I joined Voluntary Service Overseas to: Save the world, Save my soul, Save lives, Lose weight and Find a man. Life is much more realistic.
“You get man?” asked Pa George.
“No, I have no husband.”
“You get pickins?”
“No, I have no children.”
“Is that why they sent you here?”
Hmmph!
Green
Oranges On Lion Mountain, copyright Emily Joy 2005
Gap Year For Grown Ups
Fancy a sabbatical? A Gap Year for Grown Ups? Why not?
Here are some excuses debunked from my two year stint with Voluntary Service Overseas in
1) Money Yes, well, possibly not the best thing to do if you’re horribly in debt, although I’d bet you won’t care so much about your debts afterwards. Some organisations will pay fares and a local living, others will expect you to self fund, although frankly, the local living pales into insignificance compared to your locum bill. Look on the bright side, you’ll pay less tax and I bet you’ll find your cost of living drops when you get back home.
2) Snakes and spiders? Well I don’t think I ever saw a spider (lots of driver ants though) and in two years I only ever saw four snakes. One squashed on the roadside, one being battered to death by a gang of youths, one too busy eating a frog to be bothered with my flip-flopped toes, and a shiny green one presented to me by my cook:
“Look at the snake. Very poisonous.”
“Yes, very impressive, Pa George.” I recoiled. “What do you call this kind of snake?”
“This green snake.”
That green snake had degloved Aminata’s skin from the shin down. She needed a skin graft and since she was the only patient on the ward after the hospital had reopened following the rebel invasion, I felt I had to try. Mr. Lord at the one week Surgery For Non Surgeons course had us round for dinner on the last night and we spent the whole evening sharpening up our dinner knifes to skin grafting standards. The skin from Aminata’s skin from her thin thigh came off in shreds rather than a nice continous apple peeling, but I placed them randomly over her foot, and each made a little island from which new skin could grow. Aminata walked home a few weeks later and the nurses feasted on snake and rice.
3) Ghastly tropical diseases. Sierra Leone was known as White Man’s Grave and I was determined not to make it White Woman’s Grave, so I dutifully swallowed my antimalarials, which may not stop you getting malaria ( I had it twice), but will stop you dying of it. HIV is more of a worry these days, especially if you are having to perform emergency Caesareans etc because there is noone else to do it. VSO offered me four postings. I chose
Sierra Leone because its HIV rate was 3% whereas one of the other postings was 30%. Is self preservation a sin? 4) Inexperience. Well a stint overseas will soon sort that one out, whatever your speciality – Steep Learning Curves R Us! And I had Maurice King’s excellent Primary Surgery Books stuffed in my rucksack.
5) Things not quite living up to expectation. All I wanted to do was save the world, save my soul, save lives, lose weight and find a man. How did I get on? Well in reverse order:
a) Find a
Man. The secret condom stash in my office drawer was totally depleted within three months, but not however through any personal usage, b) Lose Weight. After two years in
Sierra Leone, I had lost a total of one kilo, despite chocolate only crossing my lips on three occasions. The Saloneans told me “Dr. Em you get body”. Getting body sounds much better than being fat, and of course a great compliment in Africa, so I decided to take the compliment as intended. c) Save lives. A few, thanks to my DIY surgical books, and some fantastic local nurses.
d) Save my soul. Within a month of my arrival I had fallen out with the nuns running the hospital over refusing to pay for blood for an old man whose blood count was so low, he was in heart failure (and for smuggling in those condoms),
e) Save the World. Within nine months Sierra Leone was plunged into a bitter civil war and within another two years my hospital was burnt down to a shell by rebels.
But don’t let me put you off. At least I wrote Green Oranges on
Links to publisher eye-books website and contacts:
www.fosalone.org (Friends of Sierra Leone)
GREEN
ORANGES ON LION MOUNTAIN (ISBN 1903070295), by EMILY JOY (THE ACCIDENTAL OPTIMIST) or as an audio book (ISBN 1903070465) "Green Oranges illustrates the tenacity and determination of the people of Sierra Leone"
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York
"I'm glad to see my books were put to such good use."Maurice King. Editor of Primary Surgery Parts 1 & 2