News-May 2007

Qat Fields

We would not normally disturb such a qat party, and it’s not that there is any hint of animosity towards mid afternoon intruders – they can alleviate the happy monotony – it is just that the service is slow in the afternoons and it is hard to determine the price of one’s intended purchase through a mouthful of masticated leaves. But this past week we had no choice. We were on a fleeting visit to Sanaa, the capitol, to deliver a large box of Amharic and Tegrinia Bibles to the Ethiopian fellowship, confer with some medical friends about development of the work here and to track down and buy a lens for the Olympus microscope destined for use in our nearly completed and well appointed laboratory. It was the quest for the lens that took us to Sanaa’s medical section and to the qat chewers who directed us to the city’s Olympus agent. The lens has been order and we await its delivery from Dubai with anticipation.

Qat, whose use was banned in Aden except at weekends under the communist era, is now used daily by 85% of Yemen’s total male population and by 35% of women. And while it’s easy to make jokes about qat – its consumers feature often in newspaper cartoons – the effect of this innocent looking plant upon this beautiful country and its people is catastrophic. Its cultivation uses 80% of available water in the Sanaa area, while its use wastes an estimated 20 million working hours every day.

The average spent each day by a qat chewer is $1.50, almost a day’ its wages for many Yemenis. It suppresses hunger but leaves little in the pocket with which to feed a family and malnutrition among children is widespread and growing. It is not uncommon for pregnant women to pass on their addiction to their newborn children. No wonder foreign workers and thoughtful Yemenis describe the nation’s addiction as ‘diabolical’. Today, driving on an errand with one of our staff, Ali, Peter listened to his lament about qat: ‘If I go with my young children to any park, what do I see? No smiling faces, just sleepy men lying down chewing.’

The government makes half hearted public statements about wanting to restrict its growth and curb its use but remain, themselves, the biggest beneficiaries financially and perhaps politically from it also. A drugged and supine population is in no state to make trouble. Qat use is illegal in Saudi Arabia but widespread in nearby, wretched Somalia.

Despite this dismal picture and against all odds, there are cheerful and determined non government organisations in the country, both Yemeni and foreign, dedicated to purchasing qat land and replanting it with the country’s excellent and once famous coffee. We do all we can to support them, but, in a few minutes we must look in on 4 workmen finishing the tiling of the laboratory. It is 7 pm. They assured us earlier, and they are great workers, that tonight they would go on till 9 – ‘powered by qat’. It may be a while before we can persuade them to exchange a mouth full of leaves for a mug of coffee.

The laboratory referred to will benefit the patients of both clinics, and has been on the agenda for a while. The staff are excited about it and it will save patients long journeys from here to laboratories outside and speed up diagnosis of their ailments. It’s construction and equipping has been made possible by a local businessman, whom Peter met one afternoon after swimming. He had, he said, heard a lot about the clinic and volunteered that he would like to help. A few weeks later, with a list of materials and equipment needed for the laboratory, Peter visited the kind gentleman’s enormous office. He scanned the letter and said simply and graciously, ‘consider it done.’ It was a significant gift.

Laboratory under contruction

Mostly medical

The lab will be overseen by Kala, (see left) our newest member of staff, who comes from Kerala. She is both an eye and laboratory technician and in all sorts of ways a most valuable addition to the team.

In a few month’s time we may be able to take on another south Indian, Sheila, an ophthalmic theatre nurse, currently working in a Sanaa hospital.
Jeanette, our energetic New Zealand theatre nurse returned home two weeks ago with her husband William, having made a timely and valuable contribution here.

Later this summer, we expect the return of our Dr Amal from Peshawar, where she is now completing her training as an eye surgeon. Her tutor there assures us that she should be well up to performing 8-10 cataract operations a day, and we are delighted and grateful that our visiting surgeons, Drs Jan, John and Adel, will continue to come to share the patient load and give valuable teaching to the staff. The future looks promising and the needs are enormous. Dr Jan from the Czech Republic, with us recently, made our third outreach visit to the town of Mocha in the last six months.

Old Mocha

It is a desolate place; its buildings would need no modification if required as a setting for a war film, and we have never known a visit there without strong winds and swirling dust. But we do feel very strongly that financial and staff resources permitting, we should spend more time each year operating in these forgotten corners of the country.

And the staff of the medical clinic? They are in good heart and have weathered well a brisk and long overdue clear out from the pharmacy shelves of surplus boxes and discarded equipment initiated by ‘the administration’!

At the moment they are preparing patients for the second visit to us of Dr Bona, who heads up a remarkable charity called, Yemen Smile. Bona is a skilled plastic surgeon, and dedicated Christian (and fellow Anglican from St Paul’s, Singapore), who specialises in cleft surgery. He is based in Sanaa but conducts ‘camps’ across the country and sought us out as his Aden base some months ago.

Smiling Yemeni patients

Tomorrow we turn the patient waiting area upstairs in the eye clinic into a small four bedded ward and brief the volunteer nurses – Dutch, Swiss and Scottish – who are coming from Taiz and Sanaa. They will be joined by two local surgeons working in the same field, eager to observe and where possible, assist. It is an amazing work. Cleft palate/lip children in Yemen are kept hidden at home. Marriage or a proper job are usually impossible. “The goal of Yemen Smile is to make Yemeni cleft children smile normally again and to give each one new hope.” It will be a busy week.

Post-op therapy!

Most weeks here are busy, rarely frantic, but always varied. This past one was no exception. We returned from Sanaa to find three yachtsmen housed in the guest rooms. Their luxurious yacht had caught fire and sunk some miles off Aden. A good friend involved in marine insurance described the circumstances of the vessel’s sinking as ‘suspicious’. Two of the crew have already flown home to Europe. The third, from Djibouti and owner of the yacht’s tender, a substantial open boat has today set out for home, a 20 hour journey if winds and currents are fine.

Then there was Anisa, a young Somali woman, whom our Dr Nada discovered was carrying dead twins. An operation was arranged in a local government hospital. It took a long time to complete the paperwork for her admission, much longer to go to near by pharmacies to buy the drips and drugs required during and after the operation. It took over an hour to find somewhere to buy the sutures from. Thankfully she is doing well. She is one of the 50 Somali and Ethiopian refugees to find their way to us in the past month. Many come for medical treatment and most ask for money, which we seldom give. Occasionally some come wanting neither, like the young man who called in at the end of a morning. He confided that he had been listening regularly to Christian radio broadcasts and wondered if we could explain more fully what he had heard. His questions were searching, his interest keen.

Flamingos at dawn
In three weeks’ time we shall be home in Dolgellau in north Wales, looking up from our garden to green hills and sheep. At the moment it is hard to imagine but we’ll adapt quickly enough. Just over three years ago we made our first visit here. It has been an eventful, sometimes traumatic but wonderfully happy time which owes much to the calibre of the team, the thoughtful support of the congregation, diocese and many friends and a conviction that this is a good work, indeed, God’s work into which we feel privileged to have been drawn. There is also a sense that things good and yet beyond our imagining are at work. We plan to return here in mid August, and health and circumstances permitting to be able to do another decent stint here.

During the first part of our time away, the Revd Rajinder Daniel and his wife, Lorna, will be standing in. They were found through Nigel Speller of our Exeter diocese companion link, and we are very grateful to them for venturing out. Later, members of the congregation, who are very able and willing, will look after the Friday services.

We have few official commitments while home and look forward to living in our own house, to renewing friendships there and catching up with family and other friends. There will be time to reflect on the work here and the way forward. The past year has been good, but tough also, and there have been moments, particularly in recent months when we wondered whether we should call it a day. We felt exhausted.

The work has grown on almost every front and much of the administration, accounts, ordering of equipment, correspondence and supervision of the guest rooms has been shouldered by Nancy. We have not been alone in thinking that the recruiting of a medical director or medical secretary could make our work load easier, or at least release us for some tasks for which we are better qualified – though we have learnt a lot about autoclaves, ultrasound machines, lenses and lasers!

We would both like to resume Arabic study and there is much more that we feel could be done to develop the life and outreach of Christ Church in quite simple but far reaching ways. We are blessed with a warm, welcoming, outward looking congregation. We were barely 30 last week but numbered 16 nationalities. Just before Easter, Maggie le Roy, the Diocesan retreats adviser, led a silent retreat here. Twenty six people attended. ‘It was’, said one participant, ‘like fresh rain on very dry ground.’

Quiet retreat in the garden

Then there was Easter.

On Good Friday we had re-enacted Jesus’ trial in the courtyard, but on Easter morning we gathered before dawn on Abayan beach 20 minutes drive away. Few of us will forget the majestic flight of hundreds of flamingos passing before the rising sun as the joyful Easter acclamation,

Good Friday Re-enactment

Easter Morning

Easter Sunrise

‘He is risen – Risen indeed,’ broke from our lips. Risen, yes, risen indeed. Alleluia!

With our warmest thanks and love in Christ

Peter and Nancy