Divide and Conquer
On the last day of May, we packed the truck up from floor to ceiling... and some more on the roof, and headed out on a road trip to drop our stuff and Jen in Guinea. The trip crossed through Sierra Leone and took two days with Jen and Steve arriving at Sacré Cœur Pediatric Center late afternoon on June 1st. During June, July and August, Jen will be helping out at the hospital in the emergency department to allow for some of the American staff to take a break and visit family and friends back Stateside for the summer.
Steve turned around on June 2nd and rushed back to Liberia to connect with a team coming in to visit the mission and to manage the site transition with Noah Moody. On June 30th, Noah landed in Liberia. Noah is stepping into the role of Operations and Finance Manager of the Mission Site helping to oversee the clinic, school and coconut oil facility. The community celebrated his return as he hadn’t been back to Liberia since his time serving here as a Peace Corps volunteer back in 2016-18. There was a “welcome back” soccer game held in his honor... with lots of emotional people and tons of good food! Steve and Maylynn will finish up their time in Liberia and head to France on Aug 2nd.
Update from Jen: It’s now July and I’m half-way through my 3 months in Guinea. The staff here said it got busy in the “Urgence” during rainy season, and they weren’t kidding! Sacre Coeur’s Salle d’Urgence (ER) has 14 beds, and all 14 have been full all week with high acuity patients. We are a far cry from the 2 to 1 ratio of the PICU. We’ve seen lots of severe malaria, severe pneumonia, neonatal seizures, sickle cell crises, renal failure, large abscesses... the list goes on. Being a private hospital near the capital city, families tend to bring their children here when all other measures have failed. Therefore, they tend to be quite sick by the time they reach us. This is a bit of a trial by fire, but it has given me the opportunity to see the team here in action and learn what their capabilities are. My critical care skills are definitely being flexed. I have 6 weeks left before joining Steve and Maylynn in Albertville for French training. While I’ll miss Guinea and the team here, I’m looking forward to giving Maylynn and Steve a big hug when I land in France on August 25th!