Visit to Vom Christian Hospital

Hi---we have been here now 3 weeks and in some ways it seems like 3 months. The kids have started school this past week and so far seem to be enjoying it. The night before their first day we all had trouble sleeping. Westen was told that he tested into grade 9 algebra so he was scared about what that might mean—mostly more work. The girls, mostly Riana, were worried about meeting new people. That night also seemed really noisy with animal sounds and car horns. At one time Randy said I jumped on top of him in bed thinking there was someone in the room with us. Funny thing is that the next day when we came home during the day we found a live chicken in our house. Patience, our house keeper, said it was there when she showed up in the morning and thought we bought it for supper. We then wondered if it spent the night with us and maybe that’s what startled me. Evenings are now spent with the kids and their homework. We are working hard at establishing good study habits due to the expectations of the school. We went out to Vom this week and looked in on our house. It’s coming along good. Hopefully we will be moved in by the end of next week. Today we bought a dog-really a puppy- to keep us company in Vom. (It will stay with its mother for 6 more weeks yet.) The kids are looking forward to having a pet to play with. We also had formal introductions at the Vom Christian Hospital. We met some senior staff and had a tour of the facility. The work environment is quite a contrast from what I’m used to. I somewhat expected the very basic approach to medicine, but was still struck by how limited their resources are in any type of medical equipment. It looked like to me that most of their lab work is done by hand—did not see any fancy equipment. The x-ray dept looked very archaic and still used a dark room to develop their films. One of the physicians at the hospital needed to aid a delivery this past month due to complications with the baby. The head had emerged but the body was still wedged in the canal. After a c-section was performed, much to their surprise they pulled out a 2- headed fetus which had died in process. Our jobs do not start until January but we will be living on the hospital compound and will hopefully become more familiar with other staff members also living on the compound. It will be sad to move further away from Mark and Brenda and their children Valerie and Greg, we have really enjoyed our time with them and hope to continue developing our friendship. It will be great to start Hausa language study soon- with the many trips to the market it will become handy. Also with the patient care at the hospital, I expect I will need a better command of the language. Anyways our days are still busy with shopping for household items and getting to know the city of Jos.---take care--charlotte