Nancy Foote
November 2008 Hi! I’m Nancy, from Seattle, Washington, the state on the west side of the United States (not Washington, DC, the US capital on the east coast). I have updated my travel blog and am preparing for my next adventure. footeloose
I am a Family Physician who quit practice after 21 years at a migrant and community health center in eastern Washington State to go back to school. I now have a Master’s in Public Administration with a Certificate in International Development from the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington in Seattle. I volunteered for over 2 months with Project HOPE Aug-Nov 2008 and am awaiting my assignment with Doctors Without Borders. In the meantime, I am working as a Spanish Medical Interpreter at the University of Washington Medical Center and volunteering in a free clinic locally.
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Travel Blog Posts
February 2nd 2011
Hello to all my friends. I am already on my next mission, this time as hospital manager in Amman, Jordan. But I wanted to catch you up with my work on the last mission in Southern Sudan. I was there for 6 months and it was a great experience. This will be in multiple installments, beginning this blog with my daily life. I hope you enjoy it - here it comes: It’s 6:30 and I may as well get up. I didn’t get much sleep…. again. There’s so much noise at night. The packs of dogs that roam the street and every other dog in the city bark at various times, and when one starts to howl, they all join in. And the donkeys bray. And a time-challenged rooster starts to crow at 3:30, and most ... read more
March 26th 2010
Just a quick post to let everyone know that I got my next assignment with MSF (Doctors without Borders). I'll be going to Aweil, in South Sudan, as the hospital administrator for 6 months. There is a 120-bed hospital in an area where there is malaria and many other infectious diseases in outbreaks and epidemics. MSF runs the OB and Maternal Child Health unit and the Ministry of Health the rest of the hospital. I don't have a lot of details yet, but met a pediatrician who just finished her mission there. She was very enthusiastic. So I'm looking forward to an interesting and challenging time. It's going to be very hot, and very muddy (rainy season while I'm there). I can't wait. I may or may not have access to the internet (and am having ... read more
March 9th 2010
My work From February of 2009 to February of 2010 I worked for MSF France Kenya at a clinic called Blue House. It is located in the Mathare slums of Nairobi where possibly as many as 250,000 - 500,000 people live in an area of a few square miles (tens of square kilometers). As you might imagine and by looking at the photos, living conditions are exceedingly difficult. Housing is very crowded and there is no running water (people purchase water 20 liters - 5 gallons - at a time and carry it home). Sanitation is found in communal toilets for those with money to pay (1 toilet for every 400 people), or families walk to the top of the hill above the slum and squat (so you can imagine what’s in the runoff from the ... read more
March 7th 2010
Very belated greetings to all my friends and colleagues. I was in Nairobi, Kenya here for a year and have completed my mission. As many of you know, I am working for Mèdecins sans Frontiéres (MSF) - Doctors Without Borders - with the French section. I’m now waiting to hear about my next mission. Here’s some information about my experience in Kenya. More about my work in the next blog. Nairobi A large city of around 3 million people and a hub of travel, finance and politics for East Africa, Nairobi is a modern city with many beauties. The climate is mild, neither especially hot nor especially cold. There are flowering plants and trees in abundance throughout the city. And if your house doesn’t have enough of them, you can purchase more at one of the ... read more
My next adventure - destination: Kenya
Published: February 2nd 2009Africa » Kenya » Nairobi Province » NairobiFebruary 2nd 2009
Hello, everyone I got my assignment with Doctors Without Borders (MSF - Medecins Sans Frontieres) and will be heading off on February 10th for New York (brief HR orientation), Paris (quick finalization of methods of treating multi-drug resistant tuberculosis) then on to Nairobi, Kenya. I will be working in the slums called Mathare outside Nairobi with a team of people. I don't have a lot more details about it, although you can see a few pictures and find out more about MSF's work in Kenya at: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/kenya and at http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/allcontent.cfm?id=39 . The specific article about the work in Mathare is at http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=1962&cat=field-news&ref=tag-index . It looks to be quite challenging, but I'm excited to get to be part of it. I have been working as a Spanish m... read more
November 25th 2008
I'm back in the States, having arrived in Seattle on 6 November, but I wanted to post one more blog. For those of you struggling with your commute to work, I thought I'd show you one possible alternative. This is a composite of a typical day for me and my medical colleagues traveling to clinic sites: 0500: I usually get up a little early so I can work on the Internet at a time when there aren't too many people on. That way it won't time out, and it usually works with the lightning speed of around maybe 50 kbps (much slower after about 0630). 0600: off to the wardroom for breakfast and to fill my Kearsarge nalgene bottle with ice for some cool water throughout the day (I wrap it in a towel in my ... read more
Working in the Dominican Republic
Published: November 3rd 2008Central America Caribbean » Dominican Republic
October 15th 2008
The Dominican Republic was both interesting and challenging Weather got in the way a couple of times, making it impossible for the helicopters to pick us up from the clinic sites. So we had to ‘Remain Over Night (RON)’. I had this opportunity not once but twice! We stayed in a barracks that is in the Sports Complex where we held the clinic. The local fire truck brought water and filled a cistern at the barracks so there was water. The caveat was that the environmental health people checked the water with their instant color change kit and it was positive for E. coli and other coliforms (from fecal contamination). So I opted to delay a shower until I got back to the ship. We did have plenty of bottled water for drinking and brushing teeth ... read more
Clinic in Terre de Negre, a remote village in Haiti
Published: October 2nd 2008Central America Caribbean » Haiti
September 25th 2008
I finally got an opportunity to get out into the field in Haiti. The medical and veterinary team was scheduled to go out on the 24th, and mustered (lined up) at 6:30 am with all our gear. We waited (on the ramp - very uncomfortable) with our flotation devices on and helmets at the ready until 8:30 when they decided they couldn't get the part they needed for the helicopter to make it safe to operate. So we took all the gear off and went back inside. (Despite the annoyance of the wait and missed opportunity, I still would rather they identify they needed a part BEFORE we were in the air or after we were in the remote village and couldn't be picked up). Another team was scheduled to go out on the 25th, but ... read more
September 23rd 2008
We got liberty at Guantanamo on two occasions - the first during the big refueling and resupply stop we made, where we were allowed off the ship for about 6 hours one day and 4 hours the next. We stopped at Guantanamo again on the way to a liberty port in Puerto Rico and were allowed off for another 2 plus hours. The base has about 10,000 people, and many amenities. We were allowed to go to the Navy Exchange and Commissary (combination grocery and department store), which was very lucky because my trusty camera that had been to Pakistan and back gave up the ghost 2 days before liberty. I was able to purchase a new one. While they don't allow the taking of photographs, I did take a picture of me near the base ... read more
September 21st 2008
The Kearsarge provided a HUGE amount of assistance in Haiti, with the helicopters lifting more tons of food, water, and relief supplies than I can even imagine. We left there to go to Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba to get supplies and fuel (try to imagine this: we took on 750,000 gallons of fuel for the ship and another 250,000 gallons for the helicopters!). But we left 3 helicopters, work crews and some US Public Health Service (PHS) people behind to continue working while we were gone for 60 hours. The PHS folks were doing assessments in remote villages of the food, water and sanitation situation. They reported increasing malaria because of so much standing water, and while there wasn't severe malnutrition, the food shortages were becoming more urgent. I learned that one bag of ... read more
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