Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Finally a post

We have had a fit getting any telecommunications at our first clinic site. I finally got the internet satellite connection to work after many hours of effort, and the blog site came up in French. I muddled through enough to figure out how to make a posting.

I will try to do some photos or audio if all goes well tomorrow.

This place is very near the Zimbabwe border, and the crowds have not been as intense as we had anticipated. It has been a good day, but we won't set any number records.

We arrived about an hour before dark yesterday, and the advance team was almost finished setting up all of the tents. It gave the team a rare opportunity to slow down and enjoy the welcome of the village-women and a few moments of just looking around. Very soon however everyone was settling into their tents and getting ready for a night of camping.

The temperature has been very mild (warm) which made last night very nice, and today a bit on the warm side.

We set up the clinic in just over an hour and were seeing patients by 9am today. We saw electric lines coming in though we did not see any electric lights near the village last night. Caribba Dam generates electricity for much of this part of Africa, so we see transmission lines even in places where no electricity is used.

We are all generally healthy and thriving.

I will stop for now, to be sure that this post goes through and if it is successful will try to add more later.

Thanks for your interest.