Tobacco sellers

Scorpio loses!





Sunday 7th August

I can’t believe that this time last week we were in Mombasa relaxing by a pool; it seems so long ago, a different world, yet in the same region.

Food is in very short supply here - there is nothing much in the village market to buy I am told, and if there is it is very expensive.

We are OK, as in the compound the Sisters have established a small garden now, growing beans, tomatoes, a little lettuce, some sukuma wiki (a spinach look-alike, very high in vitamins), supplemented with some rice, beans and lentils purchased in Nairobi, Kenya (others don’t have the luxury of that).

There are a few reasons the price is up for all the food:
1) the crops burnt out in March during the tribal fighting
2) more Southern people returning home from the North to their new country
3) fewer supplies coming in from Kenya on the lorries because the growers can get a higher price from the UN, and World Health Organisation who are purchasing food for the starving in other parts of Africa (Somalia)
4) late rainy season

It’s very tough for the locals here. Because of the troubles in March, the container of food in the hospital which gets distributed 3 times a week to the very poor in the hospital is almost empty, and no sign of it being replenished any time soon…..

On a lighter note, the students had their final first block exam yesterday; I think only 3 have failed out of 13, which is not bad and they will have a chance to re-sit the exams that they have failed next term.
I start my real teaching in the class room on the 17th (term 2), beginning with 14 hours of first aid. That should be fun, as most times you read in the First Aid textbook, “don’t move the patient, wait for medical help”, “call an ambulance” (!), ‘apply a sterile dressing’. Think I will have to do a lot of improvisation……..

At least I have been able to get hold of a ‘Resusci Annie’ doll and thanks to Justin (doctor friend in Sydney), who also gave me some manikin face shields, so I should be able to teach CPR.
Not quite sure if anyone would survive here after a cardiac arrest, as there is no oxygen or ICU, of course, but the students need to know.

Was just preparing some food in the kitchen this afternoon when a lizard and a scorpion had this big fight, just in the corner of the kitchen under the bench. The scorpion lost the battle, all the lizard did was kill it but before he could eat it a chicken ran in and pinched it. All in a couple of minutes but I did manage to catch it on camera.