Blogs from Jimma, Oromia Region, Ethiopia, Africa - page 2

It has been quite an amazing series of events that has led us to the situation we are now in. We happened to be eating at a café, sat next to the NGO Americans and struck up a conversation. Just on chance we decided to visit the university and the Saint happened to sit next to us. Now, all of us are intertwined trying to help one 20 year old girl from a remote region in South-West Ethiopia. We arrived home from Chiri and our beloved Americans on Monday. That next morning I check my email as usual and we had an email from them. Monday morning a girl from Gambela came to their clinic; they attached a pic. She has a massive tumor on her lower jaw. The tumor is more pronounced on her left ... read more

The Americans at the NGO have talked about the Sisters of Charity in Jimma a lot. They send some of their patients to the sisters for care. A future post will explain the circumstances, but the Americans have a very serious patient that they sent to Jimma and they asked us to act as a liaison between the sisters, patient and a surgeon (the Saint from my previous post) who has agreed to see the patient. They were planning on sending the patient on a bus to Jimma with a note and money saying, “take me to the Sisters of Mercy.” Since I have not been to the Sister’s facility nor met them, I decided to go and visit. This way I will have some prior experience with them before the patient arrives. The facility was ... read more

Also on the grounds of the health center is an orphanage. They currently have 12 children, 6 boys and 6 girls, and they are adorable…and tragic. There were two girls in kindergarten and they were probably the cutest. One of them, Edaly, was very outgoing. I went down to the orphanage with one of the Americans for coffee. We then started playing around with the kids and I showed them how to put their hands together, fold over their middle fingers, and rotate their hands so that their middle fingers could wiggle from their palms. Edaly couldn’t quite get the hang of it, so I would place her hands in the right position for her, and then she would run around showing everyone. I can also make a popping sound by placing my right pointer finger ... read more

We planned to meet up with the fellow Americans living in Chiri, which is near Bonga. It worked out that the other expats who were living there were away and they had the place all to themselves. One of their drivers was coming up to Jimma to drop off their founder and we were able to hitch a ride back with their driver. The road from Jimma to Bonga varied from paved to, well…unpaved. There was construction at points and some mud. The drive ended up taking maybe three and a half hours; three to Bonga and a half an hour to Chiri. We arrived at their NGO around sunset. Their compounds had their medical facilities as well as their living compounds. I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, but the place totally blew my ... read more

Once again, the Americans we were staying with worked at a health center. They showed us around and told us some of the projects they were working on. Their clinic had an in-patient ward, a tuberculosis program, vaccination out-reach, a malnutrition program, etc. It was all very impressive. We did rounds with the doctor and his nurses; there were only 3 or so patients. One of the patients had measles and he was in isolation. They had to deal with some stuff regarding WHO regulations, and per diem; I won’t get into it here, you can try and find their blog if you are so inclined. We saw some interesting stuff, measles and maggots in a kid’s head, you won’t see that in America. Unless you’re one of those naïve, uninformed parents that doesn’t vaccinate your ... read more