Really, there's no other way to describe half the things that happen up here. Sometimes there's not much to do but shrug and say oh well.
Like when a patient shows up with this in their file..
Or when a patient shows up saying they passed out after being hit in the head by a mango.
Or bashed with a didgeridoo.
Or when they rupture their spleen coz a boomerang went off course.
What do you actually say to all that? It's just normal for Darwin.
Also part of the RDH ritual is the daily pages from administration imploring us to discharge patients. These usually run along the lines of "Bed block, 25 patients waiting for admission", or "Bed block, 30 beds needed for elective surgery TODAY". But I received this amusing page last week:
This random ward mascot (for the infected ward) fell off its perch and landed on my notes one dark night when I was trying to write in the notes. An ode to infection, which is just really part of everyday life at RDH. Never before have I scraped a patient's skin before sending them to CT because of suspected crusted scabies!
Random things do not only happen in the hospital.. the community is full of them as well. I'm sure there are many people around Darwin who collect headlines from the NT news, which must be the most entertaining newspaper in Australia. Where else would front page news be "Mayor says kill cane toads" or "Crocodile run over by car"?
Even the good old Asian store had a surprise amongst the rows of spices and sauces..
Enough random photos. The experiences I've had since moving here remind me so much of the fact that I live such a normal life in Sydney. I go to work, catch up with friends on the weekends, watch a movie occasionally, eat at my favourite places or check out a few new places... but I hardly ever step out of my comfort zone. I've made my square and I don't step outside it.
Since I don't know anyone up here, I've been so much more open to random experiences than I usually am. Meeting strangers seems to be all part of the Darwin experience, and everyone just brings their friends along to every random thing. Some of what's happened so far has actually had me wondering "is this really happening?"
Like when I went to the Waifs concert, the first pop concert I've been to in about a decade. In actual fact I've never been to this type of concert, even back in the days when I used to listen to this type of music (hmm.. I guess in high school). In Sydney I would have just said nah, I'd rather stay home and read a book, but since half the hospital was going I thought it might be a fun way to spend a Saturday night. So we ended up sitting around plastic tables and chairs (in true Darwin fashion as anything made of plant material would just turn into giant lumps of mould), drinking and waiting for the Waifs to start. When I was in the moshpit I wondered if I was really in a moshpit at the ripe old age of 27, especially since I've never been in a moshpit! With battered eardrums I retreated to the beach with Susan, which was filled with people sitting in campchairs around impromptu campfires and billies! I don't know what they sell at concerts in Sydney, but in Darwin one has the usual hot dogs & pies alongside chicken curry and rice (how does one eat that when one is drunk??) and what my eyes immediately rested on - an entire roasted lamb shank. So as I sat on the rocky beach watching the stars and gnawing at my giant lamb shank (which looked like it could cause some serious injury if I chucked it at someone), I had but one word in my head... random.
Last week I went to the monsoon markets with Chattu and while sitting there eating our Cambodian pancakes and green papaya salad a girl came up to us to borrow one of the unused chairs at our table. We soon realised she was an elective medical student from Monash and Chattu had worked with her sometimes in ED. Romy invited us to join her table, which consisted of another med student, her cousin and her grandma! Her grandma was really cute, and very quick-witted with a sharp tongue to match. She invited us over to her place to play rummy and so in typical Darwin fashion, we soon found ourselves in the student dormitory at Charles Darwin University, collecting random snacks and the set of rummy tiles that her grandma brought over from Melbourne (she was only visiting for a week!). As we sat in the student common room, eating custard with Maltesers and some Jewish pastries, playing rummy with Romy's colour-blind cousin and hearing Jewish folk tales from the grandma. How random is random? The way Romy talked reminded me a little of Tamara, and somehow I felt like I was back in high school again, at Tamara's house playing board games...
Last night the randomness continued. I was hanging out at Young's place, and was initially planning to go home because I was so tired from working so much. She and her Botswanan flatmate were going to a BBQ, but he decided not to go at the last minute so we ended up going there together. Half of Darwin's French population must have been there, and when I walked in something in my mind exclaimed "so many froggies!" Somehow it reminded me of the two froggies I met in Bolivia, whose names I can't even remember. They take their cooking pretty seriously - a BBQ doesn't involve gas, or the charcoal thingos you buy in a bag from Woolies - for the French, they had chopped wood to burn down to charcoal, which they then used for the BBQ. The whole process took a long time, but when dinner was served it was worth the wait. We had grilled vegetable skewers, marinated chicken skewers, sausages and old-style hamburgers, which were all rustic and delicious. Also in with the charcoals went some potatoes in al foil, which was served with butter and Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise. How random is that?
One last little bit of randomness, I went to the library to return books today, and bumped into my medical student doing an assignment there. She must have thought my impromptu invitation to go to the Happy Yess (or is it Yess Happy) markets pretty odd, but she decided to come anyway. So we ended up at the markets which were held in a homeless looking park in the city, watching the hula hoop selling lady and all the people and dogs walk past. We sat on milk crates at colourfully painted tables as we ate Timorese poppi (looks like a pluto dog but made of chicken) and fish cakes with fried shallot and special sweet sauce. The cheerful lady who served us described their restaurant (Laksa House) as "on the highway, right opposite Sexy Land". (Oh how I love Darwinians..) Then we rifled through the piles of junk for sale, and Maggie went home with an armful of clothes for $20.
I love the randomness of my life up here though, and I'm sure it's going to get even more random.
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