Agricultural Show

Brass Band

Chaos at the Podium

Groundnuts and Pumpkins

Hi-tech Equipment

Not Smoked Salmon

Nurses Celebrate at the Conference

Sorghum

Home In Two Weeks

The students have finished their clinical placements for the year. Next week is exam week and interviews for the intake next year. So it will be a different kind of working week. I think we all miss Sister, especially my tutor colleagues, but she is still very much in charge by phone from India and she has a very strong presence in the college. The college will close on Friday until 15 January. Tomas, Tins, one of the Indian tutors, and myself go on leave until January, and Viju and Shinto go on leave in February.  We are hoping to get some new tutors next year.  So it's just like the UK, everyone finishing up for Christmas except we do it a bit earlier here.  People have all their leave at once here because travelling home is so difficult and expensive. Some of the students can't afford to go home at all during their training.

I had a few days in Juba for the nursing conference. If I was here for longer I would love to join the nursing association and help with their conference organisation. I helped organise so many conferences and study days in the UK and have a lot of experience to share.  The first day started very late, there were 12 introductory speakers, and the brass band struck up at inopportune moments playing the same tune, out of tune, repeatedly. No one stuck to time, resulting in the conference running 2 hours over. I had a lucky break the next day, vomiting and diarrhoea so I couldn't go to the conference. Liz eventually left the conference at 7.30 when it was still running over. I would have loved to have taken some students with me but couldn't it get any funding; it may be better to give them time to improve the running of the conference before the students go.

I didn't have time to do anything else in Juba other than go to a supermarket and meet the new VSOs.  Liz and I got really excited going round the supermarket. We hadn't realised how sad we had become; we were google-eyed at the range of fresh foods.  I nearly bought mothballs thinking they were mints. We don't have access to a wide range of goods in Wau, and because of weight restrictions on the plane back to Wau we can't bring a lot back with us. It was good to meet the new volunteers who had just arrived in South Sudan.  One of them came to Wau, and all of them are going to work in health.

One of the hardest things when you are working in a place like this is when friends that you make move on. You make friends very quickly, you have to trust and rely on each other and relationships are built much faster than they are at home. Placements come to an end and people move on for different reasons, and its always sad to say goodbye to people that you have enjoyed being with. On the other hand it's an excuse for a party and if there is no excuse for a party the lovely people across the road from me have a practice party, although these guys don't need any practice. I'm helping to care for their kitten which they rescued. He is called "Handicat". He is definitely blind in one eye and probably the other, he has gut infestations, fleas and an infected face wound. I've been injecting him with antibiotics and he thanked me by shitting on me. Hopefully we will be able to treat him and they will give him a safe home. I'm saying him but I think it could be a her and if so we may have more kittens in a few months.  Maybe that's wishful thinking.

I'm getting excited about coming home. I leave Wau on 5 December then leave Juba on 7 December. I'm travelling via Addis Ababa and London. Looking forward to catching up with everyone soon.

Breast Is Best

Chilling by the Pool

Christmas Presents

Field Clinic Queue

Field Clinic Site

Fly Iraqi Air

Girl Power

Lush Bush

More Eclipse

Rural Village

Starbucks

Still Thinking of Joining Up

Take Your Pick

What Does the Future Hold

Young Mum

25% of placement done already

Where did the time go?  When will I adapt to the heat?  When is the South Sudan diet meant to start working?  How can I get the students to understand drug calculations?  Too many questions and not enough answers.  I think you could be here a lifetime and still not have the answers.  So I’ll just continue doing what I can and take life here with a big pinch of salt.  Every week there are more challenges which just makes life a little more interesting and unpredictable.

I’ve called my bike Herbie. I’m still getting used to it.  It doesn’t have a padded saddle, the gears don’t work, my bum hurts and I’ve not worked out who has priority on the roads.  There are pedestrians, goats, dogs, donkeys and horses, bicycles, motorbikes, cars, 4x4s, trucks and lorries.  There is only one tarred road, called the tarred road. All the other roads are dirt roads strewn with rubbish, stones, rubble and animals feeding on the rubbish.  The edges of the tarred road are eroded making the side of the road even more unsafe so I’m a bit reluctant to use it.  At least the other roads are so bad everyone has to go slowly and be more careful.  I really want it to go to Amarula on Sundays and it’s on one of the best dirt roads around so it should be ok.

