News-Record.com

Tough times over here? Maybe. But let's put it into perspective.

Here's a recent email from one of Andrew's Peace Corps friends from Tanzania who works now for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in East Africa.

In some parts of the world, times are always tough.

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"Do you have any steel rope? We're gonna need to pull the plane out of the mud."

"The boat is on top of our fence."

"It's only a two meter drop. The fuel drum shouldn't break open."

"That's just the sound of a hut full of ammunition on fire."

"Quick, put down your leatherman and help me do CPR on this baby."

"We found an amputated leg in the waste area. Should we put it in the incinerator?"

"The (insert name of ANYTHING, mostly obscure medical equipment) is broken. Can you come fix it?"

"Uhm, I think that building is about to fall over. Can you take a look at it?"

"Uh I just ran a test, the water from the treatment plant is 1000 times more dirty than it's supposed to be."

Hi all,

Those are all things that have been said to me in the past few months, and each has a story behind it. At times I wish I could write an email every day, as I have that much to tell. I can't say things are crazy, because that carries the implication that things are out of the ordinary. We seem to exist in a permanent state of ridiculousness, where every day I find myself doing things that I never saw coming. Craziness is just a part of life here.

The pictures I've attached provide a few examples, and there are so many other things I've failed to capture or simply forgotten about. And, as I'm working in a hospital, there are plenty of stories that I simply don't want to share and you probably don't want to hear.

The rains started a bit early this year. We saw it coming, but I never would've imagined the force of the wind. The church next door had a brand new roof completely ripped off. Our 15m boat was flipped over and thrown through the fence. Our two small speedboats were flipped and carried a kilometer downstream. Luckily, no big injuries and no heavy damage to anything. In a way it was a good warning, as we've spent quite some time since reinforcing the roofs, overhangs, and boat supports in the compound.

Today's my last day of R&R. I left my site 9 days ago, and just before the plane landed we had about 20 minutes of heavy rain. The plane got stuck in the mud at one end, and we had to use one of our landcruisers to tow it out, and then refuel it. I then boarded it and flew back to Kenya.

Something I've come to appreciate about this job in the last few weeks is just how nuanced and difficult every decision we make is. Yes, we're running a hospital. But how big should the hospital be? At what point do we stop expanding and say that we simply can't treat very difficult, but rare, cases? Do we leave the generator on all night to keep a 6 month old premature baby on oxygen, when it will die anyway within the week? Do we try and push the local ministry of health to accept more cases and take more responsibility, even if it means a decrease in the level of care? Even for myself, I love construction, love repairing stuff, and really love buying new expensive toys. But I always have to be asking whether all of it is quite necessary, and if the money wouldn't be better spent in the Congo, or opening up a new health center somewhere. Efficiency vs. efficacy is a fascinating, and never ending, debate, especially when the tradeoffs are human lives.

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Our tradeoffs rarely are that dramatic.