Work and Play

One of the aspects of Mbingo that has excited us the most is the opportunity to teach. Currently, Mbingo is training nurse screeners, nurse practitioners, house officers (physicians their first year out of medical school), and residents (both surgical and medicine/pediatrics). There is a daily morning report, bedside rounds (which we lead), clinic, and afternoon conferences where we have the opportunity to both lecture and learn. There is a so much unfamiliar pathology here in Africa that we often find we are learning as much as we are teaching. 

This is Tumi and John.  Tumi (on the left) is a first year medicine/pediatrics resident and John (on the right) is a nurse practitioner student.  They are working in the women's ward this month and Chuck has been doing teaching rounds with them each day.  Most of the trainees speak English, French, and pidgin English which helps with communicating with our patients that come from all over the country of Cameroon.

Thankfully there are some other wonderful physicians here to help guide us. These are Keith and Kay Streetfield. He is an anesthesiologist and she is a general practice physician from Australia. They have been here for the past 5 months, but have a lot of experience working in missions hospitals around the world. They have already been a great resource and we look forward to getting to know them better in the coming months. 

This week it began to rain a small amount. The rainy season does not technically begin until March 15th. These are some of the rain troughs around our house that will catch and divert the water. They are about a foot deep, but we have been told that ours are too shallow. We are intrigued and nervous to see how much rain this is going to be. 

Not all of our time is spent working. Here are some photos from this past week showing what we have done in our free time. We went on two different hikes into the mountains around our house. It already is beautiful and we have heard once the rains come that you can see mountains for miles. 

Chuck has been working on his guitar skills. JR has been teaching him some new chords and songs. Isaac refers to it as the "tar" and likes to try to play. He is a big helper these days. 

Please continue to pray for us as we begin a new week in the hospital. Last week was busy and difficult with several patients passing away. Losing a patient is always hard, but especially when language and cultural barriers make it more difficult to share with the families. God has been gracious to us in our first weeks here and we continue to pray for His provision and grace in our lives.