On Wednesday I considered writing my first Chad blog but other than arriving in Chad, going to the office and spending a night in a hotel there was not much to report.
Thursday, however, was a different matter. My day started with a flight to Mongo. At the airport I was surprised by a strictly enforced 8kg limit (Including hand luggage) and had to leave most of my things behind. It all became clear why though when I saw the plane. A 6 seater plane that was exactly that, A plane with just 6 very small seats, no room for luggage and barely any room for our legs.
Photo to follow
The plane ride was fantastic! A flight over beautiful green plains dotted with tree, sparsely populated with very few signs of life from the air. On nearing Mongo the flat landscape suddenly isolated rocky hills began poking out of the plains. As they began to get more frequent we buzzed low over the airstrip to see our car on the ground to clearing it of cows and before safely landing on the dirt airstrip of Mongo.
Video to follow?
From the airstip we headed straight to the local hospital where my organization is working to provide care to malnourished children. The centre hospital acts as a reference centre from the surrounding area for severely malnourished children also suffering from another disease, malaria, diarrhea of respiratory infections mainly. It’s rare for me but I was shocked! I was not just shocked by some of the severely malnourished children I saw but by the numbers. The centre receives 400-600 cases a month and there were around 100 in the centre as we visited. A recent study of the area had just shown that diarrhea (and therefore water, sanitation and hygiene) was a major underlying cause of malnutrition here and so it was a stark reminder of why the work my organization does is so important for so many people. With tears in my eyes I wondered if our planned program to make water and sanitation improvements really would help reduce these numbers.
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