (COE):
We start the day at 8am with singing, prayer, and announcements by the COE staff. Then it's off to seeing patients. There is no such thing as appointment time, just appointment day, so it's by first come first serve. Every morning, there would be benches of mothers and their kids waiting patiently in the waiting room as the doctors call them up one by one. It's amazing how much patience these mothers have compared to the patients in the States. I feel guilty for being upset for waiting for 1 hour for my doctor in the US.
The patients first get reviewed by the director of the day, who determines what services they need - triage (get vitals), blood drawn, doctor visit, and any other special services such as disclosure, social work, treatment literacy, or nutrition. This speeds up the process so not everyone needs everything, and also less people get missed services because doctors can forget to direct patients to a service when they have so many other things to focus on.
On the lighter days, physicians often work until all the patients are seen, then go for lunch, and then come back to see stragglers. Otherwise, we just take turns taking a lunch break, and then come back to work. When there aren't many patients in the afternoon, I often work on research projects.
It's very convenient that the COE has translators who help the non-Besotho doctors communicate with the patients. Although English is one of the official languages, many of the patients (maybe 70%) don't speak English or enough to express their medical need.
The first few days I saw patients and then checked it out with the director. But since the monitoring of HIV patients is fairly standard, I was soon able to work more or less independently and only ask for help in more difficult or complicated cases.
At the hospital:
A third of the time I spend my time at the hospital. The Queen Mamahato Hospital (or Tsepong or QMMH), is a hospital named after the first queen of Lesotho. Every morning, when you drive through the gate, a guard takes down your name and license place number. The hospital is quite nice! It's pretty new, has a lot of funding from outside sources (Tsepong - forgot what organization this is), and has some of the state of the art equipment such as CT scan, nice operating rooms (aka "theaters"), ultrasound, and even a helicopter pad - although I think they are still lacking a helicopter.
In the morning, we have a meeting in the nursery office where the overnight doctor goes over the new overnight admissions and anything of interest that may have happened such as labs that came back or patients that crashed or died. Sometimes there are announcements and sometimes there are presentations by one of the doctors on a case or a topic. If we are lucky, we then start rounds around 9am, but on some of the busier days we start later - one time we didn't start until 11am! It's rough when the pediatric clinical director, who doesn't have to round and see all the patients loses track of time and gets on a soap box regarding nursing-doctor relationship or how discrimination is bad. I mainly feel bad for the overnight doctor who needs desperately to go to sleep.
I've been mostly working in the M ward, which is the general pediatric ward. There are rooms 1 to 12. Rooms 1 to 7 are isolation rooms, which means there are either one or two beds for specific patients who need to be isolated because they may have something that can be transmitted to other patients. Rooms 8 to 12 can each hold 5 patients. The sickest patients are usually in room 8, and then 11 because they are easily seen from the nursing station. I've been mostly rounding in rooms 9-12 - usually 2 rooms, but sometimes 4 rooms. One the days when we only have two doctors in ward M, it's gets kind of hectic, and I feel stretched. Mais c'est la vie. The nurses have a rough time too because there are usually only 4 or 5 of them to take care of the whole ward, which is definitely not enough people.
Most of the time I try to round on all the patients before I go to lunch, but on the busy days when there are five admissions, sick patients, or patients requiring a lot of work, I may not eat until late or at all. One of the biggest time consumption here is that nurses don't draw labs or put in IV lines. So if I want any labs or a child needs to be on IV fluids or IV medication, I have to personally put the IV line in or draw blood. I've gotten pretty good at drawing blood, but I still struggle immensely with putting in IV lines, especially on those Michelin babies who have rolls of fat and no visible veins. Thankfully the other doctors had a lot more practice and they often take pity on me, seeing that I've been struggling for more than half an hour and just place the IV line for me. It's a constant battle between doctors and nurses here in QMMH - who's job is it really to put in IV lines.
After a long day of rounding, IV lines, and admissions, we finally have hand over around 5:15pm to the night doctor. We only hand over sick patients or patients who have labs to follow up because it's impossible for 1 doctor to care for all the patients in ward M, N (nursery), K (NICU). Thankfully as visiting doctors, we don't have to work on nights or weekends. Phew!
Post-Work Fun:
The expat community in Lesotho is pretty tight due to the small number of people here. That also means there are certain recurring events that are a common past-time for people. Here are a few of them:
Tuesday night: Bible study. This is a bible study group not affiliated with any church. It's nice that although I can't attend my usual bible study group in Houston, I can go to this one in Lesotho. We usually meet at one of the member's house, and watch a video or go through a discussion.
Wednesday night: Trivia at No. 7. It's a weekly battle between expat teams. Each week, the winner gets a prize, which ranges from beers to various life animals such as chicken and pig. At the end of the month, the team that had the highest score gets a cooking class. Although I really dislike trivia because I never contribute, a friend CY convinced me to go this past week and the team won! Woot! Cooking class!
Of note, Number 7 is a restaurant run by Kick4Life, which is a football (soccer) club. The soccer club is much more than just a place where people go to play soccer or learn soccer, it also expanded into a hotel and restaurant where they train locals service skills such as how to be a waiter or hotel concierge - skills that will help them in their life. They have also started providing food, counseling, and life skills for kids on the street.
Wednesday night during the spring: French movie screening at Alliance Francaise with English subtitles. It was really relaxing, calming, and the weather was perfect for an outdoor movie. I was also nicely surprised by their wonderful milkshake, until I got another one and it was the awfullest thing - all foam! Never again! But the movies were nice.
