Another week...

This past week has been super busy. It began with visitors from the US. Those of us who work in the field kindly refer to these visits as “VIP visits”. These visits usually include some of the upper brass from our headquarters in the states with a group of potential donors for the work out here.
This particular group was made up mostly of pastors from the states who had never been out here and were hoping to learn about the work that goes on. They were a pleasant group to host and asked good questions about what we do and the situation on the ground. One comment I would like to make though is about their size. Before they ever arrived, my colleagues and I made bets about how many of them would be overweight and sadly the person who guessed the highest was correct. The very fact that we were betting about this says something about the people we have come to expect on these VIP trips, but I also think that it is a sad commentary on our society – especially when many of the visitors we have are some of the top Christian leaders in our country. The Muslims here have just finished the month of Ramadan in which they fast for a month – perhaps we could use a month of fasting. Just a thought.
The week continued on rather slowly after our visitors left. The celebration of Eid el-Fitr, which is to mark the end of Ramadan, began on Tuesday so many of our workers have been off for the week. This meant less work for most of the week. However, on Thursday, calamity struck our hospital once again. You may remember my post regarding the burned hospital ward in February, well we have once again had to face the forces of nature head-on. On Wednesday a huge storm blew up with strong winds and took the roof right off of our Operating Theatre. There were actually some people inside at the time being stitched up but thankfully no one was injured. This event certainly added some excitement to the week as we immediately set about procuring the needed materials to repair the building. With roads the way they are, it will be several more days before all the supplies arrive but we should have the building repaired by the end of the week.




My week ended with an adventure yesterday. We have been trying to find ways to help the communities south of here that are struggling with a shortage of food and healthcare. There has been very little good information regarding two of the villages so yesterday I headed south on quad-bikes with several colleagues from the NGOs here to try and reach the villages so as to do a small assessment of the needs. In the end, we did not even reach the first village which is about 60kms south of here. After four hours of splashing and pushing and pulling ourselves through the mud we were eventually defeated by the road and had to turn around. We found ourselves stuck in a swamp and were kindly told by some guys on foot that a river too deep for our quad-bikes lay just ahead. And so it was. After four hours of trying, we were defeated by the logistical nightmare that exists in rainy-season Sudan. We will try again another day. This is just the way it is here. I will say though, a little mud never hurt anyone….pictures below.