Yey!

I know I was in a complaining mood last time I wrote, but I’ve sure gotten to do a lot of stuff since then! Yesterday was a really great day. 4 of us started out going to Cafe Oslo for breakfast. We had fetira, which is a kind of flaky dough cake thingy (laget av noe butterdeig lignende greier) with egg and honey inside and amazingly yummy fresh mango juice. Then we went to visit this orphanage I’ve written about planning to go to a bunch of times, but now we finally went. And that was one special experience. According to Malene who works there as a volunteer, it is an incredible nice orphanage compared to the government run ones, which she had visited. But it was still really weird to see the different rooms, according to age, filled with lots and lots of beds, cots for the babies and toddlers and bunk beds for the older ones. In the baby room there was hardly any room to stand because of all the beds. I think there was around 20 babies in one small room, from a few weeks old to maybe 7-8 months. Most of these kids will be adopted. There was also a couple of kids with disabilities, a child with hydrochefalis (vannhode) that had a just enormous head, I couldn’t believe it was true when I saw her. There was also another room for children a bit older that have disabilities. They don’t face a very bright future as hardly no one wants to adopt them. Even children who don’t have mental disabilities, but are blind or have hip problems are not easily adopted. It’s so sad considering how they will never have much of a life here, but in Norway a blind person can live a pretty normal life, and someone with hip problems would be able to get a correction in many cases. Malene didn’t know what happened to the disabled children when they turned 18, and I think I probably don’t want to know. They don’t get any kind of help or special care, some of them just sitting in a stroller all day long...

I spent quite a bit of time with the babies, holding them and talking to them. They are all more or less lying in their beds all the time. They have toys and get their basic needs met as for getting dry diaper cloths and food, but not anywhere close to as much attention and body contact as norwegian babies get. But still they are lucky considering they could have been at a state run orphanage, and they do have quite a few volunteers that cuddle and talk with them, and the ladies that take care of them are really sweet. The carers are ethiopian, but the orphanage is run by catholic nuns from Europe.

After staying a couple of hours at the orphanage, we went out with our Ethiopian friend Birikit, and she took us shopping for souvenirs at a local marked. It was one of those markets where foreigners don’t usually go, and we had a herd of people, mostly kids and old beggars, following us around. There is a lot of talk about whether you should give to beggars or not, but since Ethiopians give to them, I decided why shouldn’t I? So I try to keep some change in my pockets at all times. They are quite happy to get a 1 birr bill, which is about 30 øre (a few cents). It was quite stressful though to have all those people following all the time, but I guess that’s the african experience.

After all the trouble with the night shifts we were trying to do ended up being due to communications problems, we decided to try one more time last night. All three of us in health center 23 really wanted to see at least one birth before we left, considering we’ve been working in labor wards for days not seeing anything! Ironically, while there hadn’t been any babies born in the daytime all last week, this week monday and tuesday, when we were going to do the nightshifts that didn’t happen, they had a bunch of births during the day, go figure ;) Anyways, after some more communication error as to our transportation, we made it to the health center about 45 min late, almost 11pm. We were received very well, and one of the midwives arranged a little coffee ceremony for us and made popcorn. The coffee was served in tiny cups with about a table spoon of sugar, so that really got us all on a sugar high, and we had a jolly good time :) We watched some TV and talked for a while. Still no patients, except for a lady that had given birth in the afternoon. In the break room there was two beds and a small couch, and we had a nap while waiting for patients. I was so excited I couldn’t g to sleep anyways, and in not too long, about 1 am we heard a loud knock on the door, and there was a laboring mother on the door step! She was already quite far along, and we observed the student midwife examine her, and she predicted she would give birth at about 4 oclock (which she did). Us students were told we could just try and get some more sleep, and they would wake us when it was getting closer. I couldn’t really sleep again, probably due to the coffee and excitement, but it was nice to get a bit of rest, even though we could still hear the moaning of the laboring woman. Poor woman, no pain meds in this country. But she was one of the lucky ones that actually got to have trained health personnel help with her delivery in a country that has the highest maternal death in labor in the whole of africa, as far as I’ve heard. At about 3.30 she was 10 cm and got moved into the delivery room and the baby was out in about 10 min. The baby had pooped in the amniotic fluid, and there was a little bit of drama to suction fluid from the babys mouth when the head had been born, but when the baby was put on the moms tummy and rubbed with towels, it soon started to cry, and the midwife exclaimed “God, thank you!”. She had been a bit more worried than we had realized I think. I’m very thankful we had the opportunity to experience this in the last hours of our practice at the health centers :) And yes, I do still want to have kids, just not here..

After sleeping to about 12pm I decided to go back to the orphanage, and I took my first taxi ride by myself, which proceeded without any difficulty ,) I hung out with Malene, and got to see the adorable babies again. The last hour I was there I was bottle feeding the cutes little baby that was all of a sudden just handed to me by one of the ethiopian carers. I might end up with some weird diseases after this, but it will be totally worth it!