16th November

When I arrived at Ganji health centre today, there was a queue of 20 women waiting to have an ultrasound scan. Word had got out that this was on offer and so women were flocking to the health centre. This is excellent as this provided an ideal opportunity to offer antenatal care at the same time. It was lovely to see, their largely expressionless faces, beam when I showed them the beating heart of their baby – the scanner provides an excellent quality image and you can see the four chambers of the heart beating really clearly. So I have now learnt to say head, heart, stomach and legs in Oromo. Oh and also ‘it is cold’ which I tell them before squirting the ultrasound gel onto their abdomen. They simply look down and hide a small chuckle when they hear what must be a strange accent.

When I scanned one woman it became apparent that she had ruptured her membranes about a week ago and so I decided to get her to go to the hospital. Since she didn’t have any mechanism to get there, we took her with us, making us a car of eleven people. Yes, very cramped indeed. Unfortunately, the bumpiness of the 2 hour drive pushed her into labour making everything just that little bit more uncomfortable. She didn’t complain though. On arrival to hospital, the baby was induced and all was well for both mother and baby. So a real success story there.