I’ve never realized how dangerous it is to fall in love. My heart has only been broken once, but I can feel a new break-up coming—this one from babies. I’ve been here a little over a month and have a little over a month to go. Either one can seem like an eon, or a second, depending on the moment. Matthew smiled for the first time today, and it happened to be while I was feeding him. He has a dimple the size of a crater on one side. It’s adorable. The room seems calmer this week, with Hunter having moved-up and Jude having left with her foster parents. I had the chance to spend time with each baby today, taking them outside, talking over their deepest curiosities and discovering hands, tongues and feet that had yet to find existence. I spent a lot of time just staring at them—staring at the handiwork of some Designer far beyond my comprehension. Who dreams up the slit of an eye, or thinks to create pores, cuticles, or the curves of an eyelash? And these are but the outsides…

I’ve just returned with Adam from the Clinic again. His temperature has yet to stabilize since he arrived a couple months ago. It ranges from 96 to 103 throughout the day. And although he eats like a horse, his weight isn’t budging and his hair is slowly turning blond, a sign of malabsorbtion. Precious was taken to Kampala to retest for HIV yesterday. We put her in a sequined red dress with matching shoes, and she was ecstatic. Thank God she didn’t know the reason or the results. They were positive. I know it’s not good to have favorites, but Adam and Precious are the ones who make me lie awake at night. She’s the squirmiest bundle of joy I’ve ever seen and he’s as handsome of a six-month-old as they come. It kills me that both will likely have AIDS before they can count to ten. Little Isaiah was taken out of the incubator and officially moved to the preemie room. He remains healthy and his skin continues to darken (did you know “black” babies are born white?). We’ll hopefully celebrate his 4lb mark by the weeks end. Grace will probably move to “Baby-One” next week. She’s sitting well and starting to talk—still prefers bouts of laughter for communication though. I can’t believe the amount of personality these babies have. Their cries are different; their voices are different; even the angle they prefer to be held when burped is different. Who must God be to create every aspect of every living being to be unique? And who must we be to fight against our aspects, or downplay the miracle of our uniqueness? Both are unfathomable to me.

***

Random.

*Stocked with hair-gel, comb and scissors, the salon visited Preemies today. A room full of afro’ed babies had us all in smiles. Mama Lucy taught me how to style “black hair,” which I must say is quite different than white. She complained about her hair always being frizzy and how she wants it like mine. I told her mine was really flat and I thought some frizz would be fun. We decided maybe we should try and switch.

*Mama Grace told me all black people can see in the dark. This is yet to be confirmed though. What is confirmed is that people who live in hut villages can see a heck-of-a-lot better than I can in pitch black.

*One of my housemates, Stella, is a grown orphan from a nearby town. She’s eighteen and will start nursing school in the fall, but is enjoying an internship here for the summer. Oftentimes we’ll use Stella to bounce off ignorant questions about taboos and culture—and she gets a kick out of it. We were asking her the other day why shorts are such a no-go here and why long skirts, even, are considered more appropriate than pants? She explained that different from the west, breasts aren’t anything special around here (you know we North Americans were wide-eyed at this point). Women whip them out to feed, just like they’d whip out a bottle, or tube of lipstick. “But thighs,” she explained, “are the novelty.” They’re the breasts of the west, it seems.

*I saw a two-year-old digging with a machete beside her grandmother this morning. Some sites never get normalized.

*I’ve been exceptionally tired this week. That is the only symptom, which is good, but I can sleep a ten-hour night and then need to take a nap, or even two, throughout the day. All of us (whites) who traveled last weekend share this fatigue, so it could be a number of things, including something as plain, but profound, as emotional exhaustion. We’ll get “de-wormed” today and also get tested for Malaria, just to be safe.