Sorry its been a long time since I’ve properly updated you on what is going on,
Life has got quite busy here and its more difficult to find time for long emails and blog updates.
Things have changed a lot in melut in the last few weeks, the buildings in our compound have been finished so now I have a room to sleep in and we have an office and a dining room. We still have no furniture so life is not much less basic than in a tent, it is nice to have a roof though. The disadvantage of houses is that now all the bugs that were outside your tent are inside you room .. I little unpleasant and we seem to have a giant grasshopper and beetle invasion at the moment.
So we are turning into a bit of a farm/zoo with hens, a cockerel and now lots of little chicks. We also have 2 goats. Unfortunately the chickens have attracted some less welcome wildlife and the guards killed a large black cobra the other week!

Social life in melut is still limited and people seem to be resisting my attempts to get them to play monopoly .. movie nights are the main social highlight of the week and apart from that its usually bed at 9 o’clock … it means that I’m getting through my books though.

Work in nutrition has been busy .. we had predicted that the numbers should be slowing down by now but they keep increasing, I’m out 2 or 3 days a week doing food distributions for the supplementary feeding programme and the rest of the time working with the severe malnutrition cases in the clinic, writing reports, looking after stocks, dealing with staff etc….
There has been ups and downs we have had a few very sick children die in the last few weeks, but also we are seeing more discharged better and doing well. There is a little story about some of my patients (and a fairly horrendous picture of me) on the medair website (www.medair.org) if you want to know more about it. I’m constantly surprised by the number of seemingly fairly well off and well fed mothers who have malnourished children … the main problems seem to be lack of knowledge on feeding children and disease rather than a lack of available food in most cases. Also had some challenging cases with children who just do not won’t to eat … which is more similar to work in the uk than I thought I would see!
I had an intersting week staying in an even more remote place called pariak to do some training .. it went well and there was a big celebration happening in the village as a very old and important man had died ... it was really amazing to see the dancing and celebrations as quite often here we are quite seperate from the normal village life.
The weekend when i got back from there we had a celebration for the opening of our compound buildings which we invited some of the un officers to .. it was good to see some different people and we had pizza! (it is possible in sudan when you have an italian on the team!)

Things like the heat and the insects and the lack of anything to do have started to get me down a bit the last couple of weeks so I’d appreciate your prayers for perseverance! Also the political situation in southern sudan is becoming more unstable with the SPLA threatening to withdraw from the peace agreement if the north do not fulfil the things they are supposed to do … this is quite a tense area due to the oil and being near the border so please continue to pray for lasting peace in sudan and protection over medair teams and their activities.
Can't seem to upload pictures today but will add some soon so you can see the new buildings and the crazy dancing in pariak!

Feeding the World!

Its a few weeks since my last post so i should update you on all thats been going on. Thanks to all of you who sent birthday greetings ... i've recieved 3 parcels and several cards so far and i think there are a few more on the way. My Birthday turned out to be a very busy day with 6 new patients for nutrition in the clinic (the most i've ever had on one day!) I did have some time for fun in the evening though with a cake made for me and water thrown over my head (a medair tradition i think).

Life has been busy in the last few weeks, i've trained workers for the nutrition programme and started to do the supplementary feeding distributions 2 days a weeks .... this is basically a chance to see as many children as possible in one day and give out additional food rations. Today I've weighed and measured over 60 children and given almost the same dietary advice to each one ... quite tiring! Also as we have now started screening we are finding more severely malnourished children to treat in the clinic ... on the up side its really good to be started and to see there is a real need, also i have 2 nurses from the emergency response team helping me out which is great. Any how despite all this action it looks like i'll be going on holiday again next week! ... i'm not due yet but i need to go early so i don't clash with the nurses who are working with me ... i'm hoping to head to the seaside for some relaxation. The rain has held of a bit this week so I've not worn my wellies for 5 days! ... it makes life a bit more pleasant. Unfortunately the mosquitoes are still driving us to bed immediately after dinner but i'm enjoying my ER DVD on my lap top in my tent! ... thought i'd include some "action shots" so you can see what i'm up to.

Thank you so much for your support and prayers ... I had an interesting conversation with one of my sudanese colleuges yesterday where he said that when I first arrived he didn't think I would cope but was really suprised how quickly and well I settled in! I think its only by God's Grace and the support of all you at home!

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