A week in Uganda

I've just got back to Sudan after a week in Uganda for a Medair course on HIV. Its been a really good week .. I've learnt lots .. met lots of people from other programmes and enjoyed a bit of luxury .. hot showers .. room to myself and beautiful views .. unfortunately it was a bit of a packed week so i didn't chance to see much of Uganda ... I'll have to go back another time ....

getting christmassy

Once again i've been letting my blogging slide and find that i have lots to update you on ... its been 6 weeks since i last posted and quite a few things have happened. I had my last r and r in Nairobi and just relaxed and read books in the garden .. also stayed overnight at a nice hotel in lake nakuru national park .. it was a real treat and we had a great safari seeing rhinos and lions and the flamingos that the park is famous for.
I returned back from r and r just in time for the opening of the new clinic buildings .... this was a mixture of formal ... (with speeches from the minister of health etc) ... and crazy with dancing and singing and general mayhem, it was great to celebrate along with the local staff and community and its been excellent being in the new clinic. So much better than the tents .. i have a room for nutrition which we have tried to make child friendly with pictures and toys etc ... still very basic compared to what we have at home but a massive improvement.
We have remained fairly busy with new admissions to nutrition and carrying on the supplementary feeding programme ... i'm becoming a bit frustrated with mothers who don't seem to be bothered to turn up when there children really need help.
I've also been challenged by dealing with staff issues .... 2 of my workers have not been working much due to various women problems .... or rather getting beaten up by the girls relatives for getting them pregnant without having enough cows to be able to marry her! Also i never really appreciated how many problems bicycles might cause and seem to spend a large part of each week negotiating who can borrow them and sorting out what to do when they come back damaged .... and i thought i was here to do nutrition?!
Now i've only got 5 more days here until we leave for christmas ... we have a conference for all the team in kenya the week before christmas and i'm also very excited as lucy and ruth are coming out to visit. We are having christmas parties this weekend .. one for the staff yesterday which was fun with lots of dancing and today we are having a team party .. I iced the christmas cake this morning so maybe it will feel a bit like home ... we planning on carols by candlelight ...its a bit strange doing christmas things in the hot weather. I'll get some pictures up soon!

End of rotation

I'm leaving melut tommorrow for r and r ... its been a busy 7 weeks but i feel like i've really done something this time ... it was really encouraging this week to see some of the kids who came very sick in august and sept now happy and quite fat .. also feeling like i'm coping a bit better with life here and all the organisation and management that I have to do .. really looking forward to a week of relaxing and eating well in Nairobi and when i get back it will be time for the new clinic to open. The pictures are off my nutrition team at the new clinic and one of the kids enjoying their plumpy nut ... as i am writing this my room mate sophia has just nearly stepped on a puff adder on the way from the latrine to our room ... luckily she spotted and one of the guys killed it with a stick ... a bit scary as they are very poisonous.. please pray for Gods continued protection from scary wildlife!

My new house!
The compound looks quite pretty now .. you can see the new mess just by the nile.
Some crazy dancing!

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