Health(care) in Rumbek
It’s getting hot again. The rains have become less frequent and just like a few months ago the sun feels like is cooking the brain inside the head. The rainy season is bidding farewell and it leaves non-existing roads and flooded swamps. And clouds of mosquitoes and other insects that in all this water find the most suitable environment to reproduce.

I am sitting under the big mahogany tree in the work site of our school. I am back here after more than a month. The landscape has slightly changed since the last time I came here. Where the forest ends, beyond the big mango and acacia trees, the river overflowed due to the heavy rains of the past two months and the great plain has been completely flooded . In this newly formed lagoon fish abound and a couple of days ago one of the local people killed a baby crocodile and was carrying it around in order to sell it.

I am blogging again after a long break. A sudden (but somehow expected) loss for words. One may wonder whether this was a real 'writer’s block' or more simply laziness. I can honestly say that the second part of August went by without any particular moment that will be remembered. Well, none except my health, which has kept me under stress for a few days (luckily -it seems - without any particular reason to worry). But which has also given me the opportunity to personally test Rumbek healthcare system, pretty ‘basic’ – it is a euphemism – although much more effective than what one would think.

In the end this experience turned out being full of little stories to take home. Like for instance my first visit to Dr. Gabriel, the Sudanese doctor of the UN mission, whom was so excited I had gone to see him as he was "tired of playing solitary on his computer the whole day" (which comment left me quite puzzled as he is one of the only 3 doctors here in Rumbe while the 'demand' is definitely high...). Or the long time spent waiting in line for the urine test at Rumbek hospital, myself being the only ‘kawagia’ among a crowd of local people patiently waiting for their turn, in the midst of an overwhelming smell of urine. I remember myself trying to breath through my shirt in order not to vomit from that horrible smell. And realizing – perhaps for the first time – that when it comes to pain and the sickness there are no more differences of skin, income, status, etc. and we all are and even look just about the same.




Oh and how could I forget my puzzled face when the doctor tells me to go and provide the ‘sample’ and shows me a place when I can do my ‘thing'. A minute later I finally understand he's telling me to go behind the bush and pee in the little test tube he's just given me. Yes, because for some mysterious reasons here they use REALLY small containers and..grr...even the simplest operation becomes so 'challenging'...