Sadly, my last post for this year

This was quite a day. My friend Sisay got me a VIP pass to the main Timket ceremony. Google or even see on YouTube if you are interested. This is by far the largest (religious) ceremony of the year for Ethiopian Christians. There is no comparable event that I have ever heard of anywhere else in the world. The Ethiopians believe that they are in possession of the original tablets of the Ten Commandments and that they are stored in the bowels of a church in historic Axum. A designated monk spends his entire life guarding the door, and the lock on it, that leads to the room where the Ten Commandments are stored. This holiday, the Epiphany, celebrates the baptism of Christ. In an extraordinarily colorful ceremony, replicas of the tablet are taken from each church to a body of water; the priests stay with them and pray all night; in the morning there is further ceremony and then water is splashed on the worshippers to symbolize the baptist. This is an abbreviated version of what takes place over many hours and 2 days. There are then parades and celebrations thought each city.

On my way back to the car, I encountered a man lying on the ground having a grand mal seizure, with a dozen folks hovering over him. They were sprinkling water on his forehead. I turned him on his side and held him there. One of the natives started to light a match. I stopped him. Turns out they believe the sulfur and smoke will drive away the evil spirits. When I turned my back for a moment, he tried once again; at this point the rest of the people had confidence in me and told him not to continue.

I was awaiting a ride when a huge and colorful parade came down Bole Rd (the 5th avenue of Addis). I tried to call my ride to warn him, but the phone circuits were overloaded due to the holiday and I could not reach him. An hour later he could finally get through. We were on our way to an outlying hospital where I was supposed to do a procedure on two patients with trigeminal neuralgia. To make a very long story very short: 1) it took us one hour to get there as we detoured down dirt alleys to avoid several more parades; 2) the procedure requires a spinal fluid compatible dye and they handed me a dye that would be toxic to the brain; 3) one of the patients did not actually have trigeminal neuralgia (he had cluster headache). That is the short story.

Went to dinner this evening with two of the volunteers that hang out a lot with me, and a professor from Middlebury College.

Tomorrow I will play golf at Addis Ababa Golf Club. This will be followed by lunch in the clubhouse. My host called tonite to tell me he wants to take me out of Addis for the afternoon to see some of the villages and other sites. Regrettably, I have agreed to meet with the Chief of Neurosurgery tomorrow afternoon (he is one year out of his residency; I was present at his diploma ceremony last year). He wants to buy my MacBook Air that I bought literally the day before I came here. He has no idea what is involved in switching from a PC to a Mac. I plan to spend two hours with him and then I have two patients (and a few of the volunteers planning to go to medical school) coming to my apartment.

Hopefully, for my last dinner tomorrow night I will be going out with a 11 of my good friends here ( volunteers, adopting parents, and colleagues) to a Chinese restaurant. I was there last year and it is about the most memorable Chinese food I have had anywhere. I cannot tell you what I was eating, but it was wonderful.

That's all for this year.

Touching lives

Monday, January 16: Touching lives

I have been tempting fate for four years here, and finally succeeded. I succumbed to some wonderful looking ice cream yesterday in Harrar, tasted wonderful, and within hours it was having a disruptive relationship with my digestive system. Fortunately mild and gone within 24 hours.

Another exhilarating day in surgery. Residents wanted me to scrub with them on a seemingly routine case billed by the consulting neurosurgeon as a cyst in the spinal cord that needed to be drained; no big deal. I asked to see the x-rays, and it was actually an extensive tumor within the spinal cord itself. Another 6 hour case, but fortunately I was able to leave once the residents were ready to close. The 4th year resident who I was assisting did an outstanding job without the $200,000 set of instruments he would have had at his disposal anywhere in the US.

Just I was leaving, had a call from Jen and Jennifer who wanted me to meet them at the only Thai restaurant in Addis. No one except me, including Rick and his kids, seems to know where it is. We had a wonderful time and also treated Fitsim (one of Rick’s older live-ins) to his first taste of Thai food, which he loved.

Quickly had my internet fix at the Harmony Hotel, and then walked to Rick’s to see a patient in his yard. A 36 year old woman whose only ostensible symptom has been incontinence for one year. However, even without speaking a word of English it was clear she was mentally dull. She has a benign tumor larger than a baseball, which I probably won’t be able to get to before I leave. In any event I had three aspiring doctors with me (taking a year between college and med school) and they were fascinated by the experience. I spent a lot of time and we really connected. They are more excited than ever to move to their next stage. Incidentally, all three are here for a full year, 2 teaching English at the only high school in Gondar and one who has been here for 11 months as Rick’s assistant. Wonderful fellow, born in South Africa, raised in Australia, Israel and U.S.

Was invited to a dinner tonite at the Sheraton with probably the 50 most impressive and influential medical people in Ethiopia. The head of the UN Medical Clinic; chief medical officer of the American Embassy; probably the most prominent expert in the world in Tropical Medicine (here from Oxford); head of 5 of the most prominent hospitals in the country -- fabulous men and women with unending interesting conversation.

Friday is the largest religious holiday of the year, Timket, which far eclipses Xmas or Easter. I have a VIP pass so may go and watch the celebration. I’m operating at one of the private hospitals tomorrow, going to another on Wednesday and Carter from Minneapolis is going to shadow me Wednesday.

Have an invitation Friday or Saturday to play the only golf course in this country of 87 million people, the Addis Country Club; 9 holes with a great restaurant and another different view of Addis. (9 more holes under construction). This is apparently the retreat of the ubiquitous ambassadors to Ethiopia from nearly every country in the world.

That’s it for now.