Monday was the teaching day which is supposed to be run by the Canadian volunteers however this monday Dr. Paulin wanted to give a talk on non-technical skills. These are things like communication, situational awareness and team work etc. These are things that of course really can't be taught and have to become part of the institutional culture something I don't see happening anytime soon in Canada. As the visiting professor I got to make a few sage comments at the end.
Dr. Paulin also introduced 9 or 10 new first year anaesthetic residents who are more in number than the current number of residents.
In the afternoon, we had a joint session with the surgeons again covering non technical skills and we also went over the Safe Surgery Checklist something having been involved in its development at our hospital gave me flashbacks. After that it was definitely time for a swim at the Serena.
I should mention that the anaesthesiologists and surgeons do incredible work here with very little resources. I would to see one of our OR princesses come down here to work.
Getting home I decided that a beer was in order and picked up my empties. A beer in Kigali costs 600-700 francs but the deposit is 500 francs which is why you don't have any broken glass on the streets in Kigali. In the little grocery store, I ran in Emmy who drives for us sometimes and he invited me to have a drink with him at the Blue Bar across from my apartment. We sat outside on lacquer chairs and ate goat and tilapia brochettes as well as fried bananas and talked about life. As we were about to leave a car pulled up and very inexpertly tried to parallel park in front of the bar. Parallel parking is a little dangerous because there is a three foot deep drainage ditch between the street and the bar. Having parked about 4 very drunk guys piled out. It was the first real public drunkenness I have seen in Kigali. (I have heard lots at night while trying to sleep).
Tuesday as for some reason no resident was available for OR teaching, we had off. I arose late for me had a coffee and then walked to the Bourbon cafe for breakfast. I ran into one of the HRH American docs on the way. He asked where I was going, I said for breakfast which satisfied him. I lingered at the Bourbon cafe for about an hour before walking back to the hospital I wanted to the check with the Public Relations guy who handles things for us. It turned out that for various reasons our licence applications still hadn't been submitted. In my case they needed a passport photo, even though they had a copy of my passport and so somebody drove me downtown and I got 8 passport photos.
I then proceeded to the Serena Hotel for a shower and a swim, topping it off with a latte. I then walked home in the noon-time heat.
Mary had asked that I bring back some fabric to make a quilt so I asked Christophe who helps us out if he could help me. We walked over to the local market. It was very hard to explain to Christophe or to the ladies selling fabric that no I did not want something sewn for my wife but rather the she intended to chop the fabric into squares and make what I told them was a blanket because I don't think they have ever heard of quilts.
My next mission was to get a shirt made, so Christophe took me to a tailor shop just off the market. There was no fabric there that I liked but the tailor a women dressed in a faded brown business suit said that if I provided the fabric, she would make a shirt for 10000 francs. So it was back to the market to pick out fabric, enough fabric to make 3 shirts for an ordinary person or 2 for me. The tailor took my measurement and we eventually agreed to 2 shirts, one short sleeved and one long sleeves. A during this time Christophe and the lady bantered back and forth in Kinyarwandi. I hope they weren't making fun of me.
You are becoming quite the 'Local'!
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