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| "King George" |
Today we ran another clinic at Bugata, where much sicker adults turned up. We saw a poor old gent with what looked like Parkinson's, who had had a stroke 2 years previously. He was brought to us on the back of a motorbike, and staggered in, supported by our staff. There is little chance that he will be able to access Parkinson's medications here, and even less chance that he can afford it.
We saw a young autistic boy, who had an old wound from being gored by an elephant- you could see both the entry and the exit wound. The local eccentric spent half an hour with his feet on my lap, being treated for "Jiggers". He is amazingly inventive, fashioning hats out of old pieces of metal, and stilts out of pieces of wood, with CDs attached for decoration - he is a true mad professor- in another world he would probably be considered a genius, and be running a lab discovering the cure for something. Here , he is tolerated with a certain fondness, although some of his masks frighten the children.
We saw a young autistic boy, who had an old wound from being gored by an elephant- you could see both the entry and the exit wound. The local eccentric spent half an hour with his feet on my lap, being treated for "Jiggers". He is amazingly inventive, fashioning hats out of old pieces of metal, and stilts out of pieces of wood, with CDs attached for decoration - he is a true mad professor- in another world he would probably be considered a genius, and be running a lab discovering the cure for something. Here , he is tolerated with a certain fondness, although some of his masks frighten the children.
I also saw a lady today who made me giggle. She was an ample lady, in her late 50's, who , when asked what we could help her with, became a bit shy, giggling herself. It turns out she had hurt her hand- falling out of a tree. Picking leaves for her cow, apparently. Luckily, nothing was broken ( she had already been X- rayed at the local hospital) and just needed some pain relief- as she left, she told us she had sold the cow .
Most impressive wound of the day was a snake bite- the poor lady had been bitten by a Red Spitting Cobra - just the name is enough to make you shiver. She had only recently been discharged from hospital after a month, and now had a huge wound that needed dressing daily.
Tomorrow is supposed to be our last clinic, but as we arrived home a huge storm broke, washing away the newly repaired road to our camp. There has not been this heavy a rainfall as the last week, for 20 years. So again we are at the mercy of the weather as to what we are able to do. The Camps staff, as usual, are running about madly trying to sort everything out, always with our safety paramount, alongside the needs of the community. They are amazingly resourceful, and somehow we'll do something. The emotions are running high, with the end of the programme in sight. Our group of strong , bright, amazingly experienced people have become firm friends , and leaving for another year will be very hard. Knowing that what we have done, is sustainable, the knowledge and data we pass on is used to improve the lives of so many, does help. Already we have plans for fundraising for next year, and I have a very long list of things to bring next year - staplers, staplers, definitely staplers. Oh, and some medical stuff too.
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