More about our 1st week!

Apologies for not posting anything sooner – we’ve had a busy 1^st week! We eventually arrived to Meskine Hospital on Tuesday afternoon after lots of airport delays. It was 41°C when we landed in Maroua (the nearby town) so it’s been a hot week but the fact that it’s hot season means that we’ve eaten lots of delicious mangoes :) The other foreign missionaries here have been extremely welcoming…we’ve already been to a birthday party of 1 of the missionary kids, a  housewarming party & a film night with popcorn & chocolate ice cream! Life in Cameroon is different in lots of ways…everyone is very friendly, the women wear beautiful (but very modest) clothes & there are no supermarkets (just small shops or outdoor markets). For Easter there was a service on Good Friday & Easter Sunday (followed by a church lunch)…church here starts at 8am as a later service would be unbearably hot. We’ve only spent 2 days in the hospital but to give you a quick idea of what it’s like there are only 2 full-time medical doctors covering the whole hospital during the day (so they see over 60 patients each during the daily ward round before they go the clinic at 10am!) & there’s 1 medically trained surgeon. Despite the lack of doctors the hospital is well run with nurses taking on many of the roles that doctors would do in the UK. Prayers would be appreciated that we would understand the ward rounds as they inter-change between using Fulfulde (the local language) & French in very noisy wards…but overall we’re having a great time :)