Well, things are still busy and time is flying by. I’m now
in my 8th month in Sierra Leone, and things are going well despite
the rain!
It has been great to have some new international volunteers:
Steph and Emma are midwives from Australia and England, who are giving up their
holidays to help us out; Iain is a new recruit from Scotland who is working on
the logistics/procurement side while Tom is away on leave.
We have also had input from Amy, another Australian midwife
who was around at the beginning of AWC Maternity and has been involved again to
aid in planning and organising recruitment and training of some new staff. So,
new blood and energy, and lots of new ideas, has helped us keep going and get
some key projects underway. It’s also helping me to feel a bit more supported,
inspired and motivated to keep going at a time when I risked feeling slightly
jaded (and homesick, with so much news on the radio and online about all that
is going on back in GB for the Olympic season!)
I had been told that August was the peak of the rainy
season, and it does appear to be the case. I don’t think we have any days when
it doesn’t rain at some point, and there seem to be days when it never stops!
However, with the use of dry bags, waterproof shoes, good raincoat and sturdy
umbrella, I am managing to survive the times when I am caught out in it – and I
am very lucky not to have to brave the flooded chaos of the roads to travel to
work every day. At the weekend, the road to the beach is quieter but still quite wet and wild.....
It is still warm, though not as hot as it has been, but there are lots of mosquitoes around. We have been seeing more pregnant women affected by malaria than ever, despite trying to give them all regular prophylaxis. Malaria in pregnancy has several risks, from anaemia and weight loss to coma (cerebral malaria) and miscarriage or preterm labour. Our midwives (and the mums) do very well looking after premature, tiny babies; we don’t have any incubators or other special equipment so have to rely on basics of keeping them warm with mum, giving expressed breast milk down nasogastric tubes and avoiding infection. The smallest baby at the moment was born at about 29 weeks and weighed just over 1kg at birth. She is doing very well, but will be with us for a while!
This weekend, we had a training day for the midwives including
new recruits and existing staff. It’s hard to get good attendance for study
days, but they were given the carrot of receiving a personal copy of the
guidelines each (Amy’s idea) plus a certificate (my idea): this appeared to be
a good incentive for them, so there was a record turnout! There was quite a lot
of preparation involved to get everything set up, but we had good fun doing
quizzes on drug and fluid calculations and then estimating blood loss with
mixtures of tomato ketchup and grape juice.
Finally managing to upload photos!
As I said, I have been a bit homesick this month. Lots of
the other British volunteers have taken leave to go home and join in OG fever,
and the social scene in Freetown is pretty quiet as a result of the rain.
However, there are plenty of people around at AWC and I am looking forward to
more visitors joining us later this month.
Emails/chat with friends much appreciated as ever J
Until next time,
Carolyn
