A day on the town...

Last week 3 of us nurses went out with some of the translators (Jean and Mennasau) for a day on the town. It's so fun to go out with locals and get off the beaten path! One of the translator's dad's owns a hospital in town so we started by touring that. It was a pretty nice hospital compared to others in Africa. Here are a couple interesting facts:

-It costs $5 to be admitted

-It costs $16 to spend the night

-You have to go to the store in or nearby the hospital to buy all your supplies before you are admitted ( ex. IV fluids, tubing, syringes, antibiotics, dressings, sutures, bottles of ether for surgery etc.)

-If you do not pay up front or have money to do so you get no care....no exceptions.

-Many women die during pregnancy because of blood loss. The hospitals do not have much if any blood to give because there is still such a stigma with needles and HIV here. Even using sterile needles, people are too afraid to give blood.

It sure was an interesting experience as usual. The oporating room looked like something we would find in a museum, but it seems to work for them for surgeries.

After our tour, we walked around more by where one of the guys grew up. The guys took us to a typical hole in the wall restaruant on the side of the a street for some cassava and fish. It was AMAZING!...and no, none of us got sick:) They sure put some spicy sauces on there. I left most of mine on the side of the plate. One of the girls from Sweden ate all of hers and was sweating bullets for about 30 minutes. It was pretty funny. The guys got a big kick out of that!
This week they took us out again, and this time we checked out the christian radio station that Jean volunteers at. Apparently you can get it online too, but havent looked into that. It's 103.1 I think...out of Cotonou. Jean does a program on Friday nights. We then met up with Mennasau at the beach in a little bungalow and picked up food to eat. We spent the afternoon playing cars, relaxing, and playing in the waves a little bit.