Merry Timket

Timket (which means baptism or Epiphany in Amharic) is another religious holiday in Ethiopia.  It is the most important orthodox Christian holiday of the year.  Although the holiday is meant to commemorate the baptism of Jesus in the River Jorden, it also seems to be a holiday to celebrate the Ark of the Covenant being in Ethiopia.

The Ark is thought to have been kidnapped from Jerusalem and brought to Ethiopia quite some time ago.  It is said to be guarded by a single priest in a church in Axum.  Strangely, no one but this priest is able to see the Ark, so I guess we just have to take his word for it.  There is some sort of process to replace the current priest/guard should he be called up for higher celestial duties.

Believe it or not, the Ark also has magical abilities and has the power to emit enough energy to sweep away enemies and any innocent bystanders.   This is why it obviously needs to stay locked up, hidden away from the rest of the world.

 

All churches have a replica of the Ark, and Timket is a big colourful parade of priests carrying beautiful umbrellas and replicas of the Ark covered with silk.

Thursday is the Muslim holiday of Maulid, celebrating the birth of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.   It’s nice to be living in a country that is so inclusive of all beliefs (as we get lots of holidays!).

Parade going by the Canadian Embassy

Happy Timket and Maulid to everyone!

The Land of Punt

We (the four of us and Brian) are just back from a short sojourn to Djibouti.  Before moving to Ethiopia I was unaware that the country of Djibouti even existed.  A bit embarrassing, as I previously thought of myself as someone with a reasonable working knowledge of the geography of Africa.

Djibouti is a tiny country that lies at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.  It is bordered by Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia.

In the 25^th century BC, the Djibouti area (along with other localities in the Horn) was part of the Land of Punt.   The Puntites had economic ties with Ancient Egypt during the time of Queen Hatshepsut.  They traded things like ebony, incense, short horned cattle (not sure what the issue was with long horned cattle).

In the late 19^th century Djibouti was colonized by France through various treaties with the Somali Sultans.  It was then named French Somaliland.  Independence from France was gained in 1977 and the country was renamed The Republic of Djibouti. Arabic and French are now the official languages.

Modern day Djibouti is basically a large French and American military base and also a large port.  Land locked Ethiopia depends on the Djibouti port for transport of goods arriving by sea.

We didn’t actually go to Djibouti to learn about the very interesting history.  We went to snorkel with whale sharks and float in the salty Lac Assal.

A little info about whale sharks and Lac Assal:

The whale shark is a big, vegetarian, filter feeding shark.  It is the largest known fish species.   According to Wikepedia the largest recorded whale shark was measured at 12.65 meters (41.50 feet) and weighed 21.5 m tons (47,000 lb).  Quite exciting to swim next to one.

Lac Assal lies at 155 meters below sea level, which makes it the lowest point in Africa.  It is also the second saltiest body of water in the world (the first saltiest is in Antarctica).  Afar nomads extract salt from Lac Assal and long ago established the camel caravan routes into Ethiopia.

Floating

The salty bottom of Lac Assal

 A great holiday.  Now it's back to school for the kids and back to work for us.

Happy Gena!

 

It seems difficult to believe that it’s December and Christmas is right around the corner. 

Holiday Concert at School (Aysha on percussion)

To celebrate the end of the year the kids have a crazily long Dec/Jan break (3 weeks plus two days).  Various holidays get absorbed around this time: Ethiopian Orthodox Xmas (Gena) ,Epiphany (Timkat), Milaud,  Christian Xmas, New Years .

I’m having a hard time imagining myself madly shopping, wrapping, treeing, baking etc (I know that’s not what Christmas is about, but that’s how I usually celebrate.).  None of   that type of stuff going on here. 

Ethiopian Christmas (Gena) is celebrated on  January 7^th and is a more sober affair with an absence of trees, Santas and gifts.   Strangely, I’m not missing the holiday scramble but will probably make up for it next year with some sort of Christmas over indulgence.

The month has been good.

Sue and Erle in Tigray

 We had a terrific visit from Sue and Erle earlier this month.  After much debate on Sue’s part as to whether to come or not; I think Sue might have had fun and we even heard her say some good things about Ethiopian Airlines!

Aysha turned 14 this month (another unbelievable thing).   We had a lovely birthday dinner with some of her girlfriends from school.

Y12, "our" hospital

Rounding with Med Students

We also decided on a “launch” date for our Family Medicine Residency program: January 28^th is D-day.    Seems like there is still an overwhelming amount of organizing that needs to be done, but we are happy that things are moving forward.  Hope there won’t be too much shrapnel to clean up after the launch.

Happy Holiday’s from all of us to all of you!

Sunil and his buddies after school

Season 1 Sports Awards

World Toilet Day

I’m a bit late with this post as World Toilet Day was in November (apologies).

I came across World Toilet Day as I was surfing the net, trying to discover why toilet facilities for women in this country are subpar.  Even at restaurants, toilets are often mixed gender with minimal or no privacy.   This can make for a slightly anxiety provoking trip to the loo. 

Men feel free to pee anywhere and anytime they want.  I’m not sure where or when women do their business.  I suspect there is an assumption that women don’t really need to pee during daylight hours or maybe women are just not thought about at all.

