17th June 2012

Most mornings now we start the day with ‘no light’. It seems that the electricity cables or posts are just not strong enough to withstand the nightly rain storms. I have, however, managed to get out to the health posts and the health centres and so the work continues, which is just as well as the women keep flooding in. I saw 49 women at Ganjii and many of these women had never had any antenatal care in the whole of their pregnancy. I’m not quite sure why so many new women turned up but suspect that my conversations with the Health Extension Workers (health workers who are based within the villages) last week provoked further discussions with women in the far away villages. Some women had walked 2 ½ hours to come and see me. I hope they were happy with the service they got. The exhausting day ended on a bit of a low as a woman in her first pregnancy was found to have an intra-uterine fetal death. I was really sad for her and thankfully had a very kind Ethiopian with me who translated the news sympathetically.

It must be strange for a woman to see her baby on the screen when she probably doesn't have access to a mirror and so doesn't even see herself on a regular basis.

There are always children trying to peep through the clinic window

 The road back to Gimbie from the health centres

Jaba continues to be well, which is something of a relief given that 1 in 17 children here die before the age of 1. We took him to the police station to register him as ‘abandoned’ – something the hospital are supposed to do when the event actually occurs. This is the second time I have had the need to visit Gimbie police station (previously had to go when Makabe was robbed) and it was just as amusing this time. There were quite a few people waiting to tell their troubles to the 2 policeman in the hut and so we waited amongst the bare necked chickens for our turn.  The necessary information about Jaba was entered into an A4 lined notebook and various signatures were obtained before we were sent on our way to the office of women’s and children’s affairs. Here we again told our story and registered him as abandoned and gave them a letter from the hospital confirming the story. Now all we have to do is apply to the court for a hearing, bring three witnesses along with us and he is legally ‘abandoned’.

And boy does it rain.....

No, the dog isn't ours..... 

Colobus monkeys playing on the roof of our veranda