1st January 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR – I wonder what’s in store for 2012…..

We saw the new year in in Spanish style as Clara invited us over for cheese, tomato and chorizo, then paella, followed by orange cake – you may wonder how on earth we manage to have these exquisite dishes when there is a distinct lack of ingredients. Well, we are becoming resourceful and manage to collect up all sorts of goodies from Addis. We also have some things that we brought over from the UK and they are rationed so that we get some ‘treat’ nights. So tomatoes, oranges and rice comes from Gimbie, cheese from Addis, a tin of mussels and a tin of squid and a tin of tuna from Spain, and Chorizo from the UK. Oh and then we undertook the traditional eating of 12 grapes over 12 seconds just before midnight (enormous grapes bought from Addis). Unfortunately the electricity went off in Clara’s house for the whole evening but we had enough candles to see what we were doing. The internet went down around 11.30 (predictable) and we had planned to play the gongs from a YouTube video. So we had to improvise by making a recording of Clara banging an empty dried milk tin 12 times over 12 seconds and then playing this at about 1 minute to midnight so that we could eat one grape every second. We totally failed on the grape front and I only managed 5 in the 12 seconds – despite having peeled them beforehand.

I have just returned from the hospital, where there is a woman who I scanned in the health centre about 8 weeks ago. I am pleased to say that I spotted that she had twins and told her that because of this, she should have her babies in hospital. So yesterday, she did exactly that and had a caesarean section. Mother and both baby boys are doing very well. I am sure that not all women take the advice but when they do, it makes me feel very happy as it means that the project does seem to be working. I am going to chat to the woman tomorrow (with an interpreter) to ask her about her decision process behind coming to hospital to have the babies. I am obviously hoping that she will say that it was the advice given in the health centre that persuaded her to come to hospital but we shall see what she says. I need to be careful that the translator doesn’t lead her into saying what I want to hear but I think I can get him to do this.