I then read some slightly disturbing things.  Many girls in rural Africa and Asia stop attending school because there are no girls’ toilet facilities for them at school, or they get bullied by boys at school while doing their business.

The World Toilet Organization is addressing this health and gender issue.  Here are a few things they have to say:

-1 in 3 women worldwide risk shame, disease, harassment and even attack because they have nowhere safe to go to the toilet.

-Sanitation plays an important role in ending poverty, creating gender equality, and keeping children in school.  

-Right now nearly 40% of the world’s population are without sanitation

A couple of links:

 http://worldtoilet.org/wto/                             

 http://www.wateraid.org/uk/get_involved/world_toilet_day/default.asp

                                                           

I couldn’t really come up with any photos for this blog, but I think you get the idea.

Another List (repost of deleted post)

I was looking through some old posts and saw my “Surprise List”.  I
have compiled  another list.  It’s called the “The Surprising Things
That Make you Happy List".  Here it is:

Old cooking facilities

1.     Having the gas cylinder for our stove filled (this was a remarkable feat on Mike’s part). We can now cook on four burners.  This is a major improvement from cooking on a single plug in burner.

2.      Having a mostly reliable shower.

3.      Not having to wait 15 minutes to get onto a line taxi in the morning (this happens rarely, but when it does there is a lot of happiness).

4.     Ripe Guavas.
 
5.     Seeing school kids in their purple and yellow uniforms every morning in Mexico Square.

6.     Vim (it cleans everything).

7.     Not seeing a cockroach in a 48 hour period.

8.     The small stall, by our house, that sells beer, pop and toilet paper.

9.     Catching a glimpse of the hills surrounding Addis; this can make you momentarily forget that you are sitting in traffic, not getting too far.

10.  Knowing that in the next 10 months, I won’t experience one day with a temperature of minus 20 degrees C (this one is not so surprising)

                                                                           

5 star cooking facilities

Functioning stove

WONCA

Vic Falls

Brian and I are just back from the WONCA Africa conference in Zimbabwe.  WONCA, strangely, is the acronym for the World Association of Family Doctors (or some variation of that).

The conference was held in the lovely town of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.  It was a bit of a challenge to arrange travel to Vic Falls, from Addis.  The only flights available were charters through Air Zimbabwe.  Air Zimbabwe has had its share of troubles over the last few years. 

lovely plane ride

This is what we read prior to flying: Air Zimbabwe was bankrupt, hadn’t paid any of their fuel bills for ages and was no longer allowed to fly in international airspace. This information did not fill us with confidence as we boarded the plane.  The flight of course turned out to be terrific—12 seater plane, in flight coca-cola, great pilot (though no co-pilot, but perhaps co-pilots are over rated) and we all arrived safe and sound.

The conference was very interesting for us.  There seems to be a lot of momentum for primary care in East and Southern Africa.  It was also reassuring for us to hear of the various challenges that other countries have faced.

Brian and I, (well, mostly Brian) were meant to present on the successful implementation of FM in Ethiopia.  We had to change the presentation to the barriers we have encountered in implementing FM in Ethiopia.  It was actually supposed to be our Ethiopian colleague, Dawit doing the presentation.  He was unfortunately not able to get a visa for Zimbabwe so was unable to attend. 

I find it perplexing, that as Canadians, we can just show up in Zimbabwe and obtain a tourist visa on arrival.  If you are a citizen of an African country, you need to apply for a visa weeks in advance and then may be denied a visa (discouraging).

A good week was had; we met many interesting people and got to know a few East African family medicine colleagues.

It's Sometimes Hard to Wash your Hands

There are contradictions in life that we see everyday.  Sometimes it takes something very small to make you become acutely aware of this.  Here is my little missive for the day.  It’s about hand hygiene.

The link between hand washing and the spread of disease was established about 200 years ago, almost simultaneously in a Vienna and Boston Hospital.  

Everyone knows it is important to wash your hands.  The WHO has put out a 216 page document on this subject.

Here in Addis we, and most other ferenji’s, walk around with little bottles of hand sanitizer in our back packs.  We spend a good part of the day whipping out our Purell bottles and madly sanitizing our hands at a moments notice (not sure what local people think of this slightly annoying habit of ours). 

In hospitals at home, we are informed that there are about 400 different hand washing points before, during and after a patient encounter.  There are now people employed to spy on us to make sure we perform adequate hand hygiene.  This is of course all good.

We have recently been attending inpatient rounds at Yekatit 12 hospitals.  The wards have between 6-8 patients in a room.  Patients have active TB, HIV, meningitis; they certainly don’t need any health care worker associated infections added to this.  Of course hand hygiene could be and easy part of the solution.  But it’s not so easy.

Same sink this morning

We saw there was a sink in the male inpatient ward.  Thought for starters we might bring in a bar of soap and we and the other healthcare workers could start washing our hands at the sink.  We were willing to forgo our hand sanitizer for a few hours. Seemed simple enough, except the next day there was no sink and I don’t think they have a maintenance department to come up and replace the sink.

Sink on the ward yesterday

Yet again, it’s not fair.  Overcrowding, under staffing and lack of funds make it extremely difficult for these types of preventive measures to be put in place. 

We continue to admire the work that everyone does here.