Busy morning, late meeting and unexpected exercise...

It was me and our cleaning lady N’Deye Sane yesterday - she busy at her cleaning and I trying desperately to keep up running between my consultation room, pharmacy and ‘pansement’ room (where I administer first aid…abces lancing, dressing changes, removals of foreign objects from orifices, eye washes, etc. ). JP had to be in Ziguinchor for business as he had the recent very necessary, yet never pleasant, experience of having to let Adama, our ‘midwife’, go and the two had to meet with local authorities to complete the necessary paperwork. Amadou, our pharmacist/cashier has been off sick (and will be for the rest of the month) and my ‘nurses aid’, N’Deye Diandy, was late as usual (not usually seen before 10am).

Since JP has been covering for Amadou, I had the added responsibility of selling consultation tickets, medications, and issuing receipts. Without N’Deye Diandy, I also had the responsibility of doing family planning consultations, administering depo injections (the contraceptive method used almost exclusively here in Niaguis) and looking for volunteers amongst the patients to help with translation.

Not sure her name but she was cracking my up!

But, 5 hours later, by the grace of God, I had finished my last consultation for the morning (and lost 5 pounds in sweat!), and had just enough time to close up shop, and run home to drop off my ‘stuff’, before being whisked off by our friend Omar to meet up with JP for a late lunch in Ziguinchor.

After briefing each other on the mornings activities, I was then off to a “Reunion de Coordination” at one of the hospitals. These monthly meetings are held for the purpose of coordinating health service delivery in the districts so those in attendance are either “Chefs de Poste” (nurses representing each Dispensaire) or local health authorities responsible for directing and overseeing those services. I had learned only the day before that a meeting was being held, and was obliged to attend since Adama had been the person representing our Dispensaire until now.

Truthfully, I expected a meeting starting at 4pm on a Friday night (a Muslim holy day, and a Christian’s start to their weekend) that the meeting wouldn’t go much longer than 5pm. I was wrong. The meeting went until 7:30pm! - plenty long enough for me to learn how poorly our little Dispensaire was doing in meeting the expectations of the local medical authorities (many things we should have been doing and weren’t and others that just weren’t being done well), and to plan how we could rectify those things!

Path by our house leading to the river...soon the area will be flooded
and families will be out en masse cultivating rice

Upon arriving back home, I realized I had left my bag in the meeting room…yes the one with my money and keys…and had to make the embarrassing call to the “Medecin Chef du District” (head honcho Doctor) to beg him to return to the hospital to help me retrieve my bag. I think my pitiful plea (I didn’t want to sleep outside) broke him down and he begrudgingly agreed. So off we go back to Zinguinchor yet again, but this time with a couple friends opting to come along for the ride.

And are we ever glad they did! Sadly…our ‘not-so-trusted’ vehicle quit on us about 3 km from home (problems with the alternator). After MANY attempts to push start the car, we gave up and pushed our 1500Kg pile of loosely associated metal and plastic pieces home! By the time we got home (11:30pm) I was soaked in sweat (despite a beautiful breeze), my legs were shaking and my back was sore from being bent over. Despite it all, we had a great time ‘laboring’ with our friends under the stars which were out in all of their glory!

And what about prenatal visits and deliveries now that our midwife is gone? I’m hoping for a real dry spell…