You haven't heard from me in while and
that is not because I have stopped being awed by everything going on around
me. Far from it. As a matter of fact, the more and more I get
to know this culture, the place and its people the more it astounds me. Some in a good way and of course some in a
bad way.
It is getting busier and busier at work. My predecessor left like week ago after
training me for three months now. I
think I am now ready to take over as HR manager but my assistant went on
maternity leave. So every little thing falls on me. Even though it is not very busy for the
entire Centre because of the upcoming holiday, it is busy for me because I have
to prepare staff contracts, do their reviews/appraisals and make sure everything is
current for all staff. But I thank God for it.
God is using this opportunity to grow me as an individual in terms of
dealing with people. I have to know when
to be lenient and when to be strict. You
can't be strict all the time and you cannot be lenient all the time. I mean, when someone comes to you and says
"I just lost my husband and even though I have buried him already am still
not ready to come back to work" do you tell them that the terms and
conditions only allow so much days for bereavement? Or if another comes to you and says "I
want to leave two hours before time to go to the bank," and they did the
same thing the previous week. I mean
where do you draw the line? Those are
the challenges of my job. And oh, I still have to get used to the idea of being
called boss or manager. Though
interestingly enough, when I was in NY I had bought two little books, one for
performance reviews and another one called Interviewing Skills and took them with
me to Kenya and now here I am having to use the books now. Was I prophetically preparing myself for
this? You tell me.
I still can'tl say I have settled in
now even though I have found a good church that I am loving very much. It was a real breath of fresh air after going
to the other churches. I have even
joined the praise team already and I love that it is not far from the Centre, I
can even walk there. I really thank God for
it.
The reason why I can't say I am now
settled in is that, things happen every now and then and they remind me of where
I am. Take for example November 17th,
the day of elections here is Sierra Leone.
We had decided to close the Centre because we didn't know how the
elections were going to turn out. But we
had two previous fistula patients that we could not send home who had to say in
the Centre and of course with us, the international staff. We organized with another private hospital
here in Freetown that in case of an emergency we will rush our patients
there. On the morning of the elections,
one started having mild contractions around 5am in the morning. And because she had a precious C-Section and
a fistula, she could not deliver naturally, she needed another C-Section. So she was rushed to the private hospital and
was received by the nurses there. When
our staff inquired whether they were ready to take her to theatre, they were
told that the doctor was not around and would not be getting in until 9am in
the morning. And do you know at what
time they were saying that? 6am in the
morning. Our Country Director did not
feel comfortable leaving our patient all by herself and so she asked one of the
midwives to stay with her while they came back and to fetch her file. They went back with the file and around 8am, the patient's
uterus ruptured and she died. I mean, it
still pains me even as I write this. The
doctor who was called was supposedly "on-call" meaning she was to
come in anytime when called upon in case of an emergency. We were all very sad and very very
upset. It is like the people here do not
care at all. We hear stories like that
happen every day in the government hospitals.
Infant mortality and maternal death rates are still very high in this
country. It is an SOS situation. Really.
Thank God to international organizations who are trying to change
that. Here at our Centre, all services
are free. Some of the rich women who can
afford medical services in other private hospitals prefer to come and deliver
at our Medical Centre, not because they can't afford to go anywhere else but
because of the care they are accorded here.
And
speaking of elections, just before elections like it is in any other country;
everyone had been talking
about elections. Elections this and
elections that. You know I hate politics
with all its grandchildren but you have to agree with me it has become a
necessary evil in today's society. There
are two major parties in this nation - APC and SLPP.
You know that before elections there are campaigns and all that good stuff. There
was this one day where the SLPP were
having their
campaigning rally. The presidential
candidate for their party is a bit young and so it goes without saying that his
majority of supporters would be youngsters.
We had gone to the beach and on our way back we run into the SLPP crowd
matching along the roads with their banners and speaker horns, some walking and
some in cars. I made a comment to my
friend that majority of them are just so young.
She said to me that it is interesting to see how patriotic they are to
their country despite the fact that most of them missed the chance of going to
school due to the civil war. I mean, that
flashed though my mind and my heart and I had to fight back my tears. I mean, I have been talking the way things
are expensive here because of the war but have never thought about there being a big population of youngsters out here who
did not get the right to an education.
It just saddens me because my number two prayer for all is that they may get an
education. The first prayer you of course is - that they might be saved. So I have found that time and again my heart
is being broken to pieces. xoxo
