ALSO in Addis #2

Here are some comments from a personal e-mail - I suspect Mr. SillyPants is a little too fatigued to write a formal "Day 2" post. And, he conveyed he has a little stomach ache, so I'll take the initiative and post a few of his observations:

......I'm just finished with our first day here. I am bushed after teaching two sessions (labor dystocia and third trimester bleeding) then proctered an "OB cases" session in the afternoon. Everything went really well and, let me tell you - - - these obstetricians and midwives KNOW their stuff. The OB staff who were here were right with us, no matter what we were teaching and the majority of midwives were able to assimilate the new material easily and quickly.

All in all, I'm very impressed with the knowledge level of the OB staff and midwives here. There are lots of challenges here with regards to healthcare but they don't include training or knowledge, ....

Access to healthcare, well, that's another problem.

Tomorrow is more of the same, with another lecture, two skills sessions and our testing program. Then, we meet with future instructors on Wednesday.

Speaking of Wednesday, I am meeting with Richard Wednesday night - - - we had a dinner tonight and tomorrow, so Wednesday was the first available opportunity. I called Richard and he sounded very happy to meet that night. I am truly looking forward to it. I will look forward to seeing Richard again to catch up with him and also to reassure him in his efforts.

Well, that is it for now. It is 10pm and I'm going to head off to bed. More work tomorrow.

 (Edited by Ms. Plum to add: Richard is a student we sponsor. He's enrolled at Central University, where he is studying nursing. When we started his sponsorship, we believed he was pre-med. We have since learned, through our own checks and balances system, that he is studying nursing. We haven't had a change of heart regarding our support of him, and I think we all learned a lesson, mediated through one of our doctor friends at AAU. You can read about the students we help here and how we organize that help here. I saved y'all his mushy lovin' stuff - I'm keeping that to myself).