Quite a second day!

Up early to run, hoping for the treadmill in the gym.  Instead I ended up running around a very small field many times to get to 3 miles.  The gym opened a bit late and it was completely taken over by an aerobics class.  Then I showered and got ready for breakfast.  When I tried trimming my beard, I blew up the electric trimmer with the voltage converter.  Then, after it sparked, I became worried the converter  itself wasn’t working correctly and I needed a new one!  I did get most of the shave in so that was good!

Then breakfast, chatting with a California couple about Ethiopia and the NGO they are participating in, Project Mercy.  It’s an obstetrical project outside of Addis.  Like many stories we’ve read, an Ethiopian woman, who fled in the 1970s during the coup and take-over, started the project.  Cindy gave the California woman an IPhone lesson and we shared a bit about the Black Lion project as well. 

Then we were off to the hospital.  Except no one came.  We finally got started at about 10am after two phone calls from the business office personnel to the hospital secretary.  This was our first real look at Addis.  I don’t think words can do justice to the degree of poverty, the riot of cars, trucks, buses, people walking, the building, the dust and noise.  I will put some photos to show a little of the trip to the hospital.  Even when we got to the more affluent part of the city closer to the hospital, it seemed very poor. 

from the back seat on the way to Black Lion

a gas station across the road

Along the way, 2 photos

The hospital itself was also poor, crowded with people and dark inside.  We walked up 7 flights of stairs to the Pediatric Department office.  We’d been warned not to try the elevators and it was easy to see why just by looking at the doors.  No one was using them.  Patients, families and staff shared the stairs.  We got a key to our space, a cell phone that needs minutes added and broadband cell tower for our computer internet access. 

Then we had several tours of the NICU area.  I will attach photos.  There is a small unit for premies, a unit for sick term babies and another unit, which I think is step-down.  Besides treating high bilirubin levels and sepsis, abandoned babies.  The unit for premature babies has blenders that Philip installed when he was here; there are 7 or 8 beds.  The other two units do not have blenders.  We did not go to see Labor but there is a little admission area.  We also visited the milk prep room, the nurses’ lounge, the residents sleep quarters and several rooms for mothers to do kangaroo and well baby care.  The NICU is brighter than the hallway!  There is an x-ray room and babies have to go there for x-rays.  We saw several and wondered why they needed to go since none were  tachypneic or requiring oxygen. 

Several views of the Milk Preparation Room

wash area into the NICU

Hallway to the NICU and other spaces

Premie Room--see the nice blenders Philip created

Term baby room and step down

xray--babies have to go there!

Sister Brehane made tea for us in the afternoon

We also met Sister Brehane and a number of nurses and residents and interns.  We met Adonnis who is a neonatologist.  Sister Berhane and two other nurses took Cindy and me to lunch.  It was a small café above a grocer and bakery, very popular.  The food was quite good though I had spaghetti and meatsauce.  Plus Sister kept feeding us the Ethiopian food they ordered.   So we had quite a bit.  One of the nurses drove us and while we were eating, the radio was stolen from her car!  Sad!! 

Cindy and I also spent a frustrating afternoon looking for a converter.  We think we need to go to a big hotel but everyone driving keeps taking us to electronic or electric stores.  First our driver from the hospital stopped at two electric stores.  Those are mainly dealing with building supplies.  Then we got a contract hospital to come take us from the ERC back to the city—more electric stores, electronic stores, one tourist agency, a cell phone shop.   None has what we want but everyone has a good idea where we should go.  The maintenance man at the ERC also wanted to look at how the converter works and we had to go up to our office to show him.  Tomorrow we will hope to try and find a tourist hotel near the hospital, which should solve our problem.  Either we will find one or we find that none are available. 

By the end of that trip and the day, we were both exhausted, so I’m not going to do much more than this tonight. I did call Rosie on Magic Jack, we had a nice dinner, and Cindy is charging my things.  I don’t think either of us will have difficulty sleeping tonight.