Thursday night: Salsa dancing at Piripiri. It's salsa lessons followed by salsa dancing afterwards. Although I have no dancing talent, the instructor is entertaining and super awesome, so it's fun to go. Piripiri is a restaurant named after a hot sauce in Lesotho. Although the food is good, it TAKES FOREVER - as any restaurant except for KFC (my favorite).
3rd Friday of the Month: Game night. There is a Peace Corp director person who organizes a game night every 3rd Friday of the month. And he has soooooo many games. We've played Carcasonne, American train (? butchering the name), Camel Up, some kind of coop game involving virus (not Pandemic)....yeah...that's probably 5% of the games that he has.
Friday Capello's hangout: Capello's is a cafe by day (where no one ever goes), and a bar by night (where too many people go to). At night it is a full swing bar with tons of people and music that's way too loud and makes me lose my voice in 3 minutes. I suppose I don't go here that often, but apparently it's the hangout place on Friday nights.
1st and 3rd Saturday fo the month: Teen club. This is where the HIV positive children who go to the COE get to have a chance to get together, have fun, play games, and learn about something. They also get refills that day - encourages adherence to their medicine.
Sundays: Hash Hikes. These are organized hikes that people set up on Saturday and then we go on on Sunday mornings. They are nothing like the Hashes in other countries where it involves a lot of drinking. It's the family friendly version.
Sundays: Victory Church. This is a church I started attending recnelty because my coworker goes there. The pastor speaks awesome understandable English and he's got some pretty great sermons too. :D
Consists of barely waking up in time (7:25) to leave at 7:40am. Getting in ZaZa (my 3-door 4WD Mitsubishi Pajero). Get out of my gated complex and wave bye to the guard/gardener.
Take a left onto a small road, and then ensues the daily adventure of avoiding potholes, combies (the local minivan-bus) and taxis. It actually makes driving kind of exciting! Trying to drive fast to make it to work on time, but only so fast so that I can slow down enough not to go flying over speed bumps or killing my suspension over the potholes. And the the illegal things combies do...man, the list goes on. They would just stop in the middle of the road, drive on the wrong side of the street, even see them backing up in a large street.
Part of the route in the morning involves going on some dirt road too. My friends KP and MZ recently went on ATV rides, and truth be told, I was a little jealous, but in reality, who needs ATV's when you've got Lesotho dirt roads?
At the Baylor Clinic of Excellence (COE):
We start the day at 8am with singing, prayer, and announcements by the COE staff. Then it's off to seeing patients. There is no such thing as appointment time, just appointment day, so it's by first come first serve. Every morning, there would be benches of mothers and their kids waiting patiently in the waiting room as the doctors call them up one by one. It's amazing how much patience these mothers have compared to the patients in the States. I feel guilty for being upset for waiting for 1 hour for my doctor in the US.
The patients first get reviewed by the director of the day, who determines what services they need - triage (get vitals), blood drawn, doctor visit, and any other special services such as disclosure, social work, treatment literacy, or nutrition. This speeds up the process so not everyone needs everything, and also less people get missed services because doctors can forget to direct patients to a service when they have so many other things to focus on.
On the lighter days, physicians often work until all the patients are seen, then go for lunch, and then come back to see stragglers. Otherwise, we just take turns taking a lunch break, and then come back to work. When there aren't many patients in the afternoon, I often work on research projects.
It's very convenient that the COE has translators who help the non-Besotho doctors communicate with the patients. Although English is one of the official languages, many of the patients (maybe 70%) don't speak English or enough to express their medical need.
The first few days I saw patients and then checked it out with the director. But since the monitoring of HIV patients is fairly standard, I was soon able to work more or less independently and only ask for help in more difficult or complicated cases.
At the hospital:
A third of the time I spend my time at the hospital. The Queen Mamahato Hospital (or Tsepong or QMMH), is a hospital named after the first queen of Lesotho. Every morning, when you drive through the gate, a guard takes down your name and license place number. The hospital is quite nice! It's pretty new, has a lot of funding from outside sources (Tsepong - forgot what organization this is), and has some of the state of the art equipment such as CT scan, nice operating rooms (aka "theaters"), ultrasound, and even a helicopter pad - although I think they are still lacking a helicopter.
In the morning, we have a meeting in the nursery office where the overnight doctor goes over the new overnight admissions and anything of interest that may have happened such as labs that came back or patients that crashed or died. Sometimes there are announcements and sometimes there are presentations by one of the doctors on a case or a topic. If we are lucky, we then start rounds around 9am, but on some of the busier days we start later - one time we didn't start until 11am! It's rough when the pediatric clinical director, who doesn't have to round and see all the patients loses track of time and gets on a soap box regarding nursing-doctor relationship or how discrimination is bad. I mainly feel bad for the overnight doctor who needs desperately to go to sleep.
I've been mostly working in the M ward, which is the general pediatric ward. There are rooms 1 to 12. Rooms 1 to 7 are isolation rooms, which means there are either one or two beds for specific patients who need to be isolated because they may have something that can be transmitted to other patients. Rooms 8 to 12 can each hold 5 patients. The sickest patients are usually in room 8, and then 11 because they are easily seen from the nursing station. I've been mostly rounding in rooms 9-12 - usually 2 rooms, but sometimes 4 rooms. One the days when we only have two doctors in ward M, it's gets kind of hectic, and I feel stretched. Mais c'est la vie. The nurses have a rough time too because there are usually only 4 or 5 of them to take care of the whole ward, which is definitely not enough people.
Most of the time I try to round on all the patients before I go to lunch, but on the busy days when there are five admissions, sick patients, or patients requiring a lot of work, I may not eat until late or at all. One of the biggest time consumption here is that nurses don't draw labs or put in IV lines. So if I want any labs or a child needs to be on IV fluids or IV medication, I have to personally put the IV line in or draw blood. I've gotten pretty good at drawing blood, but I still struggle immensely with putting in IV lines, especially on those Michelin babies who have rolls of fat and no visible veins. Thankfully the other doctors had a lot more practice and they often take pity on me, seeing that I've been struggling for more than half an hour and just place the IV line for me. It's a constant battle between doctors and nurses here in QMMH - who's job is it really to put in IV lines.
