Mzungu, How are you?

Our first real day was amazing. We had a tour of the hospital and visited the weekly market in town. After lunch we jumped right into work around the hospital and in the evening we had a visit from our driver's family along with some drinks with some of the staff and visiting doctors. 

Market Day:

Saturday in Mutomo is market day and the streets are packed with a variety of people selling their wares under make-shift tents of plastic strung on ropes run across the streets. We opted to buy produce including some giant avocados and hand towels but mostly we attracted a lot of attention. We certainly got quoted elevated "mzungu" prices and many stares.  Some of the children were more adventurous and chased us down the street jumping up and down and yelling: "Mzungu, how-are-you?".  Laura and Meg stopped to take some pictures with them, which thrilled them to no end. 

Donkey Bite, Medical Records and Telephone Lines: 

Meg spent most of her first day with the surgeons and helped them with everything from reducing fractures to an emergency appendectomy, to debriding a woman's hand where a donkey had nearly bitten off her whole hand.... not your average day for a pediatrician. 

Laura donated her veno-puncture supplies to the lab and was assigned to work with the administrative team to help with their new medical records system. 

Northe will be helping with grant writing but is also now the tallest member of the Mutomo maintenance crew. He helped run telephone wires to some hospital staff houses and moved 2 refrigerators. 

Visit from our Driver's Family:
We had invited our driver, Titus, to bring his family over for a visit in the evening. His wife Evelyn works in the hospital lab. We had a very nice time, they asked us all about America and told us about their lives in Mutomo. They were very interested in the climate and what life was like back home. Below is a picture from their visit.

“Smashing” Good Time:

The day ended with snacks with a group of other doctors and staff on a back patio in the cool evening breeze. We enjoyed getting to know everyone better and there were lots of jokes about the number of glasses that were accidentally broken (3 to be exact, but not by us!).  

More to come, we're trying to keep up with work and adjusting to life in Africa.