Although the event I am about to describe happened 24 years ago it is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things that stays with you as if it happened yesterday. Although I have not used real names and I have dramatized it to make it readable, everything I am about to describe is a true and accurate account of very real events that happened when I was a recently qualified GP in the Monks Park Surgery in Horfield, Bristol in 1990.
As Haile was about to drive me out of HQ on Friday afternoon Ato Lallago who works in the kitchen ( (“Ato” = “Mr” – respect term as he’s a bit old) knocked on the taxi window and asked if we were going past Tor Hailoch. it was pouring with rain and it is quite common for someone to ask for a lift in these circumstances. Many HQ and Bingham employees travel a long way on taxi vans to work and often have to change taxis more than once. Tor Hailoch is a huge interchange for taxi vans and is on our way home (at least, one possible route) so I leaned over to the back seat and moved all my clobber including my lovely big man’s umbrella and Ato Lallago hopped in (as best as a guy his age can).
The UK government is often promoting more exercise for children. ‘Walk to school weeks’ are just one of the outcomes of this. For children attending Bingham walking to school is not an option. They arrive by taxi or are part of a complicated car share. No one lives in the vicinity. This is because the area around Bingham is dominated by tin shacks and small souks. Bingham families usually live on guarded compounds with a collection of homes, or in a house with a walled garden in one of the more middle income areas. The space around the house for children to play is often quite limited.
Sometimes when Haile is unable to come and get me from the clinic to bring me home he sends Yonas.Yonas’s taxi is a notch down from Haile’s especially the absence of a seat belt for me.
When I was teaching full time in the UK I used to muse on what I would alter if only I could, to change working conditions for the better. These were my thoughts.
Longer ago than I like to remember a neurology registrar was doing a lecture on epilepsy in the Clore lecture theatre in University College Hospital Medical School. He asked us to give him some causes of fits. Tony Davies (hi Tony!) and I were sitting a few rows up from the front and he shouted out “exercise!” Puzzled looks. “Pardon?” said the registrar.
The sequel to our visit last week to the homes of China and Yetimwork, saw three of us setting off in a Bingham van to buy tarpaulin for a roof repair and some supplies for other individuals. An Ethiopian had found two pieces of tarpaulin on sale for 350 Birr each. However when two foreigners asked to buy them the stall holder first bumped up the price to 1400 Birr - well you can’t blame him for trying! There was a delay while he searched for the receipt book (almost nothing can be purchased here without a receipt).
Being aware of every heart beat for several days is pretty exhausting. Especially when quite frequently every third or fourth beat is dropped and you feel like a balloon has just popped inside your chest each time.
There is a great place for coffee and to buy bread in Addis and as Saturday morning shopping trips always involve going to more than one location, we usually combine the two.
Recently we needed petrol, and having been waved on from at least two stations (they were out of fuel) we joined the mayhem at a third. Once on the forecourt we located a pump dispensing "benzine". There were three rows of cars converging on this pump and we crept forwards little by little all the while jockeying for position. Just for fun while in the queue I noted the people that appeared at the car window. They tried to sell us: