Babogaya

Goats on a tanker. Yep actual live goats on an actual tanker truck, driving down the road. I wasn’t fast enough getting my phone out to take a photo, but it really did happen! I think that is, thus far, the craziest thing I have seen in Ethiopia. I assume they were tied on somehow, but they were just standing on top of the tanker as it whizzed down the road. They didn’t seem particularly fazed. Maybe they were enjoying the ride! Points for enterprise I guess. They were driving the tanker to wherever anyway, so may as well make the most of the space on top! Anyways, that was last week, so let me back track before I get to that.

A day or so after returning from Jimma I got properly sick. Nausea, fevers, headaches, the works. Dorothy insisted I have a blood test for malaria (it was negative) – the advantage of living at a hospital is that the blood test came to me! Also for Covid – also negative. Then within the next 24 hours or so, half the team who had been to Jimma also got similar symptoms, so presumably it was either a bug that went round, or something we all ate. I spent a couple of days in bed, and was super relieved when the symptoms finally started to subside. Within a few days it was pretty much gone. Not a fun experience, but a good reminder that we are completely in God’s hands. I’ve had stomach issues fairly consistently since I came here (not as bad as the post-Jimma experience, but enough to knock me off my feet a few times). Please pray that I wouldn’t resent this, or get frustrated by it, but be able to see God’s hand even in this, and accept my own limitations. (I won’t add pictures for this section – you’re welcome!)

Despite the health setbacks, it feels like there has been some encouraging progress the past couple of weeks. The training for the gait lab team has been going well and I think some things are starting to fall into place for the team here. We’ve also made good progress on other aspects of setting up the service, like getting a database sorted, protocols, timetabling, etc. I’ve also learnt a few more Amharic words and phrases :). I can say hello, goodbye, thankyou, count to 10 and say “happy Easter”. We had two Easters here, the Ethiopian (orthodox) Easter was a week after the Western one. No chocolate eggs sadly, but Doro Wot and Injera instead. And lots of goats, chickens and cows on the roads (and on top of tankers), presumably heading to Easter lunch.

This past weekend was the long weekend for Easter. We had Friday and Monday off, so Dorothy and I were invited to go with Dr Tim and Dr Laurence and their families to Babogaya (such a great name!). It is an SIM run retreat on the shores of Lake Babogaya, about an hour or so out of Addis. The accommodation is fairly basic (it was described to me as something like an 80s scout camp- having never been to a scout camp in the 80s I can’t verify this, but it sounds about right) but the surroundings are beautiful. It is a volcanic lake with lovely green trees all around. Dr Tim brought a couple of inflatable kayaks, and we basically spent the whole 2 days by the lake – swimming, kayaking, relaxing, playing games, etc. It was so nice to get some chill time. In the evening, we had a bonfire with marshmallows, and then some of us went out hyena spotting (that’s the fuzzy image with the glowing green eyes below… sorry – it’s surprising difficult to photograph hyenas in the dark!) The food was great also. Driving back to Addis was when we spotted the goats on the tanker… I mentioned about that right?!!

Sunday was church and fairly relaxed, then Monday I was able to catch up on some work – it was helpful to have a day without seeing patients to be able to do that. Next week we have 2 more holidays… probably. Thursday is Patriots Day (something to do with booting out the Italians). Then there is another holiday on either Monday or Tuesday, depending on something to do with the moon that apparently can’t be determined until Sunday. Then the week after that we have another outreach trip – this time to a place called Bahir Dar. Oh and I have just been told that the electricity in our building of the hospital is going to be switched off over this weekend…. for an indeterminate number of hours… somewhere between a few hours, and for the whole weekend from Friday evening to Monday morning! I shall let you know what happens…