Hi Everyone,
It seems like ages since I left the states but its been less than two weeks. There is so much going on here that its hard to know what to write about. I guess perhaps I’ll describe a few typical days.
Sunday all the men from the church went to work at the church property where we are just getting the foundation dug. We spent most of the day filling in a lot of holes so that the trucks can deliver building supplies. We used small rocks and dirt to fill them in and in one of the rock piles that several of us were taking rocks from we found a large spitting cobra. Of course things got a little excited for a while until the unfortunate reptile was dispatched. After that we all were a little more careful about watching where we grabbed the rocks!
Monday morning I was supposed to go and work at a lab in a small private clinic here in town but when we got there the lab technician, El Hajj (his real name is Abou Sylla but since he’s been to Mecca everyone calls him El Hajj), said that one of his relatives had just died so he was taking the day off as is customary whenever and family member or friend or neighbor dies. Anyways, I went there again on Wednesday morning and worked with him for a few hours. He is a very good lab technician and I learned a lot watching him work with him preparing fecal and blood samples for slides as well as a number of other tests.
However it was very hard to watch the complete lack of body substance isolation. Despite everything he did, he never put on a single pair of gloves the entire morning or washed his hands!
Wednesday and Thursday afternoons Daniela (an RN), Cathy Coleman or Fred Coker (a Sierra Leonean that is working with us) and I go to two villages and around Fria and do little clinics for the people in the village (and anybody else who comes from the surrounding area). On Wednesdays we go to a little picturesque village called Adama Suriya and set up our fishing tackle box with our medical supplies on a porch outside of someone’s house. The first thing brought to our attention by the villagers this day was a one or so year-old girl who had had boiling tea spilled on her 3-5 days before and suffered second and third-degree burns on her lower legs and feet. The
only thing they had done for her was to put some kind of traditional remedy of leaves chewed and then applied to the burn (it actually worked quite well as the places where it was still sticking were healing very well). The charred skin had pealed from the places with 3rd degree burns and was getting infected and she had massive, fluid filled blisters all over her toes and soles of her feet. After cleaning the 3rd degree areas off with iodine solution and water, Mary (the nurse I’m replacing who’s leaving in a few weeks) and I went to work debriing and trimming the dead skin that remained. I felt really bad for the baby as it must have hurt more than a little for us to work on her like that (I can’t imagine what it was like right after she got burned without any pain medication whatsoever).
The whole thing must have taken more than an hour before we were done and started bandaging both feet and legs up. We gave the mother more bandages and antibiotics to put on it daily until we go again next week. I hope that it doesn’t get too infected.
Thursday we went to Tige which lies just down the hill from where we live and within easy walking distance. Since it is adjacent to Fria there are a lot more roads and it isn’t so “rustic.” I don’t know how to describe like walking through and village or town in Africa, you just have to do it to really appreciate it. Anyhow, there were a lot of people waiting for us when we arrived at our little porch/clinic. From what everyone says, a lot more people come to the clinic during Ramadan with all sorts of
ailments (it also means we can’t drink or eat anything in public). It is supposed to be a time of “fasting” but while people fast in the daytime (mostly, as we were leaving some teenage boys came out of the house with a handful of peelings and Fred teased them a little over that), they often eat excessively after sunset and late into the night and again in the morning before sunrise. Surprisingly, high blood pressure is a major problem here for older people considering that, for the most part, they eat a reasonably healthy diet. However, they use very large amounts of red (palm) oil, maggi (MSG) and salt in everything. We use lifestyle counseling to help them lower the blood pressure naturally (blood pressure meds are available but are too expensive for most people to afford long-term) and for most it
works well as long as they make the necessary lifestyle changes. Unfortunately, however, not everyone sticks to them carefully, especially during Ramadan. One older lady in particular that comes regularly had a huge spike in blood pressure (from the 160’s systolic to 225!). Another man had had a mini stroke (TIA) and complained of difficulty lifting his tongue (he still talked normally); he also had slight right-sided weakness but no facial droop. Fred told him he needed to follow more closely the diet changes to lower his blood pressure or he was mostly likely going to have a major stroke and we gave him some aspirin, which isn’t much but more than the hospital will do.
We also see a lot of respiratory and ear infections in the kids, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, hepatitis, anemia, strep throat, scabies, intestinal worms, ring worm, TB, athletes foot, cuts, burns, broken bones and, of course, the queen of all tropical diseases – malaria.
While the villagers could go to the government hospital to get treated they usually prefer to come to us because “your medicine works better.” From what I’ve been told, common procedure here when someone is sick and goes to the doctor: there are three bottles of pills, one with antimalarial medicine, one with antibiotics, and another with worm medicine, the doctor takes some pills from each and gives them to the patient. No wonder there is so many drug-resistant strains of bacteria and malaria!
I am enjoying being in Africa again although there are a lot of adjustments. In addition to the medical work I’m also teaching PE to the missionary kids several times a week and attempting to learn a little Susu and French. Since there are very few ready-made foods here, a lot of time also goes into buying and preparing food (I end up spending more time in the latter than I enjoy). You can buy everything from cassava to TVs to clothes in the open-air market in town though it takes a long time to buy what you need since you since you have to first find whatever it is you’re looking for and then bargain to get somewhat of a
reasonable price for the item. The Coleman’s also have a pet monkey and, while were not exactly best friends, we at least have a truce – he doesn’t try to nip or chase me and I give him leftovers and take him on occasional walks so he can catch insects and frogs and the like to add a little variety to his diet.
Well, my internet time is almost up so I’d better get this letter off with a few pictures.
Eddoe
Link to Slideshow
