5/2/22
Yesterday, I had a bit of a lie-in because Fridays always make me super tired and then there’s no weekend left to relax! I went to NICU for the ward round around 09.00 to find that two of the babies were going to be discharged – one, Moxamed, came in with a seizure secondary to a subdural haematoma, which was surgically managed with two drains and the other, Farixya, had meconium aspiration when it was born, so initially went into respiratory distress. Dr Shukri was explaining to the mother of Moxamed, that although he could go home, he needed to be allowed to rest, only lying flat, or being held still. No rocking or shaking, as there was still a small collection remaining. Farixya was ready to rock and her mother was thrilled!
I went to teach by 10.15 (since everyone is late, there’s no point being on time for 10.00!) I waited, and waited and yet, not a single soul turned up!! It seems common for people here to be flakey about lectures here – we were looking at an article today about medication non-adherence and the factors affecting it and perhaps there are many more things that affect people here which mean they cannot make it to uni – who knows?! I think that might be being generous! Anyway, I messaged the guy who set me up with the class to tell him and then left to grab a coffee with Mubarak before heading to theatre as I knew there was some cool surgeries going on.
Surgery
Queeeeen Dr Shukri was working hard, having already finished the first case (another hydrocephalus baby requiring a shunt) and had started on the second which was a baby with spinal bifida. Dr Shukri was carefully isolating the nerves that had come out of the spinal column and was trying to poke them back through the vertebrae without damaging them. It was a delicate procedure, but after she isolated them from the other tissue, which was basically a lump on the back, she got them back in the right place pretty quick. Nursing anaesthetists are common here and anaesthetic students commonly manage patients in theatre, only calling their senior if required. Sulieman, who has attended over 100 operations and is the most hard working student in his cohort, was on duty and was explaining the calculations for intravenous fluids hourly rate for babies! Shukri, Sulieman and another student Mohamed were making some jokes too! Everyone else left the theatre after the case was finished and Sulieman asked me to help with the care of the baby in recovery – basically monitoring, fluids and paracetamol. Babies are a nightmare because they always take all the monitoring equipment off all the time, so I basically specialled the baby!
The next case on the list I was really excited for – a skin graft for a burns patient. The patient was a young girl, who I estimated to be ten, but it turned out she was only five, but a lanky five year old!! She had been trying to cook and had fallen in the fire!! Her abdomen looked awful and Dr Shukri wanted to take grafts from donor sites on her thigh – ideally only one, as the donor site is pretty painful afterwards, since they’ve effectively shaved off the top layer of skin. There was a fancy machine to do the shaving to ensure you get a continuous roll of skin, but it was playing up a little! Once it got going, two nurses pulled the thigh tight to ensure there was a flat surface to shave off the skin. Then one nurse had to preserve the skin in saline and then roll them out again. They were then put through a machine which punctures lots of holes in them, meaning the skin can be stretched to cover more of the wound site. It is this procedure that make skin grafts look like chicken skin – who knew?! Dr Shukri then clipped them all on to the burn site, dressed the thigh, and bam, they were done!
After lunch, I prepped for my English class for nurses – I was a little nervous as I was going to have Amanda join me. This was a good thing overall, but pretty intimidating to a nurse (not a teacher) to have a teacher watch your teaching skills! To be fair, when we went to class it all worked out well and Amanda jumped in naturally and made the class more interactive and worked in some tips for how to answer impossible questions which at least half of the OET questions seem to be!! We played games at the end involving racing and everyone enjoyed it. We had seven students, which was the most I’d ever had!
After class, I headed out for a quick stomp up to the mosque at the top of the hill, enjoyed the sun setting before getting a cha (Somali tea) and heading up to the roof to chill with some tunes and a very pretty sunset. I came down for dinner in Edna’s dining room, where all international staff and Edna eat every day and then me and Amanda headed out for ice-cream. Its been a longggg time since I had ice-cream and I had a super green, but very tasty pistachio one. We chatted a bit about various things including Western vs. Somali culture before heading back!
6/2/22
Today, I woke up at 07.30 and decided to sleep more – my first class was not til 10.00 so I could relax. Then I had my usual Somali pancake breakfast with PB and banana and honey, and as close to Somali tea as I can make. Somali tea is a combination of tea, sugar, powdered milk, and spices including ginger and cinnamon. Its pretty nice!! I read my book at little after breakfast and then received a call asking where I was. It was 10.08. Considering the day before, the whole class had stood me up, I was a little taken aback, but I rushed over anyway. One girl, Fatma was there and raring to go. Bless her, she was a hardcore midwife and had just finished a night shift. We did the class, going through English reading comprehension questions as well as just some conversation. At the end, she asked if the class could be earlier as she would always be coming off a night so wanted to get to bed quicker after. I like Fatma because she likes to be on time! I have to be ready for bang on 09.00 tomorrow as she’s a ten minute early person!
After class and before lunch I did a quick workout. Then I ate lunch with a solid bunch of women – Edna, Dr Asha who is FINALLY back from Djibouti (YAAAAS) with a passport (YAAAAS), Amanda, Muna who is the boss of the university and has taken Amanda under her wing and Dr Amal who is boss of the hospital and is cool but also a bit scary! They were talking about an outreach programme in which hospital staff and students will go to a school where a lot of the kids are malnourished and educate the kids along with their parents on nutrition, health and dental care. After lunch, me and Amanda then needed to lesson plan before heading to class.
Our class turned out pretty well, though everyone was late again, even for a later start!! We worked them hard and played some games, so lets see if they come back tomorrow. One of the earlier students Amal said that some people had said that the class the day before had made them achey and tired because of the team games and running! Most people never exercise here – it is an uncommon thing for people to enjoy, but Amal is keen on her home workouts, because she wants a flat tummy – why not?! I feel like I’ve been fighting against the Somali tummy the entire time I’ve been here because the diet is packed full of sugar and exercise is limited! I was starving by the end of our lesson, so me and Amanda went to try out falafel from a little stall on campus – it was surprisingly good and absolutely rammed full of girls ordering cha, doughnuts and falafel! Most of the on campus places seem to be populated with girls because outside of campus most of the cafes are male-only zones, apart from the more expensive Western ones. A tea at a regular cafe is around $0.10 whereas at the Western cafes its around $1.50!
I took my falafel sandwich on a walk. I walked past one of the ladies I buy chapati from who smiled and waved at me, before deciding that I was going to do a different route from usual. I headed towards ‘downtown’, which is the busiest bit of town with the market and a few malls and cafes. I headed down the dusty road, trying not to kick dust onto my toes, while also not getting hit by any cars, when a guy started speaking to me. He spoke to me in English and I replied where I could in Somali. I said I was going for a walk to a hotel and back and that maybe I would get a tea. He said I could get tea from the stall he was sat at, so I joined him. He was called Saaed, was from Hargeisa, but had spent some time living in London, before heading back to Hargeisa three years ago. He sounded like a proper Londoner at times!! After my tea, I tried to pay but he said it was on him, so I thanked him and left.
I returned in time for tea and ate with the same guys as lunch. Then it was time for our next bake. I first started baking here after trying a cake from a stall, which was BAD and since then Mubarak has been hooked! When the cake runs out, we have to bake again! Today we made carrot and ginger cake with cream cheese icing and it tastes delicious! Making cake here is a bit of a trial since we have no weighing scales, no sieve, no measuring jug, no self-raising flour and no loaf tin, so when the cake turns out relatively well, its always a win!!
wanderingwelshie travels 