While you shiver and struggle with snow and ice bound roads, the hot season has started early here!  Midday temperatures in the shade are heading for 40º and overnight it drops to a sticky 35 or so.

It was just great to see wee Jamie and all our family last month.  Coming back, however, has just reinforced for us the huge gulf between what we have in the developed world and life here in subsaharan Africa.

First week back after the break & what a cracker!  Monday & Tuesday were very busy with new patients for consultation and both evenings wound up in theatre – Monday dealing with a strangulated (stuck) hernia and Tuesday we set out to deal with what was thought to be a simple twisted bowel.  Turned out to be a case of severe peritonitis (inflammation inside the abdomen) with all the intestines glued together with scar tissue.  We reckon the peritonitis must have occurred maybe a couple of weeks before as there was no evidence of active infection.  The surgery took two hours but the patient is making good progress.  On Thursday, it seemed that most of the work was over by about 2p.m. with just a few results to be dealt with when suddenly nine accident victims arrived.  Apparently they’d been passengers in an open truck which was carrying several bags of peanuts.  The truck had overturned and the bags fell on the passengers.  As each bag weighs around 100 Kg, it’s no surprise that two of the victims died at the scene.  The surprising thing is that of our nine patients only three had significant injuries – broken bones, dislocations, and one had nearly lost an ear.  The nurses here coped superbly well – one said it was like working in a war zone!

Dr. Djemba left on Wednesday, so we’re down to just the two doctors.  Also, our weekend locum is no longer reliable – says he’ll come to do the weekend then doesn’t bother showing up!  Djemba would love to have stayed on – he was being paid good money and enjoying a very active “social” life, but his presence could not be justified by his work rate.  He wasn’t generating enough income to cover his own salary!  Unfortunately he left without paying Lydia, who was housekeeping for him, all she was due – she was underpaid by 37,000 francs which is a huge sum here.  Apparently after he left, Lydia had gone to clean up his house and found 200,000 francs hidden in his pillow.  This explains why he was seen rushing back up the road to the house shortly after he’d left.  However, he still refused to pay Lydia her dues.  Seems the Cameroonians are quite happy to take advantage of each other and a woman like Lydia does not have the power to fight back.

At the moment we’re without our car.  Had arranged to have it serviced while we were on holiday, but there’s a problem with the cooling system.  They had replaced a part with one bought in the market here but it didn’t work for long (not unusual here!) and we’re waiting for a proper replacement to arrive.  Meantime it’s back to motos for transport.