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Published: June 25th 2008
Hello everyone,
Sorry it has been so long since we last wrote to you...time seems to have flown!! We are now feeling very at home in Francistown and even our room has become quite cosy. The hostel we are staying at is really lovely and the staff look after us loads! They were worrying so much when we went away this weekend, nice to know they are watching out for us!!
Our routine now is arriving in hospital for the 7.30am meeting then off to the wards for the ward round. Myself and Amy are on peadiatrics at the moment and Jemma and Fiona are on Infectious diseases. On peads we are able to help out on the ward round doing lots of the little jobs and often worryingly being asked things the doctors should really know. Today I had a row over breast feeding as he didn't think it should be promoted solely for the first 6 months of life, when it definitely should! Its very interesting and most of the children are adorable! Amy and I have also found it heartbreaking as there are many more child deaths than would ever happen in a year in England. There are also 2 little girls that have been abandoned by their families and have been living in the hospital for 3 years now, they have HIV and have had a stroke due to the complications of it being left previously untreated. There are no toys for them and one is left caged in her cot most of the time. We have tried to buy them some colouring books and play with them but once we leave they will go straight back to having nothing...so sad!
On a happier note though we went away for a fantastic weekend to the salt pans! We had an interesting journey getting there though...we set off friday morning at 11.30 on the three hour bus trip but by 5pm we still hadn't made it! Our bus broke down only 1 hour outside francistown! Luckily we got a lift with a 78 year old south african lady who lives in francistown. She ended up being the most fascinating lady who was walking 150k that weekend! She is also organising a charity nature walk this weekend which we are going to go on! Anyway we broke our journey camping in Nata and finally reached Gweta on satuirday morning. We set off on a long nature drive through the bush and then quad biked through the salt pans whilst the sun was setting! It was absolutely amazing....the pans make you feel like you are on the moon as its a white expanse of nothing and is absolutely silent! We then had the best steak we've all ever eaten cooked on an open fire and fell asleep in the open air lying up looking at the stars. Only to be woken up by the sunrise!
We now can't wait to have another adventure at the rhino sanctuary!!
hope you are all ok and enjoying wimbledon...we are trying to catch peaks here when they play it on tv.
lots of love
JAFA
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Paul Chinnock
non-member comment
Breast is best
Hello and pleased to learn things are (mostly) going well. As a nutritionist, I have to weigh in on the breastfeeding issue ...if only to say keep up the good work. Africa is often thought of as THE part of the world where one least needs to promote breastfeeding because it approaches universal levels.But EXCLUSIVE breastfeeding is another matter. In many African countries it is not the norm. It is only in the last few years that the benefits of exclusive bf have become really clear (and that it has been shown that 'mixed' feeding is the very worst thing when the mother is HIV+), so maybe the man you argued with is just out of date. If he was trained in Africa, it is quite likely that the curriculum was old, the textbooks ancient and the access to journals minimal. But keep on arguing! I noted that the last blog spoke of a lack of compassion on the wards. I hope you've not seen too much more of that. All the very best - Paul