Beth Phoenix Tapped Out

Khartoum, Sudan
July 3, 2009.

Friday, the day off.

Let's start with bad news, so the rest is downhill.
yesterday afternoon when I came back this morning when you wake up and I found the
pc locked. I intend to lock in the same situation they
is when I try to turn it on: all lights lit, the screen
black. So he started to happen more often, and during the operation
: not enough to keep him on. At this point I am afraid that the diagnosis
nefarious of James (a contact inside the motherboard)
is correct and also the prognosis (happen more and more until you restart
more): no flowers, but works well. Both times are
managed to restart it within twenty minutes and fifty
attempts, but who knows long will it last?
would rule at least until next Friday, once a common Soba I use PCs.
Inshallah. And maybe off in the middle of a job, a letter
... So, in case of sudden silence on the part of your
affectionate, do not despair and do not call the embassy
will rise from the ashes.

The thing that annoys me more, seriously, is not so much e-mail or these poor
pages of the diary, because somehow,
between PC and common friends there to do: and not for skype with
home, since communications suck (maybe I've never spoken
, I do now), but to download images from the photo machine
. Stupidly I have not brought along the CD to install
and so I can no longer download: once filled the card should I buy

another memory. Funny how age find themselves having to
predigitale and save photos to the shots and think well to do. I said

Skype: these are very mysterious. Some of us (the lucky
usual) has no problem everything works fine.
Most passes through hell. I for my part I do not
lament, while everything seems to go well for the few communications
made with colleagues (and I heard Pierre Valdo)
when I call home I can also see and hear, but I do not feel at home instead and
do not see me: fortunately can read posts and then I sit silent
beating furiously on the keyboard. All
then when the connection is working, which is not at all obvious:
often we blow it to hell and telephones. So, I said,
not lose much.

Last topics disliked the business of Lariam. As I write
jot down a pill for the science experiment on Friday, with a syringe
next two-and three vials of twenty Urbason:
we see now. Already I feel a strange tingling and itching of the tongue, but I know my chickens
: it's just scared. Yesterday

strange cases in the clinic. Meanwhile
begin to see children who come from far and say that they are visiting relatives, but I'm beginning to think that
is sometimes an excuse and we are perhaps best known as
not believe. The fact is that if you take a child away from
jump from the few epidemiological data that you know (malaria
low in this period, for example, or the presence of sickle cell anemia
his tribe) and what you know about how they live,
power they do so: so you're completely in the dark,
a little like visiting with your eyes closed. A child came from Ondurman
(ie the opposite side of this huge metropolis)
for a second opinion on his situation, crazy stuff. For the rest of the usual routine
infections, coughs, ear infections, and unfortunately a few cases of malnutrition
, yesterday, more than usual, which put us on her knees for
amount of tests that we do and the complexity of the treatment.
not just to feed: The family situation is often not
is that it does not even have those few pounds to buy food.
This matters much more complicated: sometimes mothers are absent or
death, sometimes simply distracted by other children and lots of things to do
, sometimes even more simply ignorance and poor diet, drag
day after day for months without realizing
tragedy in which we are going to stick. That means social problems,
family, tribal, in a broader context of exploitation of resources and people
by a lot of people, primarily in Western and Chinese
. On this fit then the last factor, that
that we can find and delete: anemia, infestations
intestinal infections. If we feed
no cure is useless, does not absorb anything, but even if we take care without giving appropriate
food is useless. What is certain is that these cases will tear your heart, especially when I see them again
week after week hoping to support and encourage
gradually (it's the technique I use) and instead
go wrong. There are also these, and it is heartbreaking to see them
always stay the same weight, looking more as adults, with the air of the accused.

Then there are infections of the skin, impressive
very beginning, but when you get used to the idea that under these conditions
impetigo is rampant, it does little to cure them exactly as
us. In short, apart from the tragedy of malnutrition (in which I
also the impression of being quite irrelevant) there is really nothing heroic
in this work, and it is not different from Prato. If one thinks
to come here to feel the Citadel Dr. Manson
(Marica, reminds you of anything?) Or Dr Scweitzer duty is better than
forget it. About

