The News From Lake Rukwa

Lots has happened since my last post. When one begins to become involved in a place events seem to pile up on one another. I’ll just start writing and see how it comes out.

For openers let’s catch up on the hospital. We’ve been doing a lot of surgery. "We" means the little team I’ve put together and not me being full of myself. Some cases have been routine and others have been extraordinary. The routine ones have been hernias, hydroceles, various GYN cases, rectal problems and such. All have done well and it almost seems like home. The weird stuff that one would only see in a place like this makes the trip really interesting. For instance: Take a look at the before and afters of  this 22 year old girl who went through some ritual mutilation of her earlobes and developed keloids (out of control scars) that are the size of small oranges. Even if you’ve got a large plastic surgery practice in the states chances are you will never get to treat anything like this. Operating these was a fascinating 2 ½ hours of seat-of-the-pants decision making about skin flaps, reconstruction, etc with the goal being to come out with something resembling an ear. Also this week we have a local nun who ignored my advice last year to have her localized melanoma removed from her foot and now requires a below the knee amputation. Another one in line is a stunningly beautiful young woman who needs the middle three toes of her foot amputated because of sarcoma (soft tissue malignant tumor).  Yeah, life can be a barrel of laughs around here. And then there are the fun cases like the 75 year old guy we operated today who had lemon sized stone in his bladder. Why is it fun? Because starting tonight he no longer has to stand on his head to pee.

There is one sad and strange story I have to report. Yesterday afternoon a 3 month old child was brought in seemingly in abdominal distress. The child’s abdomen was distended more than any I have seen. It appeared about to burst. With no x-ray to help (the unit has been down for 2 months) we made a decision to operate based on what we saw feeling that something in there needed to be decompressed. When the anesthesiologist put the baby to sleep the distention was relieved and the abdomen appeared normal. Puzzled, we cancelled the surgery and placed the baby back in the pediatric ward. By morning he had died. Further questioning of the mother revealed that she had taken him to a traditional healer (read witch doctor) for a belly ache who had evidently given him an overdose of some powerful local herb. Yes, the baby had been poisoned. Welcome to Africa.

On the social side I seem to be falling in with an expanding circle of South Africans. Last night I had dinner with a couple of guys who are about to open a resort on Lake Tanganyika. Last year I visited the lake which is the longest and second deepest in the world. It is positively spectacular and a long neglected asset to the Tanzanian economy. All that is about to change. Heretofore the only place to stay was a posh fly-in-fly-out $900 a night resort that only a few could experience and added nothing to the economy. These guys, Chris and Ben, are building a low and middle end place that should attract ordinary tourists from everywhere. We had a great time talking about their plans for the lake and the upshot is that we are invited there over the weekend to sleep in a deluxe tent and get the feel of the area. I intend to do an interview and photo essay on the place and try to get it published in an American travel magazine. More on this next week.

And finally, I had dinner tonight with the regional administrator of Rukwa Province. The appointed equivalent of our state governor the honorable Daniel Njoolay (pronounced July) is the head guy for a huge territory that I have described before. We met last year and have finally gotten together again. Dinner was at Forest Way and he brought his wife who remained silent through most of dinner. . My agenda was to lobby for hospital improvement. His was to find out about Barack Obama. Neither of us was disappointed. I carefully laid out for him which deficiencies I thought could be remedied. There was no sense bothering with those that can not. Most of what I told him he already knew. One or two thins genuinely shocked him. He asked me to send him a written report which I will, being careful not to point a blaming finger at anyone in particular. I’m told that’s how one survives here. Then I described the current nature of American politics bearing in mind that Bush has been extremely popular here. It seems that one of the few things the administration has done right has been to earmark significant funds for African health care and it has been appreciated. Looking to the future I described the Obama-mania in the US that robbed Hillary of her shot and assured Daniel that the nominee would be a good choice for everyone and will probably be elected.

Over coffee the Commissioner/Governor launched into an explanation of how African politics work that I found fascinating. I can’t comment on it because it was only an hour ago and I haven’t had time to digest it all. Maybe I’ll write about it later. Feeling privileged to have had this conversation I picked up the check. After all, where else can you take a governor and his wife out to dinner for under 20 bucks?

Meanwhile, poor Catherine missed this event because she has come down with a case of what I call the Tanzanian three-step. She spent the day sitting on the can with her head in a bucket while Jasper and I took turns running back to the hotel to give her shots of anti-nausea medication. She seems better tonight and may even emerge from her room in the morning.

Well, that’s the news from Lake Rukwa where the women have perfect balance, the men have perfect teeth and all the children think white people are funny looking.

Until next time………….

Comments

[Jessica]

Wow - that is some photo. Poor girl! She must be so happy to have normal ears now...
So sad about the baby - did you ever figure out what the witch doctor gave him?

[Ara]

It sounds like you are having so much fun! Next time, I'm going. Did another Top Knife case the other day- gunshot wound to femoral artery in a 14 year old. Replaced it with a 6mm PTFE graft. Saved the leg and he went home two days later.

[generic cialis]

I am looking for what are the things they like about the area. What
are the lifestyle issues they are looking for, or what are the
differences from where they currently live.
Example: Fresh Air, Boating, Skiing, Scenic beauty ???

[dental health care]

Show romanization
on personal opinion I think this blog should be disseminated by some mass media as their informasion is very detailed and good bases ...

[technical writing jobs]

wow that nice!!.nice to see that she's fine

[רופא שיניים]

I am really very sad to see this poor girl's photo. I am always trying to help poor people. I am dentist. I do arrange free medical camp for poor people.

[cialis price]

I liked this blog, i think is very interesting, most of all for the new ideas that this blog talk.

[psychic reading]

Interesting pieces, I feel the new ideas you present make a difference in the larger picture, and that blogging is the new fad.