Back in Camp

I’ve been back in Melut for 2 weeks now …. It’s changed a bit since I left and it’s now very green. What was once just bare soil is now covered in grass … it looks a lot prettier but also means we have thousands more mosquitoes and a bigger risk of snakes (although so far I’ve only seen a dead one). August is apparently usually the wettest month (not too different from at home then!) and it’s raining every 2 or 3 days now … our compound is quite muddy especially at the clinic so I am barely out of my wellies. It is cooler especially at night which makes up for the annoyance of walking around in mud all the time. After some worries about safety due to troop withdrawals in the area things are getting back to normal … the troops haven’t gone but there are negotiations happening and it looks like there will be later date set sometime in November so maybe I’ll have to take holidays then as well!
We are back to a normal sized team and the building work has started again … I’ll hopefully be in a house by September.

Things have been a bit quieter in the clinic as we have had to reduce the number of patients we are seeing as some of the tents are flooded. I have had a bit of a hard week with one of my patients dying and a little premature baby who we were monitoring not coming back for follow up. I’m praying for some positive outcomes and then I can share with you some success stories.
I should be starting the training for the workers for the supplementary feeding programme next week … I’m waiting for the nurse who is helping me with the programme to come back … I’m a little lost without her!
It looks like we won’t be able to start in all locations at the moment as one of our cars is in need of repair … and we won’t get the parts for at least 2 weeks. It feels like things will never get started and its getting a bit frustrating.

On a more positive note I’m feeling increasingly more at home with the team and we have made some plans for more social activities …. This is currently limited to movie nights … card games and bible studies but it’s a start .. when our dining room is finished then at least we will have somewhere away from the mossys to meet.…
Also feeling a bit of a sense of achievment as I learnt to put in a nasogastric tube today ... might make me a bit more useful around the place.
Already making plans for my next holiday .. I’m hoping to go to the coast .. for some real chilling out on the beach. Thank you for all your prayers and thoughts … I feel the benefit of knowing I’m well supported back at home. Will post again soon xx

Not in Sudan

Its been a little while since I wrote so I though I should update you about what I've been up to in the last 3 weeks while not in sudan ...
I earn R and R days due to working on saturdays in the field so I had 8 of those to take (plus weekends) and was flown out to Nairobi. I had a really great break .. the team house is really lovely and I got on really well with the other people there, we hung out, watched DVDs, went out for lunch and generally relaxed ... the weather was cold which made a pleasant change and I bought a new jumper at a fab 2nd hand market. We had some good trips out at the weekend to national parks when we could borrow cars and I got to see some exciting animals including giraffes (... lots of them), crocodiles, buffalo and zebra.
I then spent a week doing office work in Nairobi which was a little dull but useful as I had lots of planning to do ... now I'm in Loki and hoping to fly back to Sudan on Saturday. There are not many distractions here but there are lots of people around and we've discovered aerobics which is quite fun ... although I'm aching a little today. Please do add some comments or email me or I don't know that you are reading my blog ....
lots of love Alice x

Close encounters with giraffes

House (or tent) mates

On packing up my tent today I found ....
inside .... a large beetle, a cricket and several dead flies ....
underneath (thankfully) ... 2 geckos, 1 lizard and 3 scorpions (aaaahhhh!!) .... i'm just glad I spotted them first and stamped on them (only the scorpions .... i like lizards ..)
looking forward to sleeping in a bed for the foreseeable future and hopefully with some more friendly room mates ...!

Tiny Babies

I've been back in my tent since wednesday after a wet and muddy time in malakal .... the roads and our compound turned to a bog after very heavy rain ... so I spent the whole time there in wellies .. its dried out again since I've been back here so I've been able to get back to flip flops. I can back to find the number of nutrition patients had doubled alongside the planning for the feeding programme getting underway properly then its been a busy week. Amongst the patients in the clinic at the moment are 2 of a set of triplets whose mother and sibling died at birth .. they are both tiny (about 3lb/ 1.6kg) .... so we have a full on job feeding them .. the boy is not sucking very well so he has an NG tube in and the girl is managing to suck milk from a syringe. Long term the future does not look bright for these babies without a Mum as alternatives to breast feeding carry lots of risks here where hygiene is so poor. I'm hoping to try cup feeding ... any dietitians out there with expertise please get in touch!!
The building work is progressing well after the deliveries of building supplies eventually arrived ... unfortunately on the day after heavy rain so the trucks got stuck in the mud. We may have some houses by the end of July if all goes well and the clinic should be finished in October. Then I should be off to Nairobi a week on Tuesday for my R and R ... can't wait for a lie in .... x x

Travels and progress

This week has a bit more news than the last few as I've been out and about a bit more ... sorry aboout the lack of photos I will remedy this when I'm not under restictions of how much data I can upload.
I've been away from melut since wednesday and won't be back there until tuesday. I went to Juba (new capital of southern sudan) it was planned that I went to security trainng but in the end I went to a nutrition meeting which was more interesting from my point of view, it was good to meet people and get an idea what the agenda is for nutrition in south sudan .. a bit strange for me to mix with governement officials etc .. hopefully i didn't sound too clueless and I made a few contacts, there was also a very good lunch (including avovados and courgettes) which was of course for me a highlight. There was a small crowd of us in Juba at the same time so we went out for a drink on friday and i enjoyed my first beer for 6 weeks.
Now I am in Malakal staying at our base here as there is a state nutrition meeting here on monday, hopefully again a chance to meet some people who will be good sources of advice for me. Also good is that my manager is back from her holiday so I have been able to go through all the plans etc with her and things seem much clearer now... so all in all its been an encouraging week work wise.
Its been refreshing to go to different places and spend time with different people but I am actually quite missing my tent and my team so it will be nice to get back especially as I know my next break is not far away

still surviving

Its about time I put a bit of news up on the blog .. sorry for the lack of communication by this means ... I am getting quite addicted to face book so I end up sending people random messages and not really communicating any news, that said there is not a lot new here ... we are gradually reducing in number, some planned departures for meetings and holidays others unplanned due to sickness. I'm finding the constant changing around of people makes it a bit difficult to get to know people. We are becoming increasingly nervous of surviving the rainy season in our tents, there was a short but very fierce storm on monday which left quite a lot of stuff damaged ... my tent survived with a few bent poles so yesterday I moved locations and strengthened it a bit. I'm realising that I'm never going to be very popular with the kids I'm treating .. apart from the usual suspicion of white people I also weigh and measure them and try to get them to drink milk that they don't like .. the little boy whose an inpatient at the moment starts to scream when I am still 10m away so I'm not going to get many nice cuddles.
I should be leaving the compound more this week (yipee) as I going to Juba for a training day on security .. for a one day course I'll be away for 5 days because of all the travelling time, I'm looking forward to seeing a bit more of the country. Then when I get back I should have just over 2 weeks before i have my first R&R .. so I think I should survive till then