US Ambassador to Gambia

We had a VIP guest this morning. The US Ambassador to Gambia, Pamela Ann White and her entourage. Everyday I realize more and more what Mercy Ships has done for Africa, and how appreciative everyone here in the Gambia is. Ambassador White arrived amid minimal fanfare--actually nothing like the President of Gambia who speeds by occasionally in his big, black, dark-windowed SUV followed by a parade of other black SUV. The streets are narrow and full of sand with multitudes of people walking both ways and vending stands set up on the sides of the road. It hard enough for two cars to pass, much less speeding SUVs. We were walking between the hotel and the hospital one morning when he came by--all you can do is scoot off the road and wait until they go by.

Except for one officer from the RVTH (hospital) security, she was alone with three female aides. She is a recent Obama appointee to the Ambassador position. Apparently she has had a long career with US African Aide, most recently serving in Liberia but has lived in Africa as an aid liason for many years. In other words, maybe she's qualified to be the Ambassador, not just another political appointment based on contributions. She and her aids seemed genuinely interested in the patients and what we were doing. In fact, after talking Tony Giles, the surgeon we are here to support and his wife, she wanted to meet some of the patients and spent quite awhile going from bed to bed talking to the patients and their families. She hung around after Tony went to surgery talking to various staff members, and our official photographer took a picture of all the Americans on the trip with the exception of himself. From left to right are Anita, me, Ambassador White, and Sue Brewster (her husband is the photographer and they live on Long Island, NY)

The white things hanging from the ceiling are mosquito nets. Some of us are liked more than others, but the patients have as much trouble with mosquitoes as we do! During the day, the mosquitoes nets are tied up out of the way and at night, the nets are lowered and tucked securely around the patient's bed. Every patient who has surgery has only two blood tests prior; a hemoglobin and a test for malaria. Most have had malaria at some time in their lives. The Gambians feel that the mosquitoes that are everpresent in the morning and during the day are NOT the mosquitoes that carry malaria. Those come out in the evening. Really don't know if that's true or not.

You are never immune to malaria and there is no vaccination, so we take daily dose of a drug called Doxycycline. Once we're home we'll take it for another month. Malaria is caused by parasites that it gets into your blood steam, settle in the liver where they hatch. As they hatch you need to kill them off, so even after getting home, we'll need to keep taking the Doxycycline. The best prevention is to use lots of bug spray on our bodies and also in our rooms. Most of the time, our room has a faint toxic smell that we seem to quickly get used to. We also sleep under the same type of mosquito nets that you can see in the picture. It's a cozy, cocoony feel at night to sleep under the nets.