Lake Langano, the Simien mountains and a little bit of work!

I have been back in Ethiopia for four weeks now and feel that I have settled back into the very different way of life.  The ‘short’ rains are supposed to come in March and April, and we certainly had some spectacular storms when I first returned.  Unfortunately (but perhaps not surprisingly) the storms bring long power cuts.  It has been much sunnier and less wet over the past week, and I have enjoyed several hours in the sunshine on the balcony this weekend.
 

It was really good to see Helen again when I arrived back in Addis Ababa – she had flown to the capital on the same day in order to travel to Lake Langano for the VSO-Ethiopia annual conference.  The timing of the conference was great for me as it provided a gentle transition back into life here.  It was lovely to catch up with the volunteers who arrived with me in September and also to meet new people.  It was good to learn about the work that others have been doing and reassuring to hear that other health volunteers are facing similar challenges to me.  The setting by the lakeside in the Rift Valley was very tranquil and I think everyone appreciated the chance to share experiences away from their placements.

 

Beachside at Lake Langano

I travelled back to Haramaya with Helen and had a weekend to settle in before returning to work.  I brought back quite an eclectic mix of things from the UK – stickers to help organise paperwork at work, a HDMI cable to connect our laptops to the television, a pan brush, an Easter chick-making kit for Helen, a chick biscuit cutter, a large fabric planter for the balcony (together with seeds and plastic spade!) and plenty of chorizo.  I think Helen enjoyed making the pom-pom chicks and we had fun decorating some Easter chick cookies.  My colleagues were quite bemused by the icing and silver balls!  The seeds have now germinated and I hope to be able to harvest some salad leaves in a couple of weeks.

Easter celebrations!

I was apprehensive about what I might find when I returned to the hospital but was really pleased to see that the neonatal monitoring charts and medication charts that I introduced are still being used.  The patients are certainly receiving closer observation than when I arrived, perhaps in part due to my influence but mainly because of the arrival of the medical interns about six months ago.  I have formulated an action plan for the next four months which includes re-auditing neonatal hypothermia and looking at neonatal outcomes again.  I will continue to teach the clinical medical students, and will deliver the neonatal lectures to the second half of the 4^th year students.  Next week I plan to present the cases of two babies with bowel obstruction who died post-operatively to a joint paediatric and surgical meeting.  I will outline the ways in which I feel the care could have been improved and suggest strategies to achieve this. 

 
I spent just over a week at work before heading north for a three night trek in the Simien Mountains.  One of the other VSO volunteers had friends visiting from the UK so organised a trip and asked if I would like to join the group.  There were ten of us in total and we had a fantastic time.  I hadn’t realised just how spectacular the scenery would be and we were fortunate to see lots of gelada baboons, as well as the rarer Walia ibex and much rarer Ethiopian wolf.  We walked about 40km over three days along dramatic escarpments.  There are more than a dozen peaks over 4000m in the national park – we climbed to 4070m and luckily none of us suffered any significant effects of the altitude.  The nights were cold under canvas but the days were hot and sunny.  We all finished looking much browner than when we started, a healthy mixture of dirt and tan!

Dramatic rock formations

 

On top of the world!

Gelada baboons

Two Walia ibex (look closely!)

My focus has now returned to the hospital although Helen and I hope to have another trip away over Fasika (Ethiopian Easter) at the beginning of May.  I will be in touch again soon with news from Haramaya.