I think kids had a good time with a kid’s party and being driven from house to house for trick-or-treating. We miss, miss, miss our friends at home, and we are also missing the chill in the air. The thermometer in the outside screened-in porch at the party read 90 something. I was looking at teas for sale online and saw one called Africa Autumn. Um, as far as I can see, Africa doesn’t really have an autumn, but it is a good idea, and should be taken into serious consideration.
My nurse, Paulina, and her husband Ricardo had a reception for us at their hotel (Hotel Ricardo). There were local physicians there who are important to us in emergency situations (two neurologists, an orthopedist, and a surgeon). It was a fine evening with a full 4 course meal. Dyadya Oga would have been proud of me. I managed to loosen my belt twice without being seen and still held my own (liquor that is)! Great wine! The cheese course almost did me in.
When we got back to our hotel room, there was a live African band playing right across the street. I kid you not. Lots of drums, a xylaphon, and singers. This place makes Las Vegas seem tame.
We are in Ouagadoughou (pronounced – O-waga-doo-goo), the capitol city of Burkina Fosa. This is my regional medical travel post. There are only about 30 Americans here but it has so much more of a city feel to it. Niamey seems like a small village in Mexico in comparison. There is a far less Muslim influence and it is noticeable. For example, we see many more women running and conducting businesses and they are uncovered! More are driving cars and motorcycles independently. There are less visible mosques and call to prayer. There is definitely more pollution as well. But the people are just as friendly and sincere.
The car ride here took 6 hours but was surprisingly beautiful. Lots of greenery. We did not expct to see so many watering holes and springs. We often would see a group of men or women (always separately) wade in up to their necks and playfully splash each other. The road is well paved and safe with the exception of goat and cow crossings. The landscape changed dramatically with plateaues, shrub covered dunes, and bolderous hills.
My first day at work, I had a briefing with the Ambassador. She was very warm and receptive. She is now inviting us to come to her residence for drinks and a viewing of her art collection on Saturday.
The clinic here is in many ways is better than the one in Niamey. It seems more inviting and less cluttered. The nurse here, from Chile, is very well organized as is my nurse in Niamey. But the building is it’s own edifice where in Niamey it’s part of a building which doesn’t seem like it was intended to be used for medical examinations. I feel as though I’m seeing a lot more patients here in Ouaga but I think that is because I’m new (they’re checking me out!) and I only come here every 12 weeks so they schedule more appointments when I’m here. A lot of interesting cases; from a new foreign national hire as a security guard, a pregnant women about to take medical leave, and a poorly controlled hypertensive. I must say, I’m not missing the stress of the ER and I love the new patient-provider relationships I’m building. It really is rewarding.
Ouaga hosts an artisan festival once every two years. It so happens that it starts tomorrow. It should be interesting. It will be fun to see the local art and possibly buy some jewelry, crafts, and art work. When I come back in February, they will have their annual film festival as well.
Tonight is a reception for me at the hotel (Ricardo – her husband runs it) where they are having a Chilean dinner with French wines! There will be many local health practitioners there. My friend Cliff says, “first impressions are lasting.” Let’s hope I’m a good one!
Dina’s big idea to join the FS has proven to be exciting. I never dreamed I’d be living and working a job in Africa where there are so many interesting people, cultures, and things to see.
Oh! A patient! Gotta go play doorman!
If you had the opourtunity to create the nickname for Ouagadougou, wouldn’t you shorten it to Doo-goo rather than Wa-ga? I know I would.
The six hour drive from Niamey to, okay, okay, Ouaga, as they insist on calling it, looked surprisingly like the drive from Paradise to Chico, California. The red dirt, the mix of shrubs and trees, the boys splashing in watering holes and the villiages of huts. We’ll maybe not exactly like, but they do have the same red dirt and I keep expecting to see, well, nothing, there isn’t anything between Paradise and Chico, which is another reason I kept feeling like we were on way to Costco.
Peter spent today at the medical clinic, dressed nicely in coat and tie to meet the ambassador. He went to some meetings and saw patients. CaSt and I went to a grocery store and bought the best pumpkin seeds ever, and I paid a guy $2 to show me where another fabric store was because I wan’t happy with the selection at the first one. I bought some fabulous fabric, then we met Peter at work for lunch. The overall look of the embassy is so cheerful, fresh curtains, lots of light and trees growing bananas in the courtyard.
Then we went for a swim at the lovely hotel owned by the Embassy nurse and her husband. She has tortoises, turkeys, little african deer, and ducks in a sort of petting zoo. Also seven dogs. Camille was petting one and I said, “That dog looks like the dog that use to live in our house.” “It’s her sister!” said Paulina, the hotel owner-nurse. That was funny and we had a laugh and looked at the sunset some more.
Down at the base of the Kennedy bridge you can go buy “les gourdes.” Peter and I got five big ones for $14, and are still talking about it.
Mental cruelty for sure regarding the home internet. "Here you go! Now give us back that router!" It does depict how business usually operates here in Niger. Everything is doable. It usually requires more time and patience than you anticipate. Sometimes more money than you expect. But eventually, you are successful with a long story to go along with the experience and some good people along the way.
