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.
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| 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.
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| 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 4th
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!
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| Dramatic rock formations |
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| On top of the world! |
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| Gelada baboons |
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| 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.
