Last minute preparations

My bags are packed and I'm ready to go.....well almost.....there are still so many little things left to do.

Thought I would remind those of you reading this how this trip came to be.   After reading The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony, for book club, Liz and I decided we wanted to visit Thula Thula, an elephant preserve in northern South Africa.  Not having any clue how truly big Africa is we thought.....we'll go to Thula Thula for a week or so and then head to Niger and help Kendrick (an old friend of Liz's and the now director of Galmi Hospital in Galmi, Niger, West Africa).  Once we started looking into travel it was clear that this two-stop plan wasn't going to work.  By then we had read enough about Niger to know that we needed to devote our energies to helping Kendrick and his staff and forgo the idea of going to Thula Thula.  You know what they say about the best laid plans.....

So what was it about Niger that called us?
In 2012, Niger was declared by Save the Children as “the worst place in the world to be a mother” because of the high incidence of maternal and infant mortality.  Given how much of my life has been devoted to children I knew it was a place I was called to.  Kendrick specifically asked Liz and I to consider coming in the fall as that's when his patient population swells to 3 times the number of beds the hospital has available (think AAA, BBB, CCC for those of you working in the ED with me) due to malaria.  
I also love that Galmi Hospital’s mission is “to see native Nigeriens grow in capacity to provide competent medical and spiritual care for their fellow citizens of all ethnic and economic backgrounds”.   I believe that the best way to help people over the long-term is to help them help themselves.  I hope that I am able to do just that.  I have been working on several powerpoints and know that a large part of what I will be doing is nursing education.  

For those of you who might be interested in a bit more background information on the various organizations associated with this trip.....
You can learn more  about Galmi Hospital at   http://galmi.org/index.php/about/galmi-hospital.

Galmi Hospital is just one of numerous hospitals world-wide owned and run by SIM (http://www.sim.org/) a faith-based, non-profit organization founded in 1893 by two Canadians and an American.

Medical Teams International:  https://www.medicalteams.org/