Health outreach, Friday, day 5: prenatal and goiter clinic

I was ready for some rest and I was able to have a different schedule.   Yamp had planned a prenatal and goiter clinic for their morning and we had planned for a prenatal clinic in the afternoon (giving pregnant women priority).  A lady arrived at 8am here in Gesses and so Dr. Bernard did a quick checkup with her.  She had the opportunity to be the first Gumuz woman in Gesses to hear her baby’s heartbeat with a doplar.  She said she was 5.5 months along but in reality she was 36 weeks!  I imagine they are quite often surprised by labor! 


Both Dr. Bernard and Minah went to Yamp in the morning and so I spent the morning baking with the kids!  (I didn’t have the energy to do school and neither did they.)  We baked cookies, made jello and baked bread.  The kids each got a large chunk of bread dough and made animals that they could eat for lunch. Ariana made a butterfly.  Kalia made a large braid, Joel and Millie made turtles.

Word had gone out into their area that there was a goiter clinic and all the highland Ethiopians from Dibate with goiters on their necks arrived in Yamp.  They saw many varying stages of this illness.  (Sorry I can’t attach pictures but you can google it.)  It is an iodine deficiency causing swelling of the neck that can be the size of a cabbage.   People buy rock salt here that does not contain iodine.  As well there are certain diets that bring about this illness more quickly.

They actually had to leave before seeing all the patients and arrived back in Gesses after 1pm.  Lunch was fresh bread with curry lentil soup and injera (had it on the menu each lunch so that Emmanuel got injera atleast once a day!)  Again we delayed our clinic here to 3pm.   There were few prenatal specific patients but a steady number of others.   This time the nurse from Yamp and Erin Moore (missionary wife of Jake in Yamp) came out.  Erin took my place translating from English to Amharic and Demis translated to Gumuz.  Her two oldest children came to play with our kids which was a treat.

This allowed me to come and go until 5:30 pm so I was able to put supper in the oven ahead of time:  sweet and sour fish with rice.   At 5:30 Erin needed to leave so I took her place and we worked until 7pm and had a late supper.   But we finished!

Rolf and Jim nearly finished putting the tin on the outside of the walls (in order to keep the rain from touching the wood and so the windows remain to be completed (which will likely be made in Addis when we go up next).

I was amazed at the cheerful attitudes each person had despite the heat and inconveniences.  We were encouraged over and over again and each one used their gifts to serve in some way.  It was beautiful to see us working as one body.