Manono & Mulongo

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Manono & MulongoToday Myself, Dad, Murrey, Joy, David & Dr Ivan flew up in caravan to Manono in the northern part of the katanga region of DRC. Manono is a village where the family lived for 2 years back in the early 80's. The Flight took 2 hours to get up to mulongo. A company called air serve flew us up. They were going to fly myself, dad and Dr Ivan down to mulongo but the pilot wanted to test out the air strip first with an empty plane cuase he didnt trust the airstrip cause well its basically a straight field with grass and last time they landed there it was too bumby. there wasnt enough time cause it was getting dark so we had to leave it and travel down the next day in a car. That night we stayed in Manono which is a big enough village of around 50,000 or so, Goal (an irish charity) put us up for the night and then provided us with a vehicle to travel down to Mulongo. In manono i got to see the house which i lived back in 1985. i lived there for 6 months from july to december 1985. so it was good to finally get back and see the place cause last time i was kinda in my mummzies belly so didnt really see too much then.

But The next day we drove down to Mulongo. The road down was no comparrison to my trip up to kabiasha a couple of weeks ago as the roads where in reasonable condition. the 100 km took us 4 hours so it wasnt too bad considering the plonker who was traveling with us wanted to take pictures of every ditch in the road which in the congo is quite a frequent thing.

I spent 6 days in Mulongo and 4 of them were just myself and dad and then Murrey, Joy and David joined us for the last 2 days. Mulongo is the Village where dad visits 3-4 time every year too check up on the hospital while trying to squeez in a couple of operations and then also to help teach the Congolese Doctors and nurses which are living there.

On our first day there we arrived in by car to Dr Surge's house, to drop off Dr Ivan, and we were greated by kids and women jumping and screaming at our arrival. So it was a great welcoming and felt so great to have finally arrived in Mulongo, cause its the place in Congo which ive heard so much about and a place where my dad has put so much time and effort into. That day i got my first glance of life as a doctor cause i got to sit in on some doctor patient consultations between Dr Serge and Dr Fry and a hand full of patients which had arrived that day to be seen. Becuase these patients had only arrived that day i didnt expect to much hopefully one big tumour or something good anyway. but i wasnt to be disapointed as the was plenty of big operations needed. Dad had to get his fingers dirty a couple of times aswell which was prity funny and the good old quote from evolution made an apperance of "theres no time for lubrication, Theres always time for lubrication" but we saw patients with plenty of problems which needed a good fixing.

All these patients, if possible, were to be operated the following morning. So we got up and went to surjery at 8 am. Started off with the Woman with the cist the sizr of a football in her stomach and then Then women with the dodgy eye which needed to be removed, Then after that it was time for the 10 year old boy with the hand the size of a big mac too see if dad could downsize the hand, then it was time to operate on a guy who had his leg amputated and it had got reinfected so further amputation was needed. and they operated from 8-1 with around 6 operations so that was great finally being able to see Dr Fry in action and now i will beieve him when he says trust me im a doctor cause ive seen it with my own eyes now.

Then next day was the Congo's National Independance day, so everbody had the day off work which was a bit annoying as i didnt get see any more operations but we got to walk around the village a bit and see whats around. we got to see the Air Strip, The Market and then the Lake. It was all fun untill myself and dad started to get a little frustrated with the children following us and because their running around the dust is begining to go airborne and you cant see a thing or breath. and couldnt stop to appreciate anything really becuase of the number of the children surrounding you. and then by the time we got home we remembered we didnt have a cook cause no-one was working so we had to cook ourselves which was interesting enough, but it suprising all turned out prity well. and i had the plessure of spending 3 hours boiling water in a kettle on a charcoal fire whih was really african if i do say myself, well apart from the fact that africans dont actually boil there water to drink it but us white folk do, so it felt cool to me.

Everday around 4 o clock once the temperature began to cool down we got a game or two of football beside the hospital with all the kids. Their attention span wasnt the best so that ruled out the games of duck duck goose so i had to stick with football. there would be around 100-150 kids running around, between the too matchs. one controled game of around 30 boys around 13-16 and then everyone else packed into a game of just running around kicking eachother.

on the monday morning we got more operations done with the highlights being re-aligning a small boys leg. and then some prostate operations. and a hemroid operation aswell which was interesting.

Then on the tuesday the day we were leaving i finally got to see a baby delivery, interesting to say the least but one thing i got say i dont know what all the hassel is about. the women who was having this baby was only young not sure the age i think it was 19 and there wasnt a sqeek out of her no problems atol. After the delivery we then went down to the school to hand out worm tablets which would kill all types of worms that would be in the kids stomachs. Then we marched out to the airstrip with around 1500 people at least to see us off. the plane arrived in with 850kg of Medical supplies for the hospital which the women threw onto their noggins and off they went to the hospital. while us muzungos stood and watched them do all the hard work.

So after the 1.5 hours flight back to Lubumbashi we got home to a warm shower and a milder climate of city life.

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Comments

[Mum]

well done -sticking the theatre!
Thinking of joining the Greys Anatomy team? -We women are not a pack of wusses! - just African mamas have a higher pain threshold! trust you enjoy your last 2 weeks in Lbashi - cant wait to see the photos when dad comes home Love you Mum

[Debs]

Go on John...
Hey Pete, I've read this entry so many times and really i am just so proud and impressed by ya, it would of been vomit galore if i'd had to watch the op's...go you! so where's next on Petes adventures???! Missing you from home :)

[patrick marsh]

colorful language
lol I love the way you write! nogins and such. Keep up the great work and excellent attitude