Guestblogging for Stacey.....this is the update for Friday, Apr 24th.
Today was a great day! We hung out with the newbie at the care center for a couple of hours this morning. She is much better! The weird rash thing didn’t spread, and another child has a few similar spots, so now we’re thinking it is a non-specific care center rash or some type of bed bug or other bug bite. They cleaned all of the care center bedding today, so if it was the bed, it should be better now.
The newbie actually smiled and laughed with us today. She likes to be swung around gently as if she is flying. She is really babbling, and can blow raspberries. She’s watching our mouths when we talk and trying to make the same sounds. The newbie’s also a fan of Dan. If he walks away, she follows him with her eyes.
Today the newbie actually ate the baby food like stuff we fed her--actually, I should say, she tried to feed herself. She grabbed onto the spoon and wouldn’t let go, so we put our hands over hers and tried to guide the spoon. All three of us were covered by the time she was done, since one had to hold her up (she’s not sitting on her own yet) and the other fed her. Thankfully, another family in our travel group thought to bring wipes, so we wiped most of the goop off of us. It was great to see her have a wonderful appetite.
The newbie took her morning nap in the sling on my chest. She had a hard time falling asleep since she wanted to keep watching us. Then, when I put her in her crib for the afternoon nap, she cried. So I rocked her to sleep again. She’s clearly attaching to us and we are falling in love.
At lunchtime, we visited a local supermarket. I had to buy some hair care products since the newbie has way more hair than I thought she would. Look out Moobear, she’s going to be sharing your hair product stash! We bought some baby cereal (mostly sugar), too so we can start mixing it with American cereal. Hopefully, she won’t reject it. Most of her diet is sugar. The formula here is filled with sugar, and her afternoon snack is pureed fruit mixed with sugar and water.
After lunch and the supermarket, it was off to some humanitarian projects sponsored by our agency. The most interesting was a maternal and child health center. They deliver about 5 babies a day at the hospital, which has a sliding scale for payment and accepts patients who cannot pay. Only 1.8% of their patients are HIV+. In quality, it probably lies somewhere between the private hospital we went to and the government hospital. If you give birth there and have a vaginal delivery, the cost is about $20 US dollars and you are discharged 6 hours after giving birth. Our tour group actually witnessed a new mom getting into a cab hours after giving birth. It took her four tries to lower herself into the cab.
No pain medication of any kind is given for natural births. They do c-sections under general anesthesia, since they don’t have anyone with the training to administer a spinal and meds are hard to come by. C-sections cost $40 US and you get to stay for 3 days. The hospital was very clean, but sparse. Dan got to put on scrubs and visit the OR, we’ll have to share pictures when we have the capability. I did notice that the hazardous waste containers were cardboard boxes with a small opening with syringes sticking out.
We talked at length with one of the doctors at the hospital. He told us that of his medical school class in 1994, there were 54 students. Fifty men and 4 women. Medical school follows high school and is 6-7 years. Most doctors leave Ethiopia to practice in the States or South Africa or Botswanna.
Medical supplies and drugs are controlled by a government agency, and are sometimes hard to come by. The doctor said that he has been without medicines for the high blood pressure for preeclampsia for 1.5 years. Dan surmises that this is because the life expectancy is low and there are few hypertensive, overweight Ethiopians (many are underweight), so there is little need for medicines for the very few patients that have preeclampsia. More needed are anti-retrovirals which the health center has access to. We were every impressed with the center.
We also visited the National Museum in the afternoon. There they have the skeleton of Lucy as well as some amazing fossils and artifacts which were from the Axum period and before. Some really cool fossils of animals that lived between 3-6 million years ago. There were many items (throne, dress, sword, etc.) from Emperor Haile Selassie. I was stunned that these priceless artifacts were housed in a museum that was not climate controlled. There were signs all over to prohibit flash photography yet there was sunlight streaming in the windows. Many displays had no signs or explanation, and some displays consisted of posters. The artifacts were so cool I wanted to learn more, but there wasn’t much to go on. Security was almost nonexistent. The guard patted down the couple in front of us, but waves us in when he received a call on his cell phone. Admission to the museum was 10 birr or roughly 90 cents.
Our tour guide had the most pride when he was describing the defect of Menelek II, who defeated the Italians at the battle of Adowa. Ethiopia is the only African country not to be colonized by a European power at any time during it’s history.
An odd note, dental care in Ethiopia seems to be nonexistent. Many people are missing teeth, or their teeth are very stained and decayed.
The evening was capped by a visit to a local restaurant for some tej (honey wine) food, and dancing. We went with three other people from our travel group and had a blast. Those cute Ethiopian boy dancers could really move. If they can all move like that, the newbie’s not dating any Ethiopian men until she is at least 20 years old.
