After almost 3 months in the UK on home assignment, I’ve now
been back in Chad for 3 weeks.
Thanks to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, my
suitcases have only been in Chad for 2 weeks and 4 days, but I’m grateful that
they eventually arrived and everything was ok inside, including my precious
Cadbury’s and cheddar cargo!
It feels like I’ve been back far longer than 3 weeks. I was
straight back into work at the hospital once I was back. Plus I also welcomed a short-term doctor who
has come to the hospital for 7 weeks via BMS.
It’s good to have another Brit around for a bit :)
The hospital is a lot quieter at the moment, mainly because
it’s now rainy season and the ‘road’ is bad, so people can’t get here
easily. This inevitably means people
stay at home for far longer than they should and only come to the hospital once
they’re really sick and it’s been dry for a few days, allowing them to get to
us. It’s heart-breaking to see and you
feel really helpless.
I’ve been busy helping out the short-term doctors, sorting
out a few administrative tasks alongside our Chadian administrator and the
other long-term mission worker here at the moment and generally overseeing the
work of the hospital.
Those of you who keep up to date with my blogs may remember
my post from early May (available here). In this entry I posted a
photo of the manually dug foundations of the new surgery centre that’s being
built to increase surgery capacity. Well
work has continued apace during my time in the UK and the building now looks
like this!
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| New Surgery Centre taking shape |
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| Inside the main door of the Surgery Centre |
All the bricks were made by hand. The only mechanical appliance the builders use
is a cement mixer. Amazing! The roof is now going on.
The other day I was chatting with two of our nurse
consultants as they cleaned and swept their offices out at the start of the
day. There was a thin piece of string
attached to a small black packet in among all the dust that one of them was
sweeping out of his office. I asked what
it was and he told me that a patient from the previous day had taken it off of
their body during the consultation, saying that it ‘wasn’t working’. She had been to see a witch-doctor for a
problem with her kidneys. He had
prepared a mixture (which is secret, no-one knows what is in their potions),
had placed it inside the black wrapper and attached the thin cord. The patient was to wear it so the back packet
was over the area where her kidneys are in order for it to work.
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| Packet of 'medicine' from the witch-doctor |
Those of you who pray, please pray for us as we work in an
environment where witch doctors are everywhere and this kind of health
treatment is regularly practised.
Another ‘typical’ thing for Chad happened last week. I went to the (now, after 6 months, almost finished)
renovated post office to check our post box for mail (hint hint). A lot of progress has been made on the post
office renovations during my time away.
The area where our post box is located has been cleared of all the
rubbish and nice paving has been put down.
The lean-to roof over the area has been removed (a shame if it rains but
then, that’s rare here apart from June to September). And the wall that houses the post boxes has
been painted with a fresh coat of white paint.
Lovely! Apart from the fact that
the painter was a bit over-enthusiastic with his roller. Our post box is on the end of one of the many
rows of boxes. Number 2776. Take a look at this photographic evidence of
the painter’s exuberance for making the wall gleaming white:
Yes, that’s right, it’s been painted shut! I was silently a tad annoyed (never, I hear
you cry). The next time I was in town
with two Chadian hospital colleagues I got them to swing by the post office and
showed them the little issue with the painted-shut post box. I knew they’d find a solution. One of them disappeared saying he’d get it
sorted. We waited patiently by box
2776. Ten minutes later I could hear my recently
departed colleague calling my name……from inside the post box area! He’d found someone he knew that works at the
post office (everyone knows everyone here….well, almost) and got him to go into
the sorting area where they fill the boxes with mail. Cue me using the key on the outside and a
shove from the inside of the box and the paint was loosened. Easy.
So now I have unlimited access to our post box (hint hint).
Just a few of the many happenings since I’ve been back. Never let it be said that there’s a dull,
non-interesting moment here!
