Swailand / RFM

Ok… So… internet is painfully slow.

Where to begin ? Lufthansa was not only nice enough to take our excess baggage, they also bumped us ( yes… all 3 of us ) up to business class for the flight to Frankfurt. It was …. Priceless ( cause’ we didn’t have to pay !! ) Sparkling wine before the plane left the terminal. Linen napkins. Free booze. A seat that transformed from upright to reclined to a bed… need I say more ?

The flight from Frankfurt to Joburg was not as elegant… we were at the back of the plane just next to the toilets. The universe has a funny was of balancing things out, doesn’t it ? a little bit of Ying, a little bit of Yang.

A small layover in Frankfurt meant we had only 10hrs to kill. Well, we sure has hell weren’t going to stay in the airport, so we went to town. We figured we’d find a coffee shop to hunker down in, only to be face with a lone café that we could sit in ‘sipping’ our coffee for 10hrs…. Starbucks. But it worked out, as they had nice big chairs we could sit in / fall asleep in whilst the locals gave us dirty looks for sleeping in their coffee house.

The entire expedition was almost brought to a grinding halt at Swaziland customs, when they wanted to know the value of the items we were importing. Were it not for our driver rushing in to rescue us from the little man with a little-man complex and little English and a big gun, it would have been a quick end to our adventure. Our ride to the hospital was in the ambulance. Why ? why not…..

The hospital is shocking. Swaziland is shocking.

The hospital has no hot water. No defibrillator. No dialysis machine. Virtually no saline. No CT, No MRI, ultrasound has No Doppler. Everything is broken, and what isn’t broken is filthy. It’s like a bad episode of M.A.S.H. – only in real life. I will send off pictures of the hospital as soon as I can find a place to upload. It is certainly is an awesome challenge. Ironically, we have found the Swazi version of fitness world only 3 blocks away!! And they have Showers ! albeit, Cold Showers ! ( what ? you thought there was hot water at the gym ? )

We just found out today, Swaziland has no Anesthesiologist. No Neurosurgeon. No Cardiologist. No Radiologist, and a plethora of other ‘empty’ postings.

We have been to the orphanage. And it’s the type of place that wants to make you rejoice and cry at the same time. The kids are amazing. The sense of community is unbelievable, and they were literally hanging off of us only 5min after meeting us. I would write to share their stories, but if you know me at all, you know I would turn it into a book and then the nice internet people here could retire in the Bahamas cause’ I totally overstayed my time.

Sunday involved a big game park. Now, if you’ve never been to a big game park in Africa, it’s just like being in a big game park in Canada… only it’s in Africa and there aren’t any polar bears or moose. We did happen to see lions ( apparently, 6 of the 16 lions left in Swaziland, as the rest have been poached to near extinction in this country ), giraffes, Hippos, rhinos, warthogs, impalas, elephants…etc, etc. Um, just in case you skimmed that last part, We Saw Lions, Giraffes, Elephants, Warthogs, Rhinos, Hippos, etc, etc !!!! ( and the worlds ugliest ostrich )

Last night – a helped on a leg amputation… I can’t even begin to describe what I saw.

Today was boring.

I only stood in surgery and saw a c-section of undiagnosed twins, a hernia repair, a breast lesion biopsy, a circumcision.

It is getting dark – so I must sign off so we can bail now.

Gotta run

Andrea, Ryan, Chris & Jenn