Had a trip to the Ministry for labour this week, to iron out a few questions about the labour laws here. The laws are quite decent, actually, and do offer local people a degree of protection against unruly bosses, so we set off to ensure that we are doing the right things. We arrived at a small wooden structure, in the middle of a dusty field, with kids playing football outside with a home made ball. The minister, as all the ministers are here, was courteous and charming, if a little intimidating ( I looked after one this week whose body guard was at least 7 feet tall - eek !). He rifled through a stack of yellowed papers on his desk before assuring us that we we had understood the regulations correctly, and bade us good day. Not quite the same as trying to get an answer out of the government in the UK - it all took us about half an hour.
The one bit of excitement this week was our emergency call out to a drowning by the Nile. Being a private clinic, our "ambulance" (transit van) is only on standby for our members, we'd open up a whole can of worms if we went to everything, we just don't have the facilities. However, the call came through from one of our members to say a girl had fallen into the Nile and had been fished out, could we help? We made a judgement call and decided to go - after all, who else would? So after retrieving our driver ( a wonderfully crazy Indian with more bling than Bollywood) we set off into the night - I would say lights flashing, but none of us knew where the switch in the van was.....
Goodness, Juba by night on the roads is another thing all together - no street lights, LOTS of cars and poorly lit Bodas (motorbikes), and hundreds of people in dark clothes, REALLY difficult to spot, wandering all over. Having gained his license in India, however, it was a piece of cake for our driver.
We arrived in a packed car park, with lots of people shouting and waving, all trying to direct us to a different place - it was poorly lit and all a bit surreal. Out jumped Andrew and I, with our trauma bag, looking all important, and made our way to the poor girl sitting on the ground, who had clearly swallowed a great deal of the unsavoury Nile water. She was alert, but certainly looked as if she would develop a nasty pneumonia sometime soon...
It soon transpired, however, that things were not all they seemed. The chap who had fished her out appeared to think we had arrived solely to give him a cash reward for his services, and the person who had phoned us melted into the background rather quickly. The friends and relatives surrounding the girl looked not too pleased to see us, and there seemed to be more and more of them with every passing minute. Then the police arrived, and we began to wonder what we had let ourselves in for. After some consultation with each other, we decided it may be best if we stood back a little and watched to see what would happen. As soon as we did, she was scooped up by relatives and carried away, followed by large group of people, including the police. In that situation, we thought it best to melt away as only we British can do (read "hide behind an SUV"). Back into the van we got, and hot footed it back to the compound, still unable to find the switch that worked the lights. It was all over in less than an hour, and frustrating for us, as our nurses hearts would have taken her back with us and tried to make her better, but in that sort of situation, personal safety has to take priority, which was a difficult lesson to learn....
A lighter moment was finding my ridiculously tall Dinka Dr singing happily away to Dolly Parton in his room ( he is now christened " Dolly Deng ", much to his annoyance), and his gift to me after a trip to Uganda of a baby tortoise we have called Trevor (picture above) who he rescued from the road and brought back in his car. My menagerie is growing daily..
So another week, another steep learning curve, another invaluable life lesson. See you all next week !
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