Homeward Bound

How many photos have you taken of your home and work recently? Not many I guess. It’s funny we were looking at some of our photos from this trip and noticed that they’ve definitely been tailing off after an initial spurt at the beginning. It’s an interesting observation because I think it’s a sign of our life here normalising. We noticed, in fact, when the St Mary’s team came and it was all cameras again. Photo shoots at lunch time etc. Now obviously this is not a criticism, just an observation. But it would be weird if I was eating lunch during a normal working day in the UK and someone whipped the camera out for a few group shots...

The St Mary's Team

You see I think we’ve moved beyond tourism in Juba sometime ago – weeks or maybe months in fact. And now it’s quite familiar and normal. ‘Home’ in some ways, complete with a whole set of new friends about the place. That’s not to say that we don’t miss home or Juba is perfect, but I guess it’s an insight which should prepare us, as we leave for the UK at the weekend, that leaving is going to be hard and we’ll miss being here considerably. I certainly feel that I miss home and I’m very much looking forward to being at home again with friends and family. But it doesn’t follow that consequently I’m looking forward to leaving here at all. I’m not particularly to be honest – I rather like the place/people. That’s the paradox.

The ICRC War Surgery Conference

Anyway, enough whining. So let’s get down to business. We’re in the end game now and have basically been tying up all our loose ends. A team from St Mary’s have come to join us (now I’m in Juba with two of my old consultants!) to do some obstetric fistula repair work, coordinated by the UNFPA. It’s been really nice to see them all and breaks up the trip for us quite nicely. We’ve been working hard and both feel in urgent need of a break so we’ve been slowing down a little this last week (we still go to the hospital office 7 days a week for one reason or another but still!) so it’s nice to have that overlap. I think there’s been some good contributions the team’s made here which is great.

Fishing on the Nile

We finished up our gunshot research analysis and presented that to the ICRC war surgery/trauma meeting in Juba last week. That was a 3 day affair we attended to learn more about trauma/war surgery with a load of other Southern Sudanese surgeons from across the country. It was quite a nice little break in itself actually. So we presented the research and that seemed to go very well. It was a good time actually, though surprisingly tiring in itself. We’ll have to write the thing up now and hopefully publish it somewhere but that little delight will be awaiting my attention when I get home and need something to fill those long winter evenings...! We still need some missing data ideally. I don’t know if we’ll get it, but I’d consider even coming back to Juba for a long weekend to get it...!

Assembling the Cystoscope

Teaching we’ve been doing as and when. Usually the limiting factor has been administrative/logistical, as is so often the way here. We plan something and then suddenly there’s a meeting or something on the same time. You can’t fight that, you just have to adjust yourself to not let it bother you and have something else up your sleeve to be getting on with. But it’s been good and what we’ve done has been warmly received and feedback has been positive.

Matt and Mr Walsh Reassembling the Cystoscope

On Sunday we went to Kator Cathedral again with Jo from Comboni where he was presiding. It was a really great experience actually. The singing in particular was very beautiful and it seemed a fitting way to spend our last Sunday. Salva Kiir was there again and gave a speech at the end which was fine - how funny that going to church with the president of Southern Sudan, or going for a beer with ministers of health, doesn’t even raise an eyebrow with us now? It’s a strange old life. And also a real highlight was visiting Comboni for the last time in a while. It’s such a great place to be and sitting under the mango and banana trees chatting with Valentino tell stories of Sudan in the 50s in his gruff Italian accent was such a pleasure. It’s such a serene place to be.

Matt and Valentino at Comboni

So I’ll be wrapping this up now. Next blog will either be from Addis airport or an epilogue from the UK I guess. We should be arriving in London on Sunday morning. I hope you’ve been enjoying reading about our adventures.

James & Matthew

PS: Here are a few miscellaneous photos that I couldn't fit anywhere else.

 

Jasper...