Almost there

The big operations are all over and tomorrow night most of the team will return home. The patients who still need post op care will go to the Leonard Cheshire Home up in Menagesha in the clean fresh air of the hills outside Addis. They will be looked after by Dr Hamza, Eileen and Alvaro until they are ready to be discharged home.

This afternoon it was my job to take group photos of the team. You can see us all in the extra.

I also took this photo of D's hands next to those of Nyaguen and her friend and interpreter, Wang. They are from Sudan, tall and dark and elegant of stature. They are also refugees. Nyaguen came to Ethiopia three years ago to seek treatment for NOMA, the disease which had disfigured her face as a child. FA couldn't operate then because she was pregnant, so she went to live in a refugee camp in Gambella, where she gave birth to her little girl, Addis. She then travelled back and forth to the hospital over the next two years for surgery. Now that her treatment is finished, it is Nyaguen's dearest wish to return home to Sudan to see her husband and two older children, but as she has no papers, she is not allowed back over the border. I wish we knew how to help her.