Have a look at Dolly. I borrowed her from Wau hospital and had to write a letter accepting responsibility for her and promising to return her in good condition.  She has more orifices than a nurse tutor could ever hope for, but no arms or legs.  The students will now be able to practise insertion of all sorts of catheters and tubes.  I’m just not sure what has been breeding inside Dolly.  She has scrubbed up ok but I don’t want to be the first to insert a catheter and disturb anything lurking inside.

I also visited the dental department, which confirmed I made the right decision in bringing my own dental anesthetic, needles and temporary fillings.  The chairs look more like execution chairs than nice, comfortable dental chairs.  They are so proud of their equipment, which makes me feel quite sad.  I remember the burning feeling, the smell and pain I felt at the dentist as a child and that was with local anesthetic.  I hate to think what if feels like here to have a filling or an extraction here.

I went on a trip to a feeding station not far from Wau.  Food and supplements were handed out to the villagers, and I worked with a local nurse assessing emergency cases, giving out drugs and referring the most urgent cases to hospital or clinics.  At first the children were wary of me but their curiosity soon took over and they all wanted to touch me to see if I was real.  They kept calling me kawaga (white person) and I told them my name was Carol but the just called me kawaga Carol.  I got some brilliant photos of them.  By the end of the day they were crawling all over me and lifting my clothes to see if I was white all over.  I spent ages scrubbing myself afterwards.  They only have 1 bore-hole for 500 households.  They have no water for washing, no sanitation, and typhoid is endemic as are any number of infestations that can think about.  The kids appeared to be so happy and bright and have the same potential as western kids but their future will be very different.  Very few of them will attend school, let alone make it to secondary school or college.  The beautiful little girls will have babies in their teens, the boys will be held down and have their front teeth pulled by other villagers to prove their manhood, and both the boys and girls will be cut by knives and spears in symmetrical patterns on their faces and bodies to decorate themselves.  Give me a tattoo any day.  Some of the girls will be subjected to female genital mutilation and suffer for the rest of their lives.

I attended a meeting with international funders; they like a few volunteers to attend these meetings so they can tell us what good work we are doing and say they have met the volunteers.  We get good grub and a couple of drinks and meet some interesting people.  I’m sure my VSO colleagues working in the ministries think I’m thick, which may be true, because I think there is too much money being spent on administration and there are too many complex structures being put in place, and none of this actually filters down and makes life any better for local people.  It sounds a bit like “Yes Minister” in the ministries while the patients are denied their basic human rights of clean water and sanitation.  At the dinner I sat beside someone from DfID, a really practical, plain speaking woman who made a whole lot of sense and listened to what I said.  The next morning she phoned me and asked if Liz and I could have a meeting with the funders before they departed and tell them what it was really like on the ground.  Although there were no promises they said that they would do what they could to try to improve the situation.  I’m maybe not as daft as my colleagues think; I’m sure Liz and I were the only ones to get a private meeting.  However, everything takes time and I don’t think I’ll be here to see the outcome of these discussions.

I’ve been working a bit more than usual.  The students are working night shift and I’ve been going to the hospital to see if they are OK.  A student phoned me after midnight last night because a patient was bleeding after surgery.   He had to waken the night staff and ask for help.  They told him just to leave the patient until morning and told the students to go to sleep.  The staff refused to get out of bed, give any help or give the doctor’s phone number.  We try to teach to a high standard then everything falls apart in the wards.  Thankfully the students coped ok and everything turned out well for the patient.  I’m going in tonight to see that the students are ok.

