Meeting with Mamfe

Chinese at work

The next morning they had coffee and started off with whatever courage they could muster to tackle the rest of the road to Mamfe. Coen got stuck once and Hans pulled him out, otherwise there were pretty hairy parts but in general it passed better than the day before. On this part, rainy season or not the Chinese are actively working and did do some cursory work on the piste for it to be quite smooth for most part. They were in Mamfe before noon.

Road side repair

They had to do some spring setting on the road side - Hans' spring had gone off again.

Basic cleaning up before the rest of the road

There they found an ATM that gave them some money and they went on to find a pharmacy for her itches and for the eye too. The Pharmacist was not there and the place was being looked after by two youths. There are no commercial petrol stations in Mamfe, rather one buys by the side of the roads like in Benin.

Then they got to the St Peter catholic mission which was recommended by father Emmanuel. There, the father in charge phoned the bishop who said that they could have the rooms. Coen took a room and the others chose to sleep in their cars. In the meantime the secretary of the mission recommended that she visits the mission’s hospital and see what the doctor could do for her.

There she was told to pay at the pharmacy and collect a card. The dispensing pharmacist cum receptionist told her that she should get her ‘vitals’ checked in the ‘hall’ and then queue up for the doctor. The nurse at the ‘hall’ weighed her, took her temperature and blood pressure. She opted to re-read the blood pressure – probably thought it was too low.

Then she waited while watching the va-et-viens of hospital life in Mamfe. It was interesting; people greeted her and she got these beautiful smiles from babies and small children. Then the doctor called her name, by then Coen had joined her there. About the eye, the doctor certainly saw something there but he did not think it sinister enough to urge her to do something immediately – only said that it has to be seen by an ophthalmologist.

For the burns it was a lot of questions from which he deduced that it was of allergic origin but said that he will also run a few blood tests before they could give her a cortisone injection. So she went to queue up at the laboratory and then the nurse did the prick with the sterile needle, put the drop of blood onto these glass slides and off she went for the injection.

The pharmacy had issued everything: syringe in a packet, needle and tube in another packet and two little bottles of the stuff. The nurse had just found her vein and had plugged the tube in when she started having strange itching/burning sensations all over the body. Then luckily the doctor walked in to remind the nurse to go slowly with this and he told her that there will be a sudden rather unbearable sensation of itchiness and then it will pass. It did and it felt a bit better after that.

While waiting for the results of the tests, she walked back to Bishop House as they people of the hospital call it. There, they were still actively setting camp, washing clothes, checking cars under curious eyes of a remarkable number of parishioners. She gave Coen some news of the progress and went to see what she could do with the rather basic room they got.

It was large, with two beds and a shower/toilet and it was in a state of misuse. It was given in good faith but it sure could do with a bit of brooming and dusting. As she set off back to the hospital, Mariana opted to come along. They waited a bit while watching the end of the day at the hospital.

Tests showed negative on all what the good doctor was looking for; he explained to her what he has prescribed. All was available at the hospital’s pharmacy for rather cheap and they set off back. There was no electricity and also no running water. Using a bucket, Coen washed his clothes and himself and had a nap. She had her medication and dozed off as well – the doctor had prescribed an antihistamine that makes you sleep.

Informal filling station

By then Coen had worked on the car and got it filled by these informal 'filling' stations around Mamfe. The people of the parish were flocking around to see what these foreigners were doing.

After the nap they sorted out some clothes and things from the car and she had her wash. The first wash water, she had to mix with this solution, then rinse it off. Then she applied the cream he gave her and was playing with the iPod when they announced that dinner was served: shanks in gravy with mixed vegetables and pawpaw for pudding.

At table Elismé had a bout of low blood pressure, hence, after dinner the party broke up. Coen showed Stephanus the pictures of his car when he was tackling the bad spots on this road. After that they waited for 19h30 when they were to be received by the SGO of the area – a bit like a district officer.

It seems that the SGO was called elsewhere and they sat talking with Father Manfred who then took them for a walk into town. There they met up with a retired civil servant who bought them some drinks and they sat talking until quite late that night.

She had a peaceful night except for a headache. In the morning the packing was fast and furious and they left accompanied by the Bishop’s driver, Michael, who was deemed a better guide for us that the one we had. That one got a ‘talking-to’ from the Father and was sent packing after some arguments but in the end he went back to where he came.

Both Mariana and Shahnaz thought that was a great relief because they were not comfortable about this guy. Already when he joined us he smelled strongly of alcohol and then he was talking loudly, giving instructions rather rudely too.