Today was a great day! We hung out with the newbie at the care center for a couple of hours this morning. She is much better! The weird rash thing didn’t spread, and another child has a few similar spots, so now we’re thinking it is a non-specific care center rash or some type of bed bug or other bug bite. They cleaned all of the care center bedding today, so if it was the bed, it should be better now.
The newbie actually smiled and laughed with us today. She likes to be swung around gently as if she is flying. She is really babbling, and can blow raspberries. She’s watching our mouths when we talk and trying to make the same sounds. The newbie’s also a fan of Dan. If he walks away, she follows him with her eyes.
Today the newbie actually ate the baby food like stuff we fed her--actually, I should say, she tried to feed herself. She grabbed onto the spoon and wouldn’t let go, so we put our hands over hers and tried to guide the spoon. All three of us were covered by the time she was done, since one had to hold her up (she’s not sitting on her own yet) and the other fed her. Thankfully, another family in our travel group thought to bring wipes, so we wiped most of the goop off of us. It was great to see her have a wonderful appetite.
The newbie took her morning nap in the sling on my chest. She had a hard time falling asleep since she wanted to keep watching us. Then, when I put her in her crib for the afternoon nap, she cried. So I rocked her to sleep again. She’s clearly attaching to us and we are falling in love.
At lunchtime, we visited a local supermarket. I had to buy some hair care products since the newbie has way more hair than I thought she would. Look out Moobear, she’s going to be sharing your hair product stash! We bought some baby cereal (mostly sugar), too so we can start mixing it with American cereal. Hopefully, she won’t reject it. Most of her diet is sugar. The formula here is filled with sugar, and her afternoon snack is pureed fruit mixed with sugar and water.
After lunch and the supermarket, it was off to some humanitarian projects sponsored by our agency. The most interesting was a maternal and child health center. They deliver about 5 babies a day at the hospital, which has a sliding scale for payment and accepts patients who cannot pay. Only 1.8% of their patients are HIV+. In quality, it probably lies somewhere between the private hospital we went to and the government hospital. If you give birth there and have a vaginal delivery, the cost is about $20 US dollars and you are discharged 6 hours after giving birth. Our tour group actually witnessed a new mom getting into a cab hours after giving birth. It took her four tries to lower herself into the cab.
No pain medication of any kind is given for natural births. They do c-sections under general anesthesia, since they don’t have anyone with the training to administer a spinal and meds are hard to come by. C-sections cost $40 US and you get to stay for 3 days. The hospital was very clean, but sparse. Dan got to put on scrubs and visit the OR, we’ll have to share pictures when we have the capability. I did notice that the hazardous waste containers were cardboard boxes with a small opening with syringes sticking out.
We talked at length with one of the doctors at the hospital. He told us that of his medical school class in 1994, there were 54 students. Fifty men and 4 women. Medical school follows high school and is 6-7 years. Most doctors leave Ethiopia to practice in the States or South Africa or Botswanna.
Medical supplies and drugs are controlled by a government agency, and are sometimes hard to come by. The doctor said that he has been without medicines for the high blood pressure for preeclampsia for 1.5 years. Dan surmises that this is because the life expectancy is low and there are few hypertensive, overweight Ethiopians (many are underweight), so there is little need for medicines for the very few patients that have preeclampsia. More needed are anti-retrovirals which the health center has access to. We were every impressed with the center.
We also visited the National Museum in the afternoon. There they have the skeleton of Lucy as well as some amazing fossils and artifacts which were from the Axum period and before. Some really cool fossils of animals that lived between 3-6 million years ago. There were many items (throne, dress, sword, etc.) from Emperor Haile Selassie. I was stunned that these priceless artifacts were housed in a museum that was not climate controlled. There were signs all over to prohibit flash photography yet there was sunlight streaming in the windows. Many displays had no signs or explanation, and some displays consisted of posters. The artifacts were so cool I wanted to learn more, but there wasn’t much to go on. Security was almost nonexistent. The guard patted down the couple in front of us, but waves us in when he received a call on his cell phone. Admission to the museum was 10 birr or roughly 90 cents.
Our tour guide had the most pride when he was describing the defect of Menelek II, who defeated the Italians at the battle of Adowa. Ethiopia is the only African country not to be colonized by a European power at any time during it’s history.
An odd note, dental care in Ethiopia seems to be nonexistent. Many people are missing teeth, or their teeth are very stained and decayed.
The evening was capped by a visit to a local restaurant for some tej (honey wine) food, and dancing. We went with three other people from our travel group and had a blast. Those cute Ethiopian boy dancers could really move. If they can all move like that, the newbie’s not dating any Ethiopian men until she is at least 20 years old.
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