I am currently in flight from Brussels to Entebbe Uganda, and we have just entered the northern border of the African continent. I can’t see much out of the plane window (I mostly see the wing), but there’s not much green. We have about 6 more hours to go until we deplane, which seems like a very long time.
It’s an interesting mix of people on the plane. It looks (and sounds) like mostly European and Americans; only about 30% of the passengers appear to be African. I have overheard many people saying that they are going for mission work–either church-based or medical. I don’t know why, but this surprised me. I guess I hadn’t thought about who else might go to Africa in January.
The smells are already different. People, food. I can only imagine that my senses will be overwhelmed in the next few days. One of the MDs I am traveling with explained that there will likely be about 200 women waiting to see us. We will examine as many as possible, and hope to operate on 40 to 50 of them over the course of the first 9 to 10 days. We do not generally operate at the the end of the two week trip; post-op care is as important as the surgery itself.
Leah's Rwanda 