Tuesday 29 November 2011

28th November 2011

We were invited to lunch at one of the health centre nurse’s house today. She had a lovely, albeit very compact house, where she carefully laid out some pasta with tomato sauce for us. The house was just one room and had a curtain to screen off her bed (a mattress on the floor). It was immaculately clean, probably made easier by the paper that was stapled to the mud walls and plastic floor covering. Having just finished our pasta and chai (spicy tea) I was a little concerned to learn that she got her water from the river about 20 minutes walk away. There’s no running water in the village at all, and electricity is sporadically available. Her rent is approximately 10% of the £40 per month that she earns.

 Two nurses who scored the highest in the clinical knowledge assessment were awarded a medical dictionary (donated by Oxford University Press)

Whilst we were seeing the antenatal women, the generator was started as there was a need for the health officer to use the computer – probably to enter the various activity data that has to be reported to the government. Apparently, the generator is only used for this purpose as it is expensive to run and so night-time deliveries are carried out with the help of a candle or a torch.

 This woman was amazed to see her baby on the ultrasound screen

The woman with these twins (heads) was not so pleased. Twins do not do well here. The heads are not joined by the way and there were two placentas so she should deliver easily enough.....

Most women really appreciate seeing that the Honnee (heart) beat is Gari (good)

We hosted a dinner party for 10 people this evening to say goodbye to Heidi, Andrea and Heli. They leave for Addis tomorrow morning to catch their plane back to Denmark. We shall really miss them as we have had some great and amusing times together and have enjoyed their company very much. It’s lovely to have people here to share the troubles, traumas and funny things. Each day brings a new event to amuse or rant over.

Note the luxury items for our dinner party - chocolate and wine!

3 comments:

  1. Loved reading the recent blogs, the children have a very hard time it seems, no clothes including underwear. Hope the car get sorted.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you're enjoying the news. Yes, it's a very different life for people here. But alot of the time they are very happy with their lot and it's certainly less stressful as the pace of life is rather slow.

    Come over any time David and Laurie - I'm sure you'll 'love' it here.....

    Karen xxx

    ReplyDelete