Where you wouldn’t want to spend the night

Around 11pm the lady to the far left starting singing to Mother Mary, the lady to our right was coughing and making ferocious sounds, and minutes later another lady started cussing out the air around her. Luckily the two of were small enough to fit into the single bed side by side unlike many others, yet we couldn’t even attempt to sleep because the doctors still hadn’t come by to do their evening checkups. They did finally come and go by nearly 1am. The random noises from all the other 18 ladies in the room continued through the night which everyone seemed to enjoy joking about after the nurses forced us to wake up at 6am. (I still don’t know why they insisted on waking us up so early being that they didn’t actually do their morning check-ups until nearly 8am).

(Just a little picture of the hospital to give you an idea of the size of bed the two of slept in. Each hospital room has 10 beds for the patients, while their caretakers either try to fit on the bed with them or they find a chair somewhere to sleep in).


You might wonder why I spent the night at the public hospital. Well, my friend Maria was sick with gallbladder stones. And in this country someone always spends the night with the patient to tend to their needs, bring them good food to eat, and bring them fresh sheets. That particular night her family was busy and couldn’t tend to her needs, so I got to.


I stayed with her just one night during her second stay at the hospital. She was checked into the hospital four times during two months before they actually operated on her. Fortunately they operated on her just over a week ago, and she’s doing very well now.