Thursday, February 16, 2012

Christine, Christine, & Kristen


Yes.  There are three of us.  We have Christine the American ICU nurse that once worked at my current facility, Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, but now lives and works in Washington D.C.  We also have Christine the German intensivist who has worked in Chicago and I got to have an extensive conversation about rock climbing with over breakfast this morning.  And we have me, Kristen, the latest exotic specimen to join the team here in Najaf. 

The slight variation that my name puts on the theme seems to be quite novel to the locals.  Or maybe it is that I am just a new face that showed up near the end of the trip.  Hard to say.  But they really seem to like me.  Today I was pulled out of the ICU by one of the local guys who gave me, with great sincerity, a small box as a gift in thanks for my coming to Iraq to work with this team.  I accepted my gift graciously and later opened it to find…. a snow globe. 

Yes.

An Iraqi snow globe!  With little globs of white stuff that fly through space when the globe is shaken and settle gradually to the bottom.  It has a temple as the interior image.  A snow globe, like you would buy at an airport in Chicago or New York.  But I don’t think you can actually find these at airports in Iraq….and I’m fairly certain that you can’t find snow anywhere in Iraq.

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