medicine I realize having left without any news on the epidemic of infections
circumcision: Well, it's over. Unless
who have not decided to take them somewhere else because we had reported the
What the popular committee, but I think not.
I think rather that the leaders have spoken with the guys in charge and
have done better to disinfect instruments. It 'a lot' that the poor in jallabia
procession with his hands in front
has stopped, thank God continue to reward large burns,
related to living conditions at home and the need to cook
a room full of small children running around. Our initials
protocols limited the paintings to be influenced
without shelter, but now they have made our nurses and a culture
dare a little more: are all well thank God, without
infections. The only trouble is that some family has no intention to have the baby wrapped
and exposing open wounds to remove all
flies and dust. After a few days to gather in Basheer
conditions you can imagine. Yesterday afternoon


great celebration and some good news. At 6
had planned the "jabanà farewell" to Alessandra. I have already spoken to her, a cardiologist
young and very smart who oversaw Aisha, a little girl whose story I sent
Emergency school because they make a story to tell
students. He organized a reception in the hospital to greet all
mangoes, but when I arrived (directly
from Mayo) of Italians there was none. They were virtually all in
emergency room and Alex were the nurses of the department who had prepared the
jabbanà and was painting with henna
the feet and hands as a sign of good wishes and affection. Painting the
hands seems to take a husband soon (if you do not know how Alessandra Cards
however) while the feet can be painted only if you are married, but for
Kawaja this is not true, of course. When I say paint
not give a good idea. On the back and ankle tattoos are real
henna, as I have seen girls do we, as the plant and the fingers are completely
painted black.
This is considered a sign of beauty, perhaps because black people have
palms of the hands and soles of the feet much clearer. Besides, I do not think that
silliest lacquered nails considering it a sign of beauty:
are just conventions.


Anyway I took advantage of the occasion, first to melt,
to go see the houses and the rest. The houses are now almost ready
all, and the grass begins to look in the garden. Certainly, the impression is still that of a
site with many details to settle, but there are
. What I think is still rather backward area of \u200b\u200bthe rooms and common
the dining hall: small, simple but spectacular with a huge window giving
directly on the Nile, come to think is impressive.
The idea that we will take the morning coffee thoughtfully watching the big river is objectively
intriguing. Next to these rooms,
from the inside, are building a small swimming pool, and this has raised a thicket of
discussion between us. Some believe that
not the case, a kind of insult to misery, something that
transformed the hospital into a kind of holiday village.
Frankly I do not think so. Working from sixty degrees for six, nine months out from the city
without the possibility of recreation a moment, it's worse than
hard. Being able to take a dip every now and then just to freshen (more
that a pool is a pool) is a breath of fresh air: Who comes here must be willing to
Sarif, but not useless, and should be happy to come
. The floggings let's leave it to someone else, and who criticized the choice
is speechless when I asked if it would be unfair
then turn off all air conditioners. We are here to do a job, not
atone for sins.

But I dealt with the speech just to say I did
a walk in the new wing, and I was amazed to see the
birds. Imagine the context: a spot of Green meadows with
well cared for, huge mango trees, flowering bougainvillea
pruned as a bush (there's a whole garden) near the river, surrounded by
kilometers of sand and scrubby bushes. We get dozens of colorful birds
: in a few minutes I saw something like
kingfishers and other small birds like hummingbirds, with beak and
long tail, and pairs of birds with yellow wings and body blue, others green
: an amazing thing. It will be great stay there: for those who work in hospital
(all except me and Anton) nothing more than machines, it will raise
later, they'll walk a hundred meters in the green and there they were at work
. For me, less change. The only thing I regret, however, is that there
'll be a couple of weeks and that's it, they can only imagine how it will be over and above
once lived for a while.


The party then moved to Alexandra dinner Mamoura,
only for the Italians: it was not to exclude the Serbs, but for a moment
longer with us. They go in so many of today and tomorrow, there is a sense of a passage
group. Among other things, part Romeo, the heart surgeon who has done the responsible
during the holidays Gina and I met in Florence
shortly before leaving, she spoke just Mayo and Sudan. A Venetian sweet
and deeply in love with the work he does for
Emergency. It 'was a lovely evening, full of beautiful people (and good wine
): we all in a tight embrace and I
proposed to meet again in September during the congress in Florence, for a dinner
me in the garden. Inshallah.


's been almost two hours since I started writing (there were
intervals), the PC will not shut down yet and I have not had an anaphylactic shock
: two pieces of good news, at least. I'm going to prepare:
came down to have coffee but there's no one around. I think
wait three and then I'll go to the national museum, the one with the findings
Egyptian archaeologists. Next Friday is the move and then I will have only two other
Friday to exploit. Tomorrow I'll tell you.