All entries for Wednesday 18 March 2009

Wot no photos?

Hi,

you’ll have to forgive the lack of photos again, but the internet access here doesn’t let me do everything I want with this blog. Yesterday it wouldn’t let me on at all.

Still I had a good day yesterday, I phoned the doctor who I bumped into in the post office last week, and he invited me to come to a clinic in the town he was running. I was there in about half an hour, and he was really interested in how I was finding medical education in general, and how much tropical medicine I had learnt so far since being here. After seeing a few patients, he said he was going to the hospital, and he took me with him and showed me around the ophthalmology department there. That only was about two hours out of the day, and the rest I was working at the orphanage as usual.

My day off was Monday, and I managed to spend some time in town looking around. There is quite a big market where you can get all kinds of stuff like bananas (really nice) chickens (live!) clothes etc. It was so hot walking around; yesterday one of the locals said how it has been particularly hot lately compared to normal temperatures. Actually I find it quite ok in the shade, but walking in the sunshine is like an oven.

I went to church on Sunday with the other people from the house I am staying at. The singing was typically African, but most of the words were in English, and some of the songs were ones I know from home, so I could join in. Next to me was an old woman with no teeth and a humped back dancing to the music. I was touched when a man who had lost his son two weeks before stood at the front to tell the congregation (about 300-400 people) how he had been getting on. He thanked the church for so many that had been to see him and supported him, and he said “It is very hard to teach your soul to be thankful to God in these situations”.

Hope you are all well!

: 18 Mar 2009 13:14 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem