19th September: end of first week of surgeries

The last three nights have been much quieter in terms of dogs barking etc. Retiring to bed before 2100, and getting up before 0600hrs, means I am resting well. Dusk and dawn are at 1830 and 0630, and happen very quickly. The photo of the team at the Equator ball was an hour's drive away from here in the Rift Valley, so day length varies little from month to month.

Each day we have done three patients, so we have completed twelve patients at the end of our first week of operating. We have taken the longest surgical ones first, rather than the youngest to suit Tony's strength. Our list-planning the day before means we keep fasting from food and drink to an absolute minimum for the babies and older patients, so the babies can be done later in the day. We are pleased with what has been achieved by God's grace this week. Tony does struggle in the afternoons with failing energy levels, but daily he seems to have more endurance.

Anne-Marie stayed back at the guesthouse and has not been sick today, though she has a headache still. It's good that she is sitting up with us at the end of the day. The Landrover brought us home since the rainstorm hit at 1510hrs so walking back through the mud would have been unpleasant. 12 in the vehicle on the way up and 12 back with various pick-ups and drop-offs of hospital staff.

Gladys is the hospital cook and produced rice, beans, chapati, cabbage and chicken stew for lunch for the staff, and other good stuff during the week. The Kenyan staff wait for the white mzunga to eat and drink first, and then they enjoy it after us. They are wonderful people to work with in this Christian Hospital. Jomo, back at the guesthouse has given us chapati, beans and cabbage; it's all locally produced food. We had a chicken wander into our dining room at breakfast! And out again!

The shock of the afternoon was news of a massacre in Guinea of staff from the Hope Clinic and journalists who went into a village to teach about Ebola. Our on-line access is poor as we digest this news. The four others on the team have all worked there, and I have turned Tony's requests down for me to work there too. The mission leader is in the USA with his wife because of Ebola, and he has lost his close brother in the Lord. We gather that the government took the team and all were turned upon. We don't know if there were survivors.

I received a text before lunch to say that the "No" vote had about 10% more of the vote in an 84% turnout in the Scottish vote for independence. It will be interesting to see if politicians can keep their promises now!

Tomorrow we need to spend one or two hours at the hospial to check on the patients and see that the nutrition programme is working out. Ann made porridge to go down narrow bore nasogastric tubes for the palate patients. It is thinner than the pre-op porridge that is even more nutritious as we optimise the malnourished young ones before their ops. As we drove away from the hospital today a young boy came up on the back of a motorbike with Bernard, the chaplain, and it looks like he has both a cleft lip and palate that we can fix. If we can do 36 operations on these cleft lip & palate patients, it will help the hospital develop further. It is already a great place serving this Western Kenya state on the slopes of Mount Elgon.

Ann, Tony and I hope to walk from the hospital up to a waterfall about 4 miles away, and return the same way. It is unlikely that Anne-Marie and Bjorn will come after her sickness for the last 48hrs. I think we will have a guide for the trek. If we get back before 1500, we hope to avoid showers - and they are heavy and are more likely to have hail as we climb up towards the mountain's extinct crater at 12,000feet.