We have put this blog together to let all our friends and family know what we are up to this coming year.
When we first met, one of the things we wanted to do was spend some time volunteering in a developing country together. We have spent the last six months deciding and applying to various organisations which we have an interest in and where our skills could best be used.
We are currently in Canada and the States to visit friends and family during September. We are in the midst of visiting Vancouver, Kelowna, Fort Wayne (USA), Edmonton and finally Calgary for a wedding, and return to the UK on October 1st.
Our next destination is Malawi. We leave London on October 11th and fly via Nairobi to Blantyre in the southern region of the country. We will be working in the Beit Trust CURE International Hospital.
Malawi has a population of just under 13 million people. It remains one of the poorest countries in Africa and the life expectancy is 40. This is mainly a result of the high incidence of HIV and AIDS. One fifth of the children die before the age of 5. Healthcare is very poor.
There are only 4 orthopaedic surgeons and two medically qualified anaesthetists in the whole country. The country is currently undergoing a programme of training doctors over a 15-20 year period. Many NGO’s and volunteers are part of this work and there is plenty of opportunity to be involved.
The CURE hospital is a 66-bed teaching hospital that specializes in treating the orthopaedic needs of children and adults. The facility was opened in 2002 and serves children with physical disabilities regardless of their ethnic background, religious affiliation or ability to pay. Eighty percent of the surgery is for children with a wide range of orthopaedic conditions including clubfoot, burn contractures, osteomyelitis and other acquired or congenital conditions. The hospital also has special expertise in total hip and knee replacement surgery, one of the very few places where this surgery is available in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The CURE hospital has 3 orthopaedic surgeons along with 2 clinical officers who provide the anaesthesia. It maintains an orthopaedic and anaesthetic clinical officer-training program. As a visiting anaesthetist, Nigel will work full time alongside the clinical officers in a supervisory and teaching role. Currently they perform very few regional block techniques that enhance recovery and pain relief. The medical director, Mr Jim Harrison, one of the surgeons, is keen to have visiting anaesthetists to update and help train the current clinical officers. Michal will be taking her painting gear and will probably spend some time volunteering in the hospital or a nearby orphanage.
We return from Malawi on the 23rd of December in time to celebrate Christmas with family in the UK. We will then prepare to go out and join the Africa Mercy, an NGO hospital ship, while it is docked for 6 months in Freetown, Sierra Leone. We join the boat in Tenerife in the Canary Islands on January 21st and sail with it to Freetown, arriving around February 3rd.
Sierra Leone is a country broken by civil war. Over a 10-year period rebel forces raided towns and villages, using rape, terror, amputations and brutal murder as weapons of war. Child soldiers were recruited and trained to fight against their own villages and people. Most of the violence was fuelled by an attempt to take control of the rich diamond and gold resources of this beautiful country.
The rebels were disarmed in 2002 by the United Nations, however the country remains scarred by the events of the past. Sierra Leone is ranked second to last on the Human Development Index, a guide used by the World Health Organisation which takes into account life expectancy and health issues.
The Mercy Ships have been working in West Africa since 1978. They have completed a total of 223 port visits and perform over 1000 operations during a visit lasting 6 months. The Africa Mercy is their latest vessel and has six operating theatres which will double their capacity to perform operations.
Michal will be working as an assistant cook in a team catering for 400 crew on board along with several patients. Nigel will be one of 3 anaesthetists on board working in the operating rooms. Some of the main procedures carried out include cleft lip and palate repairs, cataract and squint operations, operations for limb deformities and trauma, maxillofacial tumours followed by reconstructive surgery, and childbirth and rape injuries such as vesico-vaginal fistula repair. Most people with any such deformity or disability are treated as outcasts by their society, regarded as possessing evil spirits. Following their surgery, which would normally be impossible to obtain, they can begin a new life and become a functioning member of society once again.
Here are the websites of the organisations we are travelling with if you are interested in finding out more:
www.cureinternational.org
www.mercyships.org
Keep in touch!
Love from Michal and Nigel
It is a little late to say Merry Christmas but we wish you all a healthy and Happy New Year. We arrived back in the UK on Christmas Eve in time to celebrate with Nigel’s family. It was a bit of a change after 3 months in Malawi, sudden c
old and Christmas bits and pieces everywhere. We said to each other days before we flew back that it was hard to believe it was going to be Christmas in a few days. I was still in flip flops, we had just visited Lake Malawi, which seemed like a tropical paradise and we were living in one of the poorest countries in the world which meant there were very little Christmas decorations. The main concern for the majority was having enough food and clothes for their children.
Malawi certainly lives up to its reputation as the ‘warm heart of Africa’. The people we met were very decent and honest. They would often stop you along the paths to say hello and have a chat. If it rained, they would hold their umbrella over you. In the markets, there was a whole range of fresh produc
e for sale and no one ever tried to sell their items at inflated prices. In fact, most would throw in a little extra with a big smile. We struggled with the wealthy lifestyles that many foreigners had in comparison and the lack of opportunity the Malawians had, however determined, to rise above their “fate”. As we left, Malawi was well into the wet season. It rained heavily each day. Consistent rain is promising for a good maize harvest, the staple food in an economy based on subsistence farming.
The country is beautiful. The red earth and green tea plantations are an amazing visual sight. Lake Malawi is a tropical paradise with its warm and clear green/blue water, home to five hundred different types of colourful cichlid fish (along wi
th hippos and crocodiles). We had a chance to explore outside of Blantyre, Malawi’s largest city, on weekends and visit the nearby mountains and safari parks. Without our own transport, we piled into the local mini buses along with 18 other people, babies, chickens, and enormous sacks of food. Near the end of our stay we hopped over to visit Nigel’s relatives in Johannesburg, South Africa. We were spoiled rotten!
As for work, Nigel has been working at the Beit Cure International Hospital teaching (and learning from) the anaesthetic clinical officers there. The hospital treats children from all over the country with limb deformities, burn contractures and cleft lips. The standards are good and to date the hospital has performed five thousand anaesthetics without serious complications. It was
really moving to be present as each patient was prayed over before their operation. Nigel occasionally worked at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, a large public hospital over the road where conditions were extremely different. He admired their staff who worked in frustrating conditions. The equipment frequently malfunctioned and drugs were often out of date or in very short supply. It hit home very quickly, how much easier his working environment is in the UK. During his last few weeks Nigel helped teach on a Paediatric Anaesthesia Course co-run by a Sheffield colleague, Nigel Pereira.
I went to Malawi with the intention of painting. Our weekend adventures gave me an overload of material. I talked with several Malawian artists and discovered that all the art being produced was very similar. I began work on a series of paintings that depicted the various Malawian landscapes as I
saw them. It wasn’t difficult. The colours blew me away. I managed to find the only gallery in Blantyre (run by a Canadian woman with her Italian husband), book a solo show and sell out. I am still stunned that I had this outrageous and amazing opportunity in the midst of Malawi.
Now we are back in Manchester, England, enjoying Christmas and New Years with Nigel’s
family and regularly calling my family in Vancouver, Canada. We are here for 3 more weeks before heading off to the Canary Islands to join the Africa Mercy, a floating hospital, sailing to Liberia (no longer Sierra Leone) until next fall. Nigel will be one of 3 anaesthetists on board and I will be an assistant chef. Liberia has recently come out of a 14 year civil war and lacks the infrastructure to support a health care system. It is currently overrun with 15,000 UN Peacekeeping Troops. We are looking forward to another adventure and have been told to expect equatorial heat.
As always, keep in touch!
