What is it with fifteen days? Almost every time I ask an Ethiopian patient how long they’ve had a particular symptom it is “fifteen days”. Never two weeks. This happened to me recently when Sister Ankatse was interpreting for me, and after we’d dealt with the fifteen day tummy ache problem and the patient had left, I mentioned this to her. She didn’t know why either. She brought in the next patient. They had a cough. “How long?” “Fifteen days”. Ankatse and I share a brief sidelong glance. Being a pair of consummate professionals, neither of us smiles.

It's very common for people coming into a "mission" setting to find themselves doing things way out of their "comfort zones". No way was that going to happen to me!

Before we came to Ethiopia I emailed anyone at the school who I thought would listen and requested that I wanted to teach the youngest children and certainly no higher than grade 2. Why? Having spent the past eight years with Reception ("Kindergarten" or "KG1" here) that was my "comfort zone" and I wanted to stay well within it.