Home Fulfilled

I think this may be my first morning entry.  Not that it has any significance-I just was having technical issues with my electronics due to an electrical surge!  Nonetheless I'm back online now in preparation for my final day here.

What a machete can do to an arm..

Yesterday was a good one.  I had an 18yo kid who was a 'rogue' (aka thief in Liberia) who made a very poor decision in trying to rob someone's home.  They attacked him with a machete cutting his wrist very badly and tearing his tendons.  He somehow escaped and made it to the hospital-better than the alternative.  Generally speaking if a rogue is caught he/she can be killed on the spot by the people, so I guess having your arm almost chopped off and making it out alive is not too bad.  I spent the morning putting him back together.  When I got to the OR we were almost ready to start on time, but now it was the pharmacist who was late and delayed us!  No need to get into too much detail with this one-I've reiterated this concept previously...

Spent the morning reconstructing his wrist.

I was however pleased to see that when I arrived, my man Babu had returned to spend some more time with me!  He scrubbed with me during the case and was very helpful.  After we finished up he even came with me to the ER to see some consults.  It was pretty ironic when I think about it; the last time I was here I had a similar case of an older woman who had been attacked with a machete by a rogue who was robbing her home and I had to fix her wrist.  Now this rogue met his match and someone fought back at him with a machete!  The Universe's karma I guess.  After the case and seeing some patients, Babu and I went to have lunch.  He said he'll come in to help me should I have anymore cases on my last day.

National Police ready to go!

During the afternoon/evening I met up with Lydia who is the Minister for Gender, Children & Social Justice and toured her office.  Her driver picked me up and took me through downtown which was my first time going since I've been here.  I remembered everything just like it was the last time I was here; many of the places still looked exactly the same.  Afterwards we made our way back to her home, but got stuck in lots of traffic as we approached the NEC (National Elections Commission) Building.  National Guards were detouring traffic such that no one could pass directly in front of the building.  Everyone was anxiously awaiting the announcement of the preliminary results scheduled at 5pm.  We were stuck in gridlock traffic around 4:40pm and people were walking amongst the cars anxiously waiting, pacing through the streets.  As we approached the detour point by the NEC, you could see the police in riot gear ready for anything-it was a pretty intense sight.  Lydia was in the back seat telling the driver to hurry up and get past the traffic-that was actually pretty funny.

The announcement over the radio came just before 6pm.

Happy kid at the Transit House!

We finally made it to Lydia's where we were taking in all the preliminary info and having my favorite Liberian dish finally-cassava leaf & soup!  That was the one dish that I was really looking forward to having before  leaving.  After we winded down at the house we went over to the Marpu Transit House that Lydia runs.  It houses kids who were given up by their parents or are rape victims or come from various malignant social circumstances.  Some of them have physical or mental disabilities as well.  She was sharing many of the success stories with me of adoption for some of the kids or how they've grown up and productively assimilated into society.  It's really great work that she's doing here and she is to be commended.  Imagine what the destitute looks like in a country that's the 4th poorest in the world-that's who she works with most of the time and she's turned people's lives around!

Casava Leaf!

I felt fulfilled by the time I got home. Ready for my last day...