Frogs, pox and resourcefulness

Well its been another fly by month and r&r plans are well underway, hopefully, if I can get a flight out, I will have a date with a cocktail on the beach for Christmas and New Years.

So whats been happening in Yei you may ask, well firstly we have a new mayor and Yei river county is no more, we are now a municipality, so celebrations in town, what it actually means.... well no one actually seems to know, however an excuse to celebrate life is always a good thing.

The hospital remains as busy as ever and I have been spending time in paediatrics and outpatients. Courtesy of the little munchkins I developed chickenpox (even though vaccinated), thankfully I felt absolutely fine, just scratchy and quarantined for some time which meant I caught up on domestic goddess training, perfecting my homemade pita bread recipe and extending my dress making repertoire (pictures included). Spending time with the children here is amazing, they are so resourceful. Watching them make toys out of anything, my favourite being a strip of Winnie the pooh bed sheet tied to a stick and an empty calpol box, dragged around like a toy car. To many of the children I am “Aunty Holly/Kawadja Aunty” however gaining trust is a big thing particularly when a mum from the mountains came down to the hospital and she was “fearing” the kawadja so much that she wouldnt look at me for fear I would curse her and her children screamed whenever I was in eye sight. Getting the staff and most importantly the other patients to explain that they are not scared of me, I can not curse them and that my appearance may be different however I am a good person and the same as them, was so important.

In the outpatient morning clinic, the clinical officer and I saw anything upto 60 patients presenting with peptic ulcer disease, malaria, early pregnancy, severe malnutrition, polio, physical assault, brucellosis, hernias, sleeping sickness, worms, fractures, STI’s, HIV, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease and a plethora of other conditions some more fascinating, from a professional context, than others. I have seen my first case of nodding disease, an often fatal disease affecting under 15s, presenting like a form of epilepsy often in response to eating a meal. It is unique in that it is only found in my region of South Sudan, Northern Uganda and Tanzania, the cause and method of transmission is unknown, fascinating. WHO and UNICEF have been investigating this emerging disease, so watch this space.

The students are in the exam period, and for the first time they have had clinical exams on the wards. It brought back memories from my time as a student that I thought I had long forgotten. I have found myself using a technique I witnessed and asking “so is there anything else you would like to do before we complete the assessment????” loaded question however so many of them I have seen are competent day to day and the exam nerves just get the better of them that they forget a basic part of a procedure or process. Whilst the students in the revision and exam period I can spend more time with the clinical staff and I am really enjoying seeing them responding positively to my presence and feedback, even asking questions about procedures and conditions that they would like more knowledge on. I have also been learning so much from the staff and have found that with a little encouragement and positive reassurance that they come up with some ingenious ways to adapt to the limited resources. This experience is definitely a two way learning process, which seems to get more rewarding by the day.

Domestic life, whilst often being surreal, it becoming unusually normal to me. My walk to the outdoor shower often involves dodging slow moving lizards and frogs only to find that the shower is not working. So instead of having to descale the shower head to get it working, we had to remove the rotting frogs that had snuck into the water tank, died and subsequently were blocking the pipes. Trips to the loo are no less exciting, stepping over the wiggling tail of a lizard, when there is no body of a lizard in sight, creepy! Lack of toiletries has brought out the creative in me, using over ripe avocado to condition my hair is a particular favourite. I am loving having a pet again, especially as I never know what present moogli, the compound guard dog, will have left for me at my door, 2 dead frogs the other day – well at least that 2 less to step on or block the shower head.

I am very quickly realizing that I am normalising all these things and having to document them as I experience them, as I think when the important things like enjoying a joke with friends and colleagues, hearing a giggling child playing and seeing people genuinely caring for others, it makes all the unusual things experienced day to day fade into insignificance. 

So until next time....