After a long day of rounding, IV lines, and admissions, we finally have hand over around 5:15pm to the night doctor. We only hand over sick patients or patients who have labs to follow up because it's impossible for 1 doctor to care for all the patients in ward M, N (nursery), K (NICU). Thankfully as visiting doctors, we don't have to work on nights or weekends. Phew!
Post-Work Fun:
The expat community in Lesotho is pretty tight due to the small number of people here. That also means there are certain recurring events that are a common past-time for people. Here are a few of them:
Tuesday night: Bible study. This is a bible study group not affiliated with any church. It's nice that although I can't attend my usual bible study group in Houston, I can go to this one in Lesotho. We usually meet at one of the member's house, and watch a video or go through a discussion.
Wednesday night: Trivia at No. 7. It's a weekly battle between expat teams. Each week, the winner gets a prize, which ranges from beers to various life animals such as chicken and pig. At the end of the month, the team that had the highest score gets a cooking class. Although I really dislike trivia because I never contribute, a friend CY convinced me to go this past week and the team won! Woot! Cooking class!
Of note, Number 7 is a restaurant run by Kick4Life, which is a football (soccer) club. The soccer club is much more than just a place where people go to play soccer or learn soccer, it also expanded into a hotel and restaurant where they train locals service skills such as how to be a waiter or hotel concierge - skills that will help them in their life. They have also started providing food, counseling, and life skills for kids on the street.
Wednesday night during the spring: French movie screening at Alliance Francaise with English subtitles. It was really relaxing, calming, and the weather was perfect for an outdoor movie. I was also nicely surprised by their wonderful milkshake, until I got another one and it was the awfullest thing - all foam! Never again! But the movies were nice.
Thursday night: Salsa dancing at Piripiri. It's salsa lessons followed by salsa dancing afterwards. Although I have no dancing talent, the instructor is entertaining and super awesome, so it's fun to go. Piripiri is a restaurant named after a hot sauce in Lesotho. Although the food is good, it TAKES FOREVER - as any restaurant except for KFC (my favorite).
3rd Friday of the Month: Game night. There is a Peace Corp director person who organizes a game night every 3rd Friday of the month. And he has soooooo many games. We've played Carcasonne, American train (? butchering the name), Camel Up, some kind of coop game involving virus (not Pandemic)....yeah...that's probably 5% of the games that he has.
Friday Capello's hangout: Capello's is a cafe by day (where no one ever goes), and a bar by night (where too many people go to). At night it is a full swing bar with tons of people and music that's way too loud and makes me lose my voice in 3 minutes. I suppose I don't go here that often, but apparently it's the hangout place on Friday nights.
1st and 3rd Saturday fo the month: Teen club. This is where the HIV positive children who go to the COE get to have a chance to get together, have fun, play games, and learn about something. They also get refills that day - encourages adherence to their medicine.
Sundays: Hash Hikes. These are organized hikes that people set up on Saturday and then we go on on Sunday mornings. They are nothing like the Hashes in other countries where it involves a lot of drinking. It's the family friendly version.
Sundays: Victory Church. This is a church I started attending recnelty because my coworker goes there. The pastor speaks awesome understandable English and he's got some pretty great sermons too. :D
Friday, November 13, 2015
Quilone Falls
What a "spectacular hike!" as a friend would put it. Initially I was undecided whether to do this hike or another hike, but I'm sure glad I did this one!
Directions:
On the way to Mohale Dam, after driving past one mountain, it's right at "God Help Me Pass." Make a left at the "Donkey trekking" sign (white sign with red letters), which takes you to a place where you can park your car for R20 (about 2 dollars).
Then you take the trial on the left, and go under some trees, then when you reach an area close to a water crossing where the trail goes right or left, take the left trail (where it almost looks like there's no trail). I think you cross water twice before getting on a ridge where if you just continue straight on the biggest path, then you reach a great view of a river and a besotho hat mountain (shaped like the traditional besotho hats).
Then you follow the ledge (keep right), until you reach a river, where you cross to the other bank. From there, you just go straight up (not much of a trail), until you come across a main trail. That will continue to take you up the mountain, until you get a great view of the falls. From there, it's downhill to the falls.
It's beautiful! But don't be deceived by the pictures of people in the water - it's frigid! But despite the could, people did some mini-cliff jumping. I wasn't as adventurous, so I waded in the water to get used to the temperature, and then jumped in and took a swim. Too cold to stay long!
But some adventurous folks decided to hike farther up. And soon, while we were drying out at the bottom of the falls, we saw some little heads pop out of the top of the falls. We all decided to follow suit and went to the top, which was gorgeous!
The top had many gentle pools carved out by the great river, and at the very top of the falls, right where the water plunges down was one big pool where everyone decided to take a dip. Despite appearing dangerous, it was quite safe as there was essentially a wall blocking off us from the fall. You can even see the wine bottle sitting on top of this "wall." Unfortunately this wine bottle did fall to its death shortly after our arrival.
Directions:
On the way to Mohale Dam, after driving past one mountain, it's right at "God Help Me Pass." Make a left at the "Donkey trekking" sign (white sign with red letters), which takes you to a place where you can park your car for R20 (about 2 dollars).