I’ve just had two firsts.  One was lunch at the UN compound and the other was attending mass before the lunch.  Like all church services in Africa it was very upbeat.  They had the religious “Pan’s People” who danced up and down the aisle.  It was hot and stuffy and Pan’s People clearly didn’t use deodorant.  Get the picture?  It wasn’t helped by the copious amounts of crap wine I drank the evening before or all the aerobics in the heat, up and down all the time or standing for long periods in the heat in the crowded, stuffy chapel.  A little relief came in the form of holy water that was chucked on us by one of the priests.  Lunch was good.  I was invited by a lovely Kenyan doctor who has been teaching in the college and it was an enjoyable experience.

The rainy season is coming to an end.  The number of mosquitoes is reducing and the number of flies is increasing.  The flies surround you if you are eating outside.  Breakfast is the worst, they even copulate in the jam.  It’s strange what you begin to accept as normal.  I’m off to Juba next week to a conference.  I think it will be quite good to leave the confines of Wau for a few days and hit the big city lights of Juba.  Figuratively speaking of course because Juba doesn’t have any power either.  I’ve not quite started count down to my holidays because I don’t want to get too excited too early but I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone.

Meet Dolly

Another Use for Sun Hats

New Car

Solar Eclipse

Dental Treatment

New Dental Chairs

Smile

Three in a Row

Discovered Paradise

I don’t know why it took Liz and I two months to go to Amarula Lodge.  We eventually made it and there will be no stopping us now.  It’s a Kenyan-run lodge a few kilometres out of town where they have a pool, a good but expensive restaurant, a decently stocked bar and if you really want to you can use the gym but when it’s over 35⁰ its preferable to cool off in the pool.  The only problem is getting there.  We have been going in a rickshaw but it’s expensive. However, we have just been informed that our request for bicycles has been approved so if the heat doesn’t beat us we will cycle there.  The other luxury there is wi-fi, not quite the same as at home but I can send photos one at a time and John can post them on the blog for me.

The college has been a little unsettled recently.  Sister has just left and will not be returning for some time.  We have also had a lot of holidays, often without prior notice, which disrupts teaching plans.  I think I’m the only one that has teaching plans here.  We had a thank-you celebration for the Kenyan UN battalion who support the college.  It was a great day. The students performed a “Dinka Dance” and sang a lot of songs.  It was really entertaining.  Our language teacher appears to have done a bunk with our money and without completing the course.  Watching paint dry would be preferable to attending his lessons so there is no great loss but a lesson not to pay upfront.

I think my battle with frogs and horrible beasties at night is over.  My door has been repaired and the gaps filled in so hopefully there is no way in for them anymore.  It’s amazing how much noise a frog can make trying to get out of your room.  I didn’t fancy any of the creepy crawlies getting into my bed, or standing on them in the dark, so I’m pleased that the door has been fixed.  Smokey continues to greet me every morning and anytime he thinks I have food.  A feral cat has given birth to 4 kittens in Liz’s garden.  I’m really looking forward to seeing them.

Liz and I were invited to visit a community farming project last weekend.  It was my first trip out of town, apart from going to Amarula.  We can only travel to secure areas on authorized trips so we don’t often get the opportunity to see the countryside.  We also visited a monastery which was abandoned during the war in an area where many people were killed in a massacre.  We were filthy when we got back from all the dust, our hair and skin turned orange and dust clouds rose from our clothes if we touched them.

I’ve continued to support the students at the hospital.  I’ve never seen such terrible conditions.  Yet despite it all there is some good work there, particularly surgery although there are no anaesthetics so they use horse tranquilisers during surgery.  The TB and anthrax wards are the saddest places to visit.  Nurses give the drugs then leave the patients unattended.  I think they are afraid of catching TB.  A lot of these patients are HIV positive and they are afraid of that too, but there is no excuse for leaving the patients in such appalling conditions, uncared for in filthy wards with no water or sanitation.  People know about it but blame others. No one accepts responsibility.

On a brighter note I’ve booked to come home for Christmas.  The college will be closed for a month.  I’m really looking forward to the cold weather and hope for some snow and ice.  I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone..