We have not blogged for over a year, but since May 11, we have been back here in Sierra Leone in the town of Mattru, and the days have passed rapidly. Our visit here coincided with a visit of a team of about 20 persons, doctors, dentists, nurses and support personnel from Europe and Africa. They were part of the Afro-European Medical Research Network (AEMRN) consisting of primarily Sierra Leonean doctors and dentists that came as a team to give back to their home country by doing dental work and surgical cases. They just left Wednesday evening after another long day, but they were able to do more than 100 surgeries during their 7 days here, primarily hernia repair and simple abdominal surgeries such as fibroid tumor removal. The medical evaluation most days included 50-70 patients. The first day that we were here, it was obvious that the medical screening area would need a significant amount of help, and so I pitched in to assist with that. With so many people coming from the surrounding villages, my Krio expertise was not as helpful, so I pretty much needed full time Mende translation. The situation was made more desperate and chaotic during this time because the government is trying to upgrade the hospital, and is in the middle of a reconstruction project of the medical/surgical ward. This ward normally can hold up to 36 patients and so these patients are scattered between a small triage building and the maternity ward private beds. But there was not nearly enough space for the post-operative patients, and so they had fashioned a makeshift recovery unit with tarps under a roofed space normally reserved as a waiting room for the lab. Many of the surgeries were done as outpatients and they went home after recovery of a few hours. In the middle of construction debris everywhere, even on the sidewalks, a lot of very necessary medical and surgical interventions were carried out for the people of this area. Dr. Charles Senesie is the head and founder of this organization which was providing free surgeries for the people of this area, and we were so thankful to them for the help that they provided. The number of people crowding around for care every day, and there were quite a number who had to be turned away, unfortunately. These cases that were a bit heartbreaking, including a young lady with severe facial deformities due to a growth in the lower jaw, 2 ladies with very large goiters, and those with deformities of limbs that were nonsurgical. There was a pregnant lady who was admitted for a dental abscess who became septic and died, a tragic occurrence because of poor dental care. One elderly man walked for 2 days (fuel and travel were too expensive for him) with a very large hernia, but he got there on the afternoon that the team was leaving. I felt so bad about telling him the free surgery was not available, but told him of the cost of this surgery if he stayed around. He dropped his head, since he could not afford it. But, praise the Lord, our hospital administrator offered him free surgery, courtesy of the benevolence fund which has helped many patients over the years, and that happened without any intervention on my part, which was so gratifying to see. So he will have surgery sometime next week. It has been very hot and humid, much like a south Alabama summer, except that there is no air conditioning. We both do not remember this degree of heat here before, but perhaps our memories are faulty. So we have had some very hot nights, and that is made just bearable with running 2 fans all night. We are so fortunate to have 24-hour electricity in our house. It is a real blessing to be able to sleep under a fan. We will include some photos, and later on, Heleen will update her work with Nyandengoh!

For some reason, I am unable to edit photos with our slow internet, so I will give the explanation here. The first photo is Reverend Joe Abu visiting with Heleen after church Sunday. Reverend Abu is from Mattru, but is now a pastor of a church in Philadelphia, PA. Second Photo: L-R Dr. Senesie and Dr. Mohammed--both members of the team from AEMRN, and Dr. Senesie is the founder of the organization. Third photo: The view out of our current home's back door..nice to sit here in the morning and drink our morning coffee Fourth photo: The wall that is being built surrounding the hospital by the government...work proceeding nicely Fifth Photo: Our house for 3 years when we were here 2017-2020, currently lived in by Dr. Rogers Sixth Photo: Here is the rehabilitation progress on the Medical surgical ward at the hospital.