A Tuesday trip to Nyamuti school

May 24, 2016

Good evening my friends,

I hope this message finds you all well.  I have had a few very encouraging emails this week from colleagues and family and I am feeling very grateful. Thank you.

We spend the morning visiting a local school to donate a few of the dollar store nick knacks that we had brought along.  Our family set off at 6:45am with a 9 y.o old guide, JoJo and walked along the path with other school children the 30min it took to reach the Nyamuti school.  An elementary school with 480 students grades SK-7.  The headmaster was expecting us and was glad to see us because the books that we had purchased had just arrived the day before ! (what books you ask? – well we asked the same question).  It turns out that a Norwegian donor gave money to replace the very old school books.  So what are we to do, with the entire school assembled, the Zimbabwean flag about to be raised and the table of books out – we played the part of the token “Mourungou” (white person) and smiled for the cameras as we distributed the books to the children.  We also watched as the grade 7 girls carried drinking water over 800m from the village well to the school, as they do daily.  Dr Thistle is hoping to raise funds for a water project as well.  It was a nice trip.  The kids giggled and laughed at Mathieu as he played the class clown role, carrying a load of bricks instead of gently waving goodbye and thank you (he says that he was carrying plates?). It helped put poverty into context; the level of poverty of a hospital worker’s child compared to the village children, compared to the missionaries children, the white Zimbabwean etc etc. Many more questions…  I tried to relay my thanks and appreciation to the teachers for the work that they do as we all know the important role education plays in lifting people out of poverty.  I’m sure that my smile and the books were well received but that it hasn’t changed the class size (45 students to 1 teacher), their salaries (~400 US $/mth) or their work condition (on-site accommodation next to the VERY rural school, no electricity, fire wood at cost).  

We were in back in time for tea (10am) to savor a piece of the pumpkin, chocolate bread that I had made the night before and then we were off to work.  I performed a prostatectomy, a cystoscopy and a biopsy of a metastatic lung cancer that had metastasized to bone, leading to a compression fraction causing paralysis and replacing his sacrum with a huge mass.  I felt happy with my day for a few reasons… I had a bit of down time and family time, the dressings are almost all sorted and in order, I performed the prostatectomy from start to finish (having seen only one before) and the conversation with the family of the elderly man with the lung cancer was honest and well received.  The family members will come back next Friday to get pathology results (faster than my turn around time in Canada – by the way) and will likely follow my suggestions against more travel to consider chemo or radiation and to care for him at home during his final last months.

Time is going by so fast.  Tomorrow is a STAT holiday (Africa Day?). We leave Karanda on Sunday.  I will be busy baking muffins for the kids’ classes and my colleagues in the OR.  I’m looking forward to a good nights rest after all that walking (Mathieu was in my arms for most of the trip back after using up all his mischievous energy). 

Good night, Sleep tight,

Michelle

(photos are really hard to upload given limited bandwidth - will try on Sunday when to wifi is supposed to be free - if not from Harare or Zambia - stay tuned - and thank you for your ongoing interest... )