Into Africa

I have long maintained that "I don't love Africa." Not out of any particular spite, but the continent just wasn't my thing. Some people are Africa people (like some people are geriatricians or chocoholics or bird watchers). I'm not. I was a South Asia person: "Kolkata-Kathmandu-Kabul or bust!"

I'm still probably a South Asia person, but I have loved this week in Tanzania. This was my first experience of East Africa, and I see the grevious error of dismissing an entire continent based primarily on a dislike of the heat and hassle of a few days in Dakar in August several years ago. (It's rather astonishing how often I seem to be oblivious to the obvious.)

Touring the district hospital yesterday, interacting with the course participants as we observed and discussed various appropriate technologies and treatment protocols for maternal and newborn health, I felt a deep sense of kinship and appreciation. One if the guys (the stylish and hilarious class president) works at a hospital where the nearest cell phone reception is 20km away, but he described a case in which he had managed a critically ill preeclamptic woman. These people are smart. They're committed. They're under-resourced, and under-appreciated, but they're really quite remarkable.

There has been much laughter along with serious discussion and interaction around the realities of working here. I feel honored to be part of it.