Sunday June 28, 2009: I dropped in to visit Tesfaye mid-afternoon and the very nice Nurse Kerry told me that after working on Tesfaye to clear the lung secretions he again was doing well, and his walking was getting stronger every day. However, his voice was still limited to a whisper level, which I was continuing to wonder about. Nevertheless, he was in a good mood and he wanted to take a picture of me standing next to the "sunshine" balloon that Adam had brought him, so thought it only fitting to reciprocate; I guess as a reflection of his fighting spirit he assumed a boxing pose lying in bed. After bringing him up to date with whatever was going on in my life and practicing some more Amharic language phrases on him, I went back to the Soccer Festival to see how the playoff games were going. Melaku called me to check up on Tesfaye, and when I told him that I was at the Soccer Festival he decided to come meet me there. I eventually had to leave while he planned to stay on through the closing ceremonies. Then I went for a surprise drop-in to see my parents, hurried home to get Nanci, then went out for dinner with our friends Michael and Debbie Smith from Montreal. Watching the sunset in Stanley Park was a nice finish to the weekend. Living in Vancouver I sometimes neglect to do those things. Anyway, hoping for a good swallow test for Tesfaye tomorrow.
Saturday June 27,2009: Today was a late afternoon visit to Tesfaye, after my workout and after dropping in to the Vancouver International Soccer Festival organized by my friend Adri Hamael; the Festival is an annual weekend amateur event with people forming teams representing a number of different countries (including Ethiopia). Proceeds go to support a very interesting and worthwhile charity, Peace it Together www.peaceittogether.ca, co-founded by Adri and Reena Lazar; its mandate is to promote peace and dialogue amongst Palestinian and Israeli teens through film making. The soccer event certainly is a good display of Vancouver's multi-cultural nature, and I bumped into a number of people that I know. Adri kindly supplied me with a souvenir t-shirt and sweatshirt representing team Ethiopia and Peace it Together to give to Tesfaye; the only complication was deciding what size to get, now that Tesfaye is no longer hunched over in a compacted position causing him to wear a large size. Given how slim he is, size small probably would have been a good fit, but I went with the medium to allow for possible shrinkage. When I showed Tesfaye the clothing he appreciated it very much and gave it a smile and a "thumbs up"! While the lungs were a little clearer today his voice was still a whisper; I keep looking at his slight frame and hope that they can finally remove the feeding tube; they were now hoping to do a swallow test on Monday to see if he can start eating. Nanci and I went downtown for a nice but noisy dinner with two other couples - if only I could transfer some of my caloric intake to Tesfaye!
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