For instance, our neighbors here on a Fulbright, moved into the house next door to us and the AC didn’t work in most of the rooms and suboptimally blew wisps of cool air in others. They refused to pay their second months’ rent until it was repaired (all in their contract). A whole band of contractors and plumbers showed up with their hammers to do the list of repairs. They removed the air conditioners and took them outside and sprayed them with a water hose, "to clean the dust filters," they said. Most of us are taught at a very early age not to put water on electrical appliances! One of the units already gave a small electrical shock when they turned it on! When Jennifer told them that cleaning the filters wouldn’t fix the problem, they patronized her. And of course, that didn’t fix the problem. The unit that was shocking users, he claimed to have fixed and when she touched it and didn’t get shocked, she enthusiastically asked how he fixed it. He responded by sternly saying, "What?! Are you trying to take my job now?!" And sure enough, that evening, their housekeeper got an electrical shock when she turned on the AC.
We know we can get internet (even on an Apple) here in Niamey. It could be better but it works. I’m hoping that once we get a good router, most of our problems regarding the internet will be over.
I’m looking forward to our trip to Ouagadougou scheduled in two weeks. They can’t take that away from me! – or can they?
Well, it was nice while it lasted. They are coming tomorrow to take the router, an essential part of this connection. They are offering to rent us a $100 router for $60 a week, or sell it to us for $360. Arrrgg. So we are buying a router from the US, but it’ll take at least two weeks to get here.
So it’s back to the clo lounge for my internet activity for a couple weeks.
Camille starts horse back riding lessons tomorrow after school. There is a tree at the equestrian center with four different bird species living in it–some kind of huge herons with nests made of sticks, bright green parrots, some kind of black birds and most amazing: yellow birds that have built hundreds of hanging nests. It’s a marvel. I just quadrupled my life-time bird list.
Meanwhile, where is my mother?
After working all day as a housekeeper/nanny for an American family, and cooking for a couple other people on the weekends, Tina bakes. Someone who works at the embassy and appreciates her dedication and hard work just bought her her first stove with four burners. Everyone thinks she should just bake, she is so good. She makes banana bread, zucchini bread, cookies and all kinds of other baked goods: she is the only source in the whole country for these and many other items, unless you want to make them yourself. Here she is delivering our standing order for tortillas, bagles and whole wheat bread. Pay her $2 taxi fare and she delivers the baked goods to your door. She is 24 years old and has five children. She was married at age 13.
Looks like we may be online from home, after four days of a crew of guys installing a very tall flag pole next to our house, then trying to configure the mac, the first one they’ve ever worked on, I’m sure. One guy laid down and took a nap at one point. I have not been feeling too celebratory because they can’t get our laptop nor our next-door-neighbor’s laptop to respond to the wi-fi signal that is going out for a quarter mile. But I guess I should cheer up: bon arrivé internet.
There’s a little cognitive dissonance when I read about celebrity rubber ducks being auctioned, or even when we go out to dinner, then step outside into sand roads and donkeys and women in headscarves down to their knees. Oh that’s right, we’re still in Niger.
As my first at-home at last project, I posted a batch of pictures to flickr–click on the teeny photos over there >>> and down a bit, and you will be directed and subjected to my photostream thingy. I’m living for your comments, remember.
A very busy week it was. I don’t mind so much because it’s interesting and my time goes by rather quickly. Aside from the emotional news about my pregnant patient, I was also visited by a doctor from South Africa and trying to get my visa and cable request in for my up and coming trip to Burkina Fossa, Ouagadougou. There’s an annual artisan festival going on while I’m there and Dina wants to come with the kids. So I have to arrange the driver, time off, our hotel accomodations, and estimated cost. Once I’m there, I will be meeting my nurse and familiarizing myself with the clinics and hospitals there. I already have patients scheduled to be seen (a breast mass and a hip bursitis that needs injecting).
This weekend is the NUTS softball tournament. When we first arrived at post, I was asked if I wanted to join the team. Not entirely opposed but completely disabled when it comes to swinging any kind of club or stick at anything, I declined. I know my limitations and people should thank me for that! I don’t know what NUTS stands for but I could guess after talking to some of these people that it could be taken literally.
What it means for me though is that I have to be prepared for sports injuries. Last year someone broke an arm and last week in training, someone needed stitches. The teams are coming from all ovver west Africa so we were asked to help house some of them. We took on two young women from Benin. Their team decided to come Thursday night since they had to drive over 12 hours, and get the most out of their time. I wnet to pick them up at 9PM but they didn’t arrive until 1AM. Those poor girls were tired and so was I.
Friday, we had some friends over for drinks and dinner. I got called out to the baseball field. An innocent by standard was watching the game when a fly ball came down through the trees and hit him in the eye. He had a brief loss of consciousness and his eye swelled up like an over-ripe apricot. I took him to the Gamkalley clinic (French) to make sure he had no internal bleeding into the orbit of the eye which could put pressure on the nerve and cause blindness. He was fine. It cost 4,000 CFA (~$8) and I gave him $2 to catch a taxi back home.
The rest of the weekend was univentful. Our house guests were very nice and we took them out to the Grand Hotel for drinks and brochettes last night. They have the most wonderful view of the Niger River from the veranda there.
It’s Columbus Day but the kids are at the French school. Pierre, our gardener is back from Burkina Fossa and the girls left early this morning. I thought I’d share the morning with Dina but I got called in to evaluate a little girls’ arm. Her brother tugged on it and made it hurt. No harm done eccept that I’m going to have to have a talk with that boy!
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 