Then you take the trial on the left, and go under some trees, then when you reach an area close to a water crossing where the trail goes right or left, take the left trail (where it almost looks like there's no trail). I think you cross water twice before getting on a ridge where if you just continue straight on the biggest path, then you reach a great view of a river and a besotho hat mountain (shaped like the traditional besotho hats).
Then you follow the ledge (keep right), until you reach a river, where you cross to the other bank. From there, you just go straight up (not much of a trail), until you come across a main trail. That will continue to take you up the mountain, until you get a great view of the falls. From there, it's downhill to the falls.
It's beautiful! But don't be deceived by the pictures of people in the water - it's frigid! But despite the could, people did some mini-cliff jumping. I wasn't as adventurous, so I waded in the water to get used to the temperature, and then jumped in and took a swim. Too cold to stay long!
But some adventurous folks decided to hike farther up. And soon, while we were drying out at the bottom of the falls, we saw some little heads pop out of the top of the falls. We all decided to follow suit and went to the top, which was gorgeous!
The top had many gentle pools carved out by the great river, and at the very top of the falls, right where the water plunges down was one big pool where everyone decided to take a dip. Despite appearing dangerous, it was quite safe as there was essentially a wall blocking off us from the fall. You can even see the wine bottle sitting on top of this "wall." Unfortunately this wine bottle did fall to its death shortly after our arrival.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Brother Fun
Conversations I have with my brother:
*Brother: Hm, that didn't work
*Me: What?
*Brother: Oh, I tried to draw Lincoln playing baseball
Game we played where each person says a word to a tempo and ends up with strange sentences:
Bananas went to heaven, and Alex went to heaven to eat the bananas.
There was a ball and they burped up Cinderella who kissed bob and bob went to heaven.
Brother on whatsapp:
"We did a living comparison thing in history today and I learned that 23 percent of adult sin Lesotho have HIV!!!"
(what a smarty :D)
Playing Space Team:
Brother: "Flushbypass!"
Me: "Clean the Garbage!!"
Brother reaches over to me and pushes my buttons on the phone.
Me: "Asteroid shake!"
*Brother: Hm, that didn't work
*Me: What?
*Brother: Oh, I tried to draw Lincoln playing baseball
Game we played where each person says a word to a tempo and ends up with strange sentences:
Bananas went to heaven, and Alex went to heaven to eat the bananas.
There was a ball and they burped up Cinderella who kissed bob and bob went to heaven.
Brother on whatsapp:
"We did a living comparison thing in history today and I learned that 23 percent of adult sin Lesotho have HIV!!!"
(what a smarty :D)
Playing Space Team:
Brother: "Flushbypass!"
Me: "Clean the Garbage!!"
Brother reaches over to me and pushes my buttons on the phone.
Me: "Asteroid shake!"
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Engagement
Woot! It's official!
How it started:
When I departed for Africa in August, AB gave me ten envelopes. I was allowed to open one for each week I was in Africa until we see each other again in October. Each envelop contained a written letter, one or two physical letters, and one or two photographs. I soon found out the letters were each about some aspect that he liked about me (blush).
When it came to be the last week, he told me to hold off opening the letter, and bring it with me to Seattle where we were going to celebrate a friend's wedding.
Seattle:
In Seattle, we had decided to go visit a famous Seattle waterfall during the day and then have a nice dinner at night. But unfortunately, it looked like it was going to rain, so we decided to change it to Wednesday. On Wednesday, we had planned to go early in the morning, but we both slept in late, and then I took a long time looking for the item I was going to mail KP for her Nov bday. To top it off, there was traffic, so we didn't get to Snoqualmie Falls until almost midday. It was very different from what I had remembered from childhood. It used to be simply a trail down to the waterfall, but now part of it was paved with plaques about the hydroelectric power plant that was underneath the waterfall. It was fascinating, so I read every single plaque - including ones about different conifer trees. But Alan appeared distracted and didn't seem to have any interested. I even said, "you're not paying attention at all are you?" and he simply replied, "Nope!"
Unbeknownst to me, AB had arranged KP to be there that morning to help take pictures. She had just arrived by plane that morning for a business trip, and was hoping to get to work by noon, but I was taking my time moseying about and looking at every single plaque. She was supposed to have gotten there to take the after pictures, but now she was in time for the actual proposal. AB didn't get a chance to scope out the place prior, so while I was enjoying myself, he was busy trying to figure out what's a good place to propose and not take up too much of KP's time. KP did find a nice place behind a rock to hide, when AB suggested that place for me to read my last letter, I dismissed it as being too crowded. So then the chase began with AB and I walking around, and KP surreptitiously following behind us. At one point, we had gotten to the end of boardwalk at a scenic viewpoint of the waterfall, and KP and AB were hoping that was the final spot, but once again, I found it too crowded so we started walking back. KP quickly texted AB that she was right in front of us, but he didn't see the text, and she quickly turned and tried to walk in a different manner so that I wouldn't recognize her. I was busy reading the plaques, so I didn't notice anything. I also noticed Alan texting quite a bit. He gave the excuse that he was trying to figure out when to meet up with his friend Sharon.
We finally walked down a path to the river-side, and settled behind a big rock, hoping it was more secluded. I read the letter, and AB proceeded to give a small speech summarizing the letters. He then paused and looked around, so I looked around as well, but he kept on putting his hand on my head to keep me from turning my head. He explained he had asked someone to be a photographer, but didn't want me to see him...or her. Then AB got on a knee and pulled out a box. At that point I was still sitting down, so I was looking up at him, and decided I needed to stand up, but took some time to fumble with the letter to keep it from blowing away. Finally I stood up, AB pulled out a glimmering ring, and that was it!
Video of engagement taken by bucket list girl (with full commentary, unfortunately it's sideways).
AB then pointed out the photographer, and to my surprise, it was KP! She was so sneaky, had even talked an hour with us on the phone the other day and didn't mention anything about coming to Seattle. Thankfully the weather was bad on Monday so she was able to be there for the proposal. KP said, "Congratulations!" and then a stranger popped out from the trees next to her and also said congrats. At that point, KP yelled, "Complete stranger!" Apparently it had always been on the complete stranger's bucket list to see a proposal, so she had followed KP around. The bucket list girl had first surprised KP when she was hiding behind a rock and thought she was taking a bathroom break. KP quickly corrected her, and she continued to follow KP around.
We took some more pictures next to the waterfall, now without my silly backpack, and said our good byes to KP who had now had her work out for the day. We went to Din Tai Fung for lunch, which had some yummy xiao long bao, sao mai, and spicy beef noodle soup.
For dinner, AB took us to a fancy fusion restaurant in Woodinville called the Barking Frog where we had the most fascinating combination of foods:
All in all, a great day! :D
 |
| Snoqualmie Falls |
How it started:
When I departed for Africa in August, AB gave me ten envelopes. I was allowed to open one for each week I was in Africa until we see each other again in October. Each envelop contained a written letter, one or two physical letters, and one or two photographs. I soon found out the letters were each about some aspect that he liked about me (blush).
When it came to be the last week, he told me to hold off opening the letter, and bring it with me to Seattle where we were going to celebrate a friend's wedding.
Seattle:
In Seattle, we had decided to go visit a famous Seattle waterfall during the day and then have a nice dinner at night. But unfortunately, it looked like it was going to rain, so we decided to change it to Wednesday. On Wednesday, we had planned to go early in the morning, but we both slept in late, and then I took a long time looking for the item I was going to mail KP for her Nov bday. To top it off, there was traffic, so we didn't get to Snoqualmie Falls until almost midday. It was very different from what I had remembered from childhood. It used to be simply a trail down to the waterfall, but now part of it was paved with plaques about the hydroelectric power plant that was underneath the waterfall. It was fascinating, so I read every single plaque - including ones about different conifer trees. But Alan appeared distracted and didn't seem to have any interested. I even said, "you're not paying attention at all are you?" and he simply replied, "Nope!"
 |
| Lower Snoqualmie Falls |
Unbeknownst to me, AB had arranged KP to be there that morning to help take pictures. She had just arrived by plane that morning for a business trip, and was hoping to get to work by noon, but I was taking my time moseying about and looking at every single plaque. She was supposed to have gotten there to take the after pictures, but now she was in time for the actual proposal. AB didn't get a chance to scope out the place prior, so while I was enjoying myself, he was busy trying to figure out what's a good place to propose and not take up too much of KP's time. KP did find a nice place behind a rock to hide, when AB suggested that place for me to read my last letter, I dismissed it as being too crowded. So then the chase began with AB and I walking around, and KP surreptitiously following behind us. At one point, we had gotten to the end of boardwalk at a scenic viewpoint of the waterfall, and KP and AB were hoping that was the final spot, but once again, I found it too crowded so we started walking back. KP quickly texted AB that she was right in front of us, but he didn't see the text, and she quickly turned and tried to walk in a different manner so that I wouldn't recognize her. I was busy reading the plaques, so I didn't notice anything. I also noticed Alan texting quite a bit. He gave the excuse that he was trying to figure out when to meet up with his friend Sharon.
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| Snoqualmie Falls River Front |
We finally walked down a path to the river-side, and settled behind a big rock, hoping it was more secluded. I read the letter, and AB proceeded to give a small speech summarizing the letters. He then paused and looked around, so I looked around as well, but he kept on putting his hand on my head to keep me from turning my head. He explained he had asked someone to be a photographer, but didn't want me to see him...or her. Then AB got on a knee and pulled out a box. At that point I was still sitting down, so I was looking up at him, and decided I needed to stand up, but took some time to fumble with the letter to keep it from blowing away. Finally I stood up, AB pulled out a glimmering ring, and that was it!
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| So shiny... |
AB then pointed out the photographer, and to my surprise, it was KP! She was so sneaky, had even talked an hour with us on the phone the other day and didn't mention anything about coming to Seattle. Thankfully the weather was bad on Monday so she was able to be there for the proposal. KP said, "Congratulations!" and then a stranger popped out from the trees next to her and also said congrats. At that point, KP yelled, "Complete stranger!" Apparently it had always been on the complete stranger's bucket list to see a proposal, so she had followed KP around. The bucket list girl had first surprised KP when she was hiding behind a rock and thought she was taking a bathroom break. KP quickly corrected her, and she continued to follow KP around.
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| Thanks for the beautiful flowers KP and MZ! |
For dinner, AB took us to a fancy fusion restaurant in Woodinville called the Barking Frog where we had the most fascinating combination of foods:
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| Palate cleanser: some combo of nuts, carrots, veggie, sour cream |
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| Appetizer (enough for meal for 2!): penn cove mussels- coconut-curry broth/coteghino (sausage)/bok choy/grilled naan |
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| Scallops: squid ink fettucine (so it's black)/ikura (salmon roe)/chinese broccoli/bok choy/carrots/kaffir lime-ginger broth |
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| Seared duck breast: duck confit/chard/sweet potato pie/cherry compote/cacao-brandy cream sauce |
All in all, a great day! :D
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Seattle: indoor sky diving, UW, cascades, square dancing, weddings.
Saturday
Girls Night Out with girls and AB: It was supposed to be girl's night out, but what was I supposed to do with AB who flew all the way from Houston and had his plane delayed 4 times? To top it off, we hadn't seen each other for an eternity (or exactly 2.5 months). But it all turned out okay I think. AB got to catch up on some email, chat with some other fellow Houstonian, while I got to cover up my abysmal of a toenail.
Sunday:
Chinese church with parents: When my parents invited us to their church, I don't think they took into account the fact that AB would probably be unable to comprehend any of the sermon, or at least 99% of it. And my understanding of these sermons is probably already 50%, so I suppose AB got about 25% of the message after final translation? He claims he understood it, but I could very well have been telling him about some other sermon I heard about and he wouldn't know (except that I'm writing about it now). Anyhow, it all turned out okay, people did not bombard us with questions as Asian women are prone to, and it was overall nostalgic to be back at the church I grew up in.
iFly (indoor sky diving): After church we headed to our scheduled appointment to do some indoor skydiving! It was so much fun and crazy. Never imagined I'd actually be flying. Although the promotional videos were of people going up into the air, doing flips, and all kinds of crazies, this first session was supposed to be mostly about keeping balance. We got to sit and watch the previous group go while we waited for our instructional video, and during that time, I calculated the exact angel my legs and arms needed to be at to give me optimal lift. Okay, maybe not calculated, but I was coming up with all kinds of flying theories. I'm pretty sure during that time AB was just worried about whether the safety net was secure, if we could possibly fly too high, what the damages could be..
It wasn't anything too scary - did not require jumping from a high ledge or anything. You simply walk out onto a safety net, lean your body forward, and the wind will carry you up as long as you maintain a semi-superman pose. At the end we had a choice if to fly up and down (with the aid of the trainer), and it gave a similar sensation as going up and down a rollercoaster. I thought overall I did fairly well, except I forgot to close my mouth a few times and spit must have floated up somewhere. AB, on the other hand, was a riot to watch! I feel kind of bad for making him do this, but at the same time, I think it's a once in a life-time experience that's worth experiencing. Anyhow, right off the bat, he was stiff as a board. There were parts where the instructor tried to bend his elbow 90 degrees, but he was so focused on bracing himself, his arm kept on springing outwards to a straight V. My brother and I got a kick out of it, but I have a feeling AB didn't find it so funny. Afterwards, he didn't recall that part at all, but was so shocked by how much wind was blowing into his face. Apparently during that time, he related to the song, "I can't feel my face when I'm with you, but I love it!" except he didn't love it. He couldn't understand why the instructor kept on telling him to relax. Haha! Thankfully the second time around was an improvement for all of us!
Meeting up with the Nerd Herd: Met up with JS, AL, and AC. I can't believe people are getting their own homes, getting married, starting their own families - people are really growing up faster than I can take it all in. Nostalgia aside, it was nice to see everyone, although briefly. It's nice to hear AL and JS are even moving in together. It's like the Nerd Herd had a time of dispersion, and now we're migrating together again. How nice!
Monday
Somehow I have a very poor memory of what happened today. I recall going to UW, showing AB around UW and then grabbing some world famous Molly Moon ice cream, but I don't recall...oh that's right! Canoe ride! How could I forget! We went to UW and did a canoe trip after we went to bellevue - now if only I can recall why we went to Bellevue. Hm.... Oh that's right! We had lunch with NT at Microsoft! It was nice to feel her hair again - I mean - see her again. :D Maybe we'll have a big international organization leader in our midst one day.
Anyhow, we had a nice canoe ride out on Lake Washington. It was quite empty except for the UW crew team. We felt pretty inadequate next to them, and at one point we almost interrupted their practice. Oops. We had a nice work out on a cloudy day (thankfully no rain), and we canoed along the bank and observed the ginormous lake-side mansions. We also spotted some cranes, ducks, geese, and ran a bunk a duck island, or so I called.
UW was grand as usual. I took AB to see the Suzzallo library, and to my pleasure, he found it just as amazing as I did. It was as I had described to him - like the Harry Potter dining hall. Ironically it's called the Allen Library. It also happened to have a harry potter exhibit right outside the Harry Potter room. Afterwards, I wanted to get AB a UW t-shirt, but I totally forgot where the HUB was, so I asked around. But I asked 3 people, and nobody knew! The first girl was apparently a foreign student who could barely speak English, the 2nd girl looked older and pointed us in the wrong direction as we later found out, and I'm guessing maybe new or a grad student (?), and the third girl said she had only been there 2 weeks, but managed to point us in the general direction. Ultimately I looked it up on AB's phone. Sighs.
Molly Moon ice cream was heavenly texture, but neither of us thought much of the flavors that we got. It's been so long since we got ice cream, we totally forgot to get tastings before buying it. We got balsamic strawberry and lavender honey. Lavender honey was my choice, because it sounded so exotic and fragrant, but I totally forgot I don't like the smell of lavender much; thus, it wouldn't be so unusual for me to say I didn't care much for the ice cream flavor either. Meanwhile, the balsamic just clashed with the soft gentle strawberry flavor, although the strawberry itself was tasty. How unfortunate! Next time we will be more careful in our flavor choices.
Tuesday
Tuesday was the day we were supposed to go on a two-day North Cascade hiking trip, but instead, we only had Tuesday to drive up there because the silly Walmart store couldn't get my parent's mattress order right, and so it got delayed to Wednesday (so have to be home that day). Sadly, the mattress still wasn't delivered on Wednesday and my parents had to go pick it up from the store (which they tried to do earlier, but they had mistakenly sent it back to the factory) - sighs, long story of incompetence.
Anyhow, that meant our leisurely hiking trip turned into an all day marathon drive through the North Cascades, then Leavenworth, and then back home. It was still beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it would have been so much nicer not to have been cooped up in the car all day. We did get out in the scenic points and took some pictures, so it wasn't a complete leg-atrophying day. Also got some yummy ice cream in leavenworth (whiskey creme and tiramisu). mmmmm!
Wednesday
This day will have to be saved for another separate post.
Thursday
Nice day of having lunch with KP near Puyallup (or as AB calls it "Pully-up"), then tennis with the family, and a nice dinner at Sora Sushi. Delicious sushi with great happy hour menu (5-6p).
At night, we took my brother to his square dancing practice. Last year, his team won the yearly school competition, and so this year, they decided to start practicing extra early to regain their crown. It was such a funny crowd to see. There were senior citizens, middle age adults, young adults, and then this one group of hyper teenagers. They hadn't danced since last year, so they had forgotten a lot of the moves. Watching the other group was like watching a well-oiled machine, but watching the kids was like watching bumblebees rushing from one move to the other. It was hilarious to watch though and they were laughing and enjoying themselves as well. I had no idea what square dancing consisted of, and now I have a much better appreciation of it.
It consists of 4 couples facing the middle, making a square. There's a caller on the stage who calls out a move every few seconds, and the groups have to perform the moves. If they fail, they are out (or so it is in an actual competition). And the moves are complicated! There are the well-known ones like dosi-doe, but there are also weird ones like make the wave, or turning the gear ...I'm pretty sure I'm butchering the names. Some are simple moves, and others look sooooo complicated. Kudos to the elderly with still such sharp brains to remember all the moves.
Friday
This was a pre-wedding day of wedding activities. In the morning we went to help AW (the bride) make center pieces and sandwiches. Then had a brief lunch and then went to get my first every manicure done along with the other bridesmaids at Stop 4 Nails. Unfortunately only one of the guys there seemed to really know how to do it (the thin guy), whereas the others' nails quickly came off or bubbled. After I came back, my mom was like, "I could've done that for you!" - since she did nails in the past.
Then we had a rather early but delicious dinner at Top Gun Seafood, after which we went to rehearsal. Sadly AB had to leave to be a groomsman in another wedding in another city (we got invited to 4 different weddings in 4 different cities on the same day), so I had to send him off at midnight :(. He missed his rehearsal, but luckily he attended AW's rehearsal, so it was kind of like he attended rehearsal.
Saturday
AW's wedding! It was beautiful! It was lovely! It was perfect!
Sunday
After church, got to see KP one last time and along with my bro, played one last game of space team. Peel the potato!!!
Friday, September 25, 2015
Semongkong
If you ask anyone in Lesotho, "Where should I visit on my day off?" they would say, "Semongkong." Semongkong definitely lives up to its reputation, although in reality, you're actually seeing the waterfall called Maletsunyane Falls - but who can pronounce that? You see this calm river going through rolling hills, and then "BAM!" the earth majestically parts and a beautiful waterfall appears.
Semongkong has a couple of things you can do, which I got really confused about prior to going there, so to clarify:
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| The Donkey and the Duck Restaurant at the Semongkong Lodge |
*Semongkong Lodge is generally where people stay if they plan on doing an overnight trip. However, it's actually quite a distance to the actual waterfall, depending on what you want to do:
1) Drive to the view point:
The view point is beautiful, but you can't actually get down to the waterfall or stand on top of it. On the way to Semongkong lodge, there's an obvious bridge right before you get to the town of Semongkong, but instead of crossing it, you make a right onto a dirt road and drive about 20 minutes to the view point. It's not that obvious that it's the view point, but there is a dirt path to the left where 4wd cars can take.
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| View from the viewpoint |
2) Hike down to the bottom of Maletsunyane Falls (4hrs including a lunch and snack break):
This is a hike that we took a guide with us because we made a day trip and didn't want to get stuck somewhere. R110, so pretty decent. But in reality, it was pretty straight forward. You go in the direction the road leads you out of the Semongkong Lodge, into a village, past the village (this part is flat), and continue following the road that cows/donkeys/horses take, and then you'll see a huge valley on your left. I suppose if you've never seen it before, it'd be hard to tell that's the place you go down. And when I say down, I mean really, really down. Some places were so steep, the guide had to hold AV's hand and support her down to prevent her from slipping (granted, she had running shoes on). Still, it was quite steep.
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| Guide and I at the point where you make a left into the canyon |
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| Heading down! Quite steep! |
It's quite an amazing view initially, but then you'll make a turn, and "BAM!" the Maletsunyane Falls appears. So you actually just see a beautiful canyon for the first part of the hike down. When we actually got down there, we just sat there and ate our PB&J sandwiches and listened to the fall roar. Kind of felt bad our guide didn't have food, so I gave him an orange. o_O
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| First time AV and I got to see Maletsunyane Falls! |
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| Maletsunyane Falls |
I felt like the way up was way easier, despite the heavy grade, it was still much easier going up than essentially sliding down.
Apparently the alternative is you can take a pony or a car to the point where you actually start hiking down, which probably would've cut down on the time.
3) Hike to the top of the falls/abseiling (aka repelling):
This is essentially the same initial route as hiking to the bottom of the falls, but you make a left turn earlier prior to the sheep barn. Oh yeah, it's weird when you hike to the bottom of the Maletsunaye Fall, feel victorious because it was so difficult, and then see little sheep on the other side of the river just chomping along on the grass and walking without giving a hoot about how steep it is. Anyhow, the sheep barn houses those master hiker sheep at night.
This is generally the route to go abseiling. I don't know why people don't just say repelling. But this is supposed to be the Guinness World Record highest abseiling place in the world at ~230m!
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| This is actually at the bottom of the falls, but the abseiling is from the upper left. |
4) Overnight pony trekking:
This entails taking horses and riding them to some distant town and staying in one of the traditional houses. I don't know the details because haven't done it yet - but hopefully someday!
5) Somehow getting to this other fall:
Yeah, really don't know details on this one. Don't even know the name of the falls...
*Pictures courtesy of AV
Monday, September 21, 2015
Mokhotlong
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| View point on drive to Mokhotlong |
This week, I'll be in the outreach clinic in Mokhotlong (pronounced Mohhhotlong, where the hhh sounds like someone about to spit), an eastern district of Lesotho.
The trip here today was pretty crazy...crazy as in a good demonstration of what schedule means in Africa. So the week before, a driver found me and told me he was gonna be my driver to Mokhotlong, so we set up a time for him to pick me up at 8am. Long and behold it was 8:30 AM and still nobody so I called him, and he tells me he's no longer the driver, and it's someone else. So I called driver 2 who tells me he'll come pick me up at 10 ish. I should have known that meant 10 30, which was when finally showed up. But there were 2 other ppl in the car! Apparently we had to go back to the coe to drop someone off. ..then on our way at 1045 right? Wrong! We were going to pick up pizza. And while waiting for pizza, they wanted to do some shopping. Finally we were on our way....but wait, had to pick up a pharmacist. So in the end, leaving at 8am actually meant leaving at 1130 or 12. Oh...and on the way we stopped at 2 clinics and transferred yeast to some other car. Yeah. No idea why yeast.
Otherwise, the drive here was beautiful! Rolling hills of multiple different colors of green, brown, yellow, orange, gray. Some of the hills were brutal with hairpin turns requiring us to slow to 20 kph.
We also stopped by the Leribe and Botha Bothe clinics. All the clinics have a similar layout and beautiful building.
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| Botha Bothe Baylor Outreach Clinic, which looks exactly like Mokhotlong's (without the beautiful flowers). |
I was a little worried about going out to the country, not sure what the hotel will be like, but it's actually quite nice. Has everything, just no wifi (Yay for data and reception). Even get the added benefit of TV which I usually don't have. So here goes a week of watching random TV shows and news and game shows where half of the time they speak in English and half of the time it's sesotho (I think). Also it appears the channels alternate English and sesotho shows.
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| My hotel room: Senque |
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| Inside hotel room - it was nice, even had an extra bed where I can throw my clothing onto, and a TV of which I can't understand half of what they are saying. |
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| Restaurant at the hotel - it's quite nice! |
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| View from my hotel of the endless mountains. Also note traditional Lesotho house on left. |
Given no day light savings and early sunrise and early sunset, I'm hoping I can get in a habit of rising early to get some exercise. But somehow I don't think it's gonna work out....not a morning person.
When I asked people how they liked Mokhotlong, people kept on saying it is peaceful. I'm pretty sure now that it's an euphemism for boring, which is what the pharmacist I came with outright said. I suppose this will be a good opportunity to reflect on God's creation and how amazing it all is.
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| View on my way to the hidden lake (see below) |
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| Random lake I ran into on my run/hike/exploration of Mokhotlong. |
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Kome Caves
We went to Kome caves this past weekend:
The drive was fairly NOT straight forward, but fortunately we didn't make any wrong turns, just that Google sent us down a rough terrain and we had to find a new route. We ended up getting some instructions from local village kids who directed us.
Also had to take some dirt road on the way there, and tested my driving skills (first time driving on left side of the road).
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| Kome Caves |
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| Material these caves are made from - clay |
The caves themselves looked surprisingly artificial. It looked plastic! But actually they used wood as a scaffold and put clay over it to make it look like little cave huts.
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| Inside the largest cave |
The tour guide provided some interesting history. The most interesting was how the caves were a refuge to hide against cannibals. Apparently toward the east were some cannibals and there is a place called the gap of traditional dress, which was so named because that's where the cannibals hang all the traditional dress of the girls they ate. And the bottle caps twinkle in the breeze. Another landmark is the mountain of trapping. That was named for the place where cannibals set traps for their prey. When we asked why they eat humans and not animals, the tour guide said it's because humans are slower. O_o
Kome caves are named for the first person who discovered them. Mr. Kome was flying away from a war when he discovered the caves in 1824. The cave houses built there are still the same houses built then. And now the ppl living there are descendants of the lion, leopard, and cat clans while the kids are in the 6th generation.
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| National plant of Lesotho - Spiral Aloe |
There is also a hill named the hill of drowsiness. That's because Mr. Kome is a traditional medicine man and he put traditional medicine there so that when enemies reached that cave, they would fall asleep and when they woke up, they forgot where they were going and only where they were from. So they just return to where they came from.
Afterwards, we went to Teyateyaneng (TY for short), where we saw traditional weaving take place. Apparently each of these large blankets take 4 weeks to make! The ladies take one threat at a time and place it one on top of each other. These are really expensive, so I only got osme coasters for souvenir.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Hiking with the Hash House Harriers to Lion head Mountain
Start of our hike:
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| Can you see the lion head profile? |
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| Yay! Top of the lion head! |
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| Looking out into Maseru (Lesotho capital) |
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| Little kids amused by the photos LK took. |
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| Back to the school where I was ceremoniously initiated into the Hash House Harriers! Involved some drinking....of water. |
Baylor COE
Baylor Clinic of Excellence:
This is where I'll be working for the next year! Isn't it a beauty?
This is where I'll be working for the next year! Isn't it a beauty?
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| Visitor Doctor's Office (you can find me here!) |
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| Classroom |
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| This is the Queen Mamohato Hospital next door - it's so beautiful and new! It even has a helicopter pad, but unfortunately no helicopter yet because it's built with the intention of expanding in the next 10 years. |
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| View from the clinic |
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| Look how beautiful this clinic is! |
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| Speaker from Beautiful Dream Society told real stories of human trafficking victims. If it's too good to be true, it's not true. |
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