What we'll be doing in Cameroon ...

The purpose of our new blog is to keep you updated with news and photos once we're in Cameroon (internet connection dependent, of course!)

But here's a first post to fill you in with a little more detail about where we're going and what we'll be doing when we're out there ...

With Sarah starting a new research job in October, and with myself on my long summer holiday from college (yes, I know, it's a hard life being a student!), we realised a few months ago that we might have some time spare in August and September. So we had a look around to see what might be needed.

Thankfully, the guys at 'The Medical Centres of West Africa' (MCWA, website here), a charitable organisation based in the US, were kind enough to invite us to come to work with them: they help to run a 80-bed hospital in the Far North Province of Cameroon, West Africa, called 'l'hopital de Meskine'. Here's a map: the location of the hospital is near to the city of Maroua, right up there in the north:

The hospital serves the local village’s (approximately) 10,000 residents as well as patients who come from as far away as the neighbouring countries of Chad and Nigeria. They've been set up for many years, and have a great, multinational team of medics and surgeons. 

With one or two of the more permanent staff taking a well-earned summer break, hopefully Sarah's going to be able to help with some of the surgical and ward work: from what we hear, nighttime on-call and the high patient volumes in clinic can be quite demanding. And, having some French, hopefully I can be involved in some general dogsbody work around the hospital, as well as some of the Christian mission and outreach to the local area, which is predominantly Muslim.

Anyway, that should give you a bit of the background. If you want to see more, here's a video from a doctor who visited a few years ago: it includes some stuff not relevant to her trip to Cameroon, but it should give you an idea if you're patient enough to watch it through:

Drop me an Email via my profile above if you'd like any more information, and if not, next post (all being well) will be from Meskine!