Long Live The Sar

Returning to Addis has been like becoming reacquainted with an old friend, but something has changed and you can't quite put your finger on it. The city still looks the same (minus the rampant construction) and there are still dirt roads, beggars, and muddy sidewalks galore, but the city has an indescribable energy. I have no idea what the countryside is like and think it's an interesting policy move to export energy to Djibouti before providing energy to the country's rural populations, but I'm blindly trusting that Meles and crew thought this one through...) The changes were readily apparent the moment I stepped through immigration, looked at my phone, and found I had high-speed wifi. Whoa. I kind of looked around to make sure I was actually in Addis; in 2008, there was maybe 1 quasi-high speed internet cafe. Turns out there are a smattering of high-speed places that are a significant improvement over the dial-up days of yore. I spent most of my day in the Bole ...

I've been meaning to write a post on this topic for a while, but it's a daunting subject. Expect revisions to come! To understand the practice of medicine in Ethiopia, you first have to understand the country's condition. My take - Ethiopia has been in the dark for the last 30 years and is now trying to match modern innovations with the old technology/infrastructure. This feeling is prevalent everywhere in the country, from the Mission, to the internet cafes, to the hospitals, and the banks. They build 10 story buildings, but the scaffolding is made from tree branches 20 feet long nailed together, not a single one thicker than my arm, and some as crooked as a question mark; it sways in the wind and it's amazing that it stands up at all. Internet cafes are everywhere with brand new computers, but internet no faster than 40 kbps (slower than old dial-up). Government officials drive brand new Cadillac Escalades but there are holes in the street 2 feet deep. MRI's...

are the ~5 euro volunteers helping or being destructive? tough to tell if you are being facetious. I don't know that they're being destructive, but I'm sure that their dressing skills, especially at the beginning were sub-par. I say this only because they didn't watch at all before jumping in and starting to touch multiple patients w/o changing gloves, not using new forceps for every patient, and other things of that nature. I'd imagine they're better now (I haven't spent much time watching them lately) ( update: They seem to be doing just fine and will be working at the mission for the next 6 weeks, so they'll be pros by the end) what are the international ngos that are helping fix the infrastructure problems? Don't know of a single NGO that is making a huge difference here, especially not in infrastructure ( update: Save the Children, UNESCO, USAID , and a few other NGO's are doing good work according to Rick) . The bureaucracy prevents a...