Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Africa Part 7 - Public Hospital



Thursday, a full week in Africa.  The weather continues to be fairly mild, with occasional rain showers here and there.  Not the full downpour as in Honduras, but they do tell me they get those during rainy season which starts next month.  

A missionary woman from Colombia that works with the long-term missionaries here took me to the public hospital.  We were able to go into the AIDS ward and walk quickly through the pediatric offices.  It was definitely an eye opener, but not very different from what I expected.  We were also able to talk to the director of the AIDS work in the hospital.  While we were there one of the patients died from complications to AIDS.  I asked the director how they received their AIDS medication, and she notified me that the government purchased them.  I then asked her if they always had medication available, and she notified me that "most of the time" they had sufficient medication.  So I asked her what happened when medications weren't available, and she told me that people had to buy them off the street "hoping" that the medication were in fact legitimate medications.






Had lunch with some of the professors from the seminary and enjoyed some yummy chicken in a pine nut sauce, rice, and a local soda called Top.  Reminds me of Hansen’s Grapefruit soda.  Finding Diet soda that doesn’t cost $4 has been very difficult so far or even impossible to find – haven’t seen any at any grocery store.  Speaking of grocery stores, really haven’t seen any U.S. products at all – most items are coming from Spain and Arabic speaking countries as the writing on the packages is in Arabic.

Good long day, still helping out in the library trying to sort through large quantities of books that have been brought into the library.  We continue to categorize, organize and label the books (Dewey decimal system – so that’s requiring me to wipe off a few cobwebs and remember how that is done).
More tomorrow.

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