I went with Edna to the installation of the new chairwoman of Somaliland's Human Rights Commission. She's the first woman to chair the commission--a big step for Somaliland. This is what I heard: Somali Somali Somali Geneva Convention Somali Somali Somali Fact-Finding Mission Somali Somali Somali. Though I didn't understand anything, it was still nice to be part of something like that. The new chairwoman is on the right, with Edna.
Went grocery shopping with Edna on the way back from that, first at the market in central Hargeisa.
While we were waiting on the rice to be weighed at this shop, which is quite close to the hospital, a group of school girls came up wanting to look at me (um, I stand out a little in this country) and practice their English. All the kids around here know Edna, and she had them get out their school notebooks and show her their English lessons.
This country has more lemons than I've ever seen in my life.
Which is convenient, since lemons are a critical ingredient in cheese-making, and I've thrown my cheese production into full-speed-ahead mode. I made camel's milk cheese, which turned out perfectly: creamy, mild-tasting, spreadable, delicious on bread.
And, due to popular demand, I also made a triple batch of goat cheese, which I then flavored with the Ethiopian spice berbere, which was a hit.
Spotted the long-rumored traffic light. Or should I say, traffic lit.
Got stuck in traffic behind a khat truck, headed into town from Ethiopia. There was another one behind us, equally loaded up. This khat will be gone by the end of the day. Might as well chew up $5 bills and spit them out.
Scrubed in on a supraumbilical hernia removal surgery.
Continued seeing the usual steady stream of eclamptic patients (as many as one or more a day) brought in by their families, usually after being unconcious or semi-concious for the better part of day. It's a mystery to me (and many others) why eclampsia rates are so high here. It's an even bigger mystery to me why families wait so long to bring in a woman who is so clearly unwell. Perceived value of the woman? Concern over potential hospital costs? Failure to recognize it is a serious condition? I want to know.
Spent a lot of time with a woman who was brought in over the weekend, following the stillbirth of her twins at the public hospital in Hargeisa. She presented with acute renal failure that had progressed to uremic encephalopathy (the toxins usually filtered out by the kidneys had accumulated and caused damage to the brain). This is extremely rare in the US because dialysis is widely available to compensate for reduced kidney function, but there is no dialysis in Somaliland. Her family was trying to decide whether to spend the money to take her to Djibouti, where she could probably get dialysis. However, her prognosis was very, very poor and, at this point, unlikely to change even with dialysis given how far the disease had progressed. With money as limited as it usually is here, a last-ditch treatment taken for granted in the US might or might not be worth it. Last night, the family decided that they felt they needed to try, and left with the patient for Djibouti. A minor frustration of being here is having no idea what ever comes of the patients who leave, though often you can make guesses.
Farmed at Edna's "small" farm (as compared to the "big" farm I went to a few weeks ago).
Ate sap from a thorn bush, regarded as quite a tasty treat here. It was...sappy.
Needed rain.
Got rain.
Went to dinner at Hadhwanaag Restaurant on the river(bed) to celebrate Joanne's last night before she heads back to her daughters and job in Portland. Delicious fish from Berbera and amazing coffee after dinner, only my second cup since leaving the US (hear that, Starbucks?).
This cat took a liking to me at dinner.
Which turned out to be awesome, because it reminded Edna to tell us about her pet lynx, Pixie, and pet cheetah, Sanu, which she had when she was the first lady in the late sixties (1967-1969), living in Mogadishu. When we got home, she got the pictures out. She told us that the cheetah kept trying to lick her during this picture, that he was incredibly affectionate. He was given to her as a sick cub by a Kenyan park ranger and she nursed him back to health with the help of the lynx, who appointed herself the cheetah cub's protector.
These other pictures from her days as first lady were in the album as well, and I love them, so I'm posting them too.
After Siad Barre's coup d'etat in 1969, which ended her husband's rule of Somalia, Edna was under house arrest for a period of time, her husband imprisoned and her passport revoked. She spent three years working as a nurse in Mogadishu after the coup while awaiting a new passport and then left the country, living in Libya and Egypt working for the WHO. She eventually returned, but was forced to leave again in the mid-1980s, this time leaving behind a half-completed hospital which the Siad Barre's troops quickly appropriated and subsequently destroyed. She decided that she couldn't commit to building in Mogadishu again, but also saw how desperately Somaliland needed a hospital, and rallied herself and funders to start over again in Hargeisa, with this hospital I'm at as the result. She's an amazing woman.
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