Time moves on and I've been in Bahar Dar now for over 2 weeks and for better or worse am starting to get into a routine. I've been meaning to post something new for a while but have been too busy finding my feet.
Life at home has been improving steadily but unfortunately the poison has not entirely deterred the rat and I've had a few face to face meetings. I missed my best chance to rid myself of my murine intruder when it ran to hide behind a chest of drawers giving me a good shot with a broom handle but I missed and (s)he escaped. My currently enacted plan C is to seal up all possible entry points and so far it seems to be working. Plan D would have cravings for fish and go miaow.
More happily I'm now pretty much equipped for day to day life but am holding off doing anything more adventurous than make porridge or sandwiches until I am rodent free. Tea and whisky supplies remain healthy but marmite supplies are approaching critical – reinforcements have been requested but their ETA is 3-4 weeks. I also now have a (mostly) working sink and am munching away on bananas and papaya from the garden. When I moved in there was a dirt track outside the front door but the town is currently in the process of turning into a tarmac road. I'm sceptical I will see the end result before I return and it is currently a muddy rubble strewn mess. A lot of building projects seem to get started and then peter out long before completion. BD is littered with concrete skeletons of buildings, many surrounded by decaying wooden scaffolding and sporting enough plant life that they are starting to resemble woodland.
The roadworks seem to be having a bad effect on the water pressure and the only tap that reliably works is in the garden. It's amazing how refreshing a cold 'shower' from refilled water bottles can be after a hot dusty day! It's now been 3 days since I last refilled them though and I need water soon!
On Sunday Ruth and I went to the Blue Nile falls, about an hour outside of BD. I visited them once before in the dry season and was disappointed but Sunday was truly spectacular. It was also lovely to get out of town and see some countryside – fields of tef, chat and millet. We also went on a brief boat trip on Lake Tana itself and visited the Zege peninsula. Besides from the amazing birdlife we saw hyrax, vervet monkeys and a huge monitor lizard.
I've been taking things slowly at work, mostly just observing and getting a feel for the system. Felege Hiwot is one of two referral hospitals in Amhara state covering a population of around 10 million as well as serving as the district hospital for the BD region. There's a slightly complicated political background in that the university and most of the medical staff are under the authority of the federal government but responsibility for the hospital itself is down to the state government. The staff are great and the medical students are incredibly keen and knowledgeable (I'm afraid they put UK students to shame). The hospital itself has a number of structural and institutional problems and feels like it has been neglected for some time. The children's ward is filthy and badly under equipped, especially the neonatal unit. There's a major lack of nursing staff and also supply problems with vital medication and nutritional supplements. The degree of pathology is harsh, TB peritonitis & pericarditis, rheumatic heart disease, liver failure, horrific pneumonias, all underscored by the 3 horsemen: HIV, malaria and malnutrition. I will go into this further with my next post.
