Week one - tick!

So, Kambia week one is over. It feels amazing to think how much has happened in just a short amount of time.

Kambia is clean, green and brilliant. It’s a fantastic escape to the countryside really. Kambia town is the administrative centre of Kambia district, which makes up Sierra Leone’s northern border with Guinea. The roads are all ‘Africa red’, definitely the colour I would imagine from films, TV etc. There are hardly any cars, and just a smattering of motorbike taxis around. People are really interested in meeting, chatting in broken English and trying to teach me Temne...

Cycling round the town here I’m greeted with shouts of ‘Oporto’(White Man) from children at every turn...attempts to explain that I am not usually considered to be a ‘White’ man are met with incredulity. Perhaps I need to learn the Temne for ‘Black child’...or maybe not.

Home for the month is peaceful, beautiful, with an awesome set-up. It’s the old Medicines Sans Frontiers base – complete with lots of living space, proper good ex-pat design long-drop loos, people to cook and clean for us, bikes, everything you could want. There’s even a bloke doing carpentry in the grounds who’s teaching steve.

I can see why people from the Kambia Appeal fell for this place. It’s really rural, and beautiful. As with everywhere round here, there’s not many doctors... or medicines. I had a tour round the hospital, and was a little sad to see that the patients have dried up for various reasons, but having said that – there seems to be loads of primary care type stuff going on... child vaccination drives, mother and child clinics, you name it it seems to be going on here. Can’t wait to get out into the villages to check this stuff out some more.

So it’s been a great start to the rural part of the elective. Here’s a few photos.

Cycling round Kambia on donated ex-Royal Mail bicycles, what a world...(and LOADS of health promotion billboards around the place!)

And, after the focus group, the real reason the women were keen on coming to see us “We have answered your questions, now can you please examine our bellies!”

The ‘office’

Ambulance

The famous life saving ambilance!!!

Under tree

Interviewing under a mangoe tree, you couldn’t make it up...