Africa Vision 32

Africa Vision 32

N’Djamena, January 7, 2008

First university session.

I started working on my classes (4) for the 6th year of medical school a week ago. I was hoping to talk about public health in refugee camps but somehow I did not manage to download the book I needed so I changed my mind and will be talking about a malaria outbreak in Burundi, an influenza outbreak in a senior citizens home in the Netherlands and my passion Leishmaniasis and its public health implications. Teaching is something I love to do and even if I was a bit buzzed about teaching in French, mainly about my poor spelling, it went well. The hours were actually booked by a teacher of computer science & epidemiology and a teacher of Primary Health Care as well. But both kindly rescheduled.

And my instincts were right as long as you show up on time you can always wing a projector. The course organizer whisked away on his scooter and came back with a fine specimen for me. This after a wild goose hunt through the medical faculty putting class representatives of different years on the spot where the mighty machine was. From the tour in the USA I learnt that a doogle is quintessential if you want to work with a Mac. Just love the highlighted apple.

The students here are in 8 different classes with roughly 50 students per year and they have to share 10 computers, a library with less book than I possess and a laboratory without the basics. Yet entry to the medical faculty is highly competitive and coveted. Recently a private medical college popped up. I am hoping to visit that institute soon. My attempt to Socratic teaching was not always understood but next time I will make sure that the classes have a component of group work and problem solving. I managed to download the required book with help from a friend. Now let us hope that Adobe works on my Mac as well. Question and answers led to some extended silences but also to interesting answers. Somehow not all students were aware of the class so about 20 out of 49 showed. Next time the more the merrier.

This morning I will head for Bebedja. At night there (if I have enough electricity during the day) I can prepare well my next 8 hours. It is lovely and quiet over there. And this time I have a car with me so I can do some field visits again. I am finally hoping to start using my video camera.

In the evening I was invited to a family of Bahai (the religion). Together with another physician and believe it or not he is Dutch and a surgeon working for the British Navy. In his spare time he does numerous short missions for the Red Cross and I sat in awe listening to the stories he had to share about working in Rwanda in 1994. Operating on the perpetrators of the genocide and how to deal with it. The story of the Congolese prisoners of war captured by the Chadians in 1999 when they drove a convoy of tanks through Central African Republic to Congo to compete in the battle for the goodies in 1999. Or his up and coming visit to Gaza and his recent stay in Kurdistan He is married to an Iranian who is a Bahai and he met his wife on a mission in Angola.

The Bahai religion merits more than the paragraph I am writing now and I will come back to it but in brief. It comes from Iran where the followers have been persecuted since the fall of the shah. The diaspora has been dispersed in over 100 countries. One of the main themes in the religion is the acceptance of all religion. The Koran, the bible, the bhagavad gita all sought as inspiratin to the believers The religion was founded around 1850 and the first time I heard of it was when I passed by the teple near New Delhi. Haifa in Israel is a holy place as it is there that the founder of the religion spend a large part of his life.> I will try to learn more about this religion and let you know.

Peace
Ashis