So now I am a lecturer...
on Shona in Sierra Leone (Sierra Leone), 10/Oct/2010 17:53, 34 days ago
So I am now a lecturer…I have given my first three lectures this week– two on cardiology and one on genetics. They seem to have gone down well. They are a nice bunch of students – 27 of them all in fifth year (out of six). In fifth year they only do paediatrics and obs and gynae! Thankfully they are responsive to answering questions and are good at listing off the things by rote (things which I can no longer remember…). They were all very grateful when I sent them off half an hour early on Tuesday too. Next week I have one more genetics and two on respiratory paeds. Thanks to everyone in Oxford whose presentations I have “borrowed” in order to make mylecture slides.Evenings OutI had a lovely evening out at Frankie and Howard’s house on Wednesday. They are ex-VSOs and are now the honorary aunt and uncle of all new VSOs. We had some lovely food including an amazing chilli con carne. I was most excited as this is the first mince I have seen for a while. Apparently you can buy it in Monoprix (the fab, but expensive, supermarket - £3 for a jar of peanut butter (of which I am eating a lot), over a pound for a tin of beans). It was good to meet up with everyone and chill out. Howard also gave lots of tips of things to do in SL – so anyone coming to visit (Ella) I have lots of info for you!I also visited the Mercy Ships for an evening service last Sunday– it was really nice and again, good to meet up with other people. The Mercy Ships have an obstetric fistula clinic and paediatric outpatients. The set-up there is so…. Organised…. In comparison to the hospital.On Friday evening we had Beth, Theo and Alex round for dinner– I made bean stew with rice and potatoes and Cat made pancakes for pudding. Beth had bought some nutella which made a perfect topping to the pancakes! I get excited at small things!And to the beach…Yesterday we had a lovely day– a bit of a lie in, then over to Beth and Theo’s. There we met Tash and Alex (the VSO Dr’s in Makeni). It was great to see them and exchange tales of woe from the hospital. If I think its bad in Ola During, it’s a thousand times worse in Makeni. The parents have to go out and BUY the cannulas there. At least in ODCH we have a ready supply of them, along with fluids and IV antibiotics and antimalarials to go through them.Anyway, Tash and Alex dispatched themselves to buy a car. The rest of us, meanwhile got a taxi out to Lakka beach, where we had three hours of pure heaven. I had a couple of long swims in the warm Atlantic (nice to get some exercise after a lot of sitting around in cars) and a long walk along the beach. It was absolutely beautiful, and hardly anyone there and no hassle. Bounty beaches indeed (the SL beaches were used in the Bounty ads in the 80s).We finished the day by watching sunset from a taxi as we drove past Lumley Beach then a lovely dinner at The Bamboo Hut.