Made it to Douala!

After a long and arduous journey (just kidding) I have finally arrived in Douala, Cameroon. Tomorrow I will take the 5 and a half hour trip north to Bamenda and then 45 minutes more to the hospital in Mbingo.

On my flight from Brussels to Douala the lady who was sitting next to me, who only spoke French, had a bit of a syncopal episode. I was able to use the "I'm a doctor" line which seemed to put all the flight attendents at ease (little did they know). They were able to frantically (and usually forgetting that I didn't speak French) ask me all the questions a doctor should be able to answer when someone passes out on a plane over the Sahara desert like "is the cabin too hot?" or "should we bring her a blanket?" or "do you think she got too excited?". Fortunately she recovered quickly, and I asked a few standard questions (to try to reassure them that yes I really am a doctor). My Rx; give her some water, and stop giving her alcohol.

To cap the day off I think Doula is indeed the worst airpot I have been to. The customs process, instead of forming lanes, involves a mass of people trying to pack their way through a small doorway, and customs agents grabbing bags randomly to inspect as you pack through the narrow passageway. To top it off a guy about my age trailed me throughout the whole process offering to carry my bags for "50 euro". He also really thought I should pay the customs agent "50 euro" to let my bag through. Fortunately another customs agent told me I could go so I wrenched my bag out of the hands of the one that wanted "5o euro" and scampered my way out of the door into the waiting mass as fast as I could. Hoping to assuage any fears that I might be getting scammed the first guy, whom I literally had to slap his hands away from my bag, proclaimed to me that he was a proud supporter of Barak Obama.

Thankfully I am now in the European Baptist Rest House walled off from the rest of the city and including gardens and even a pool! Maybe I will take a dip later. If you put this in the context of a 30 hour call shift it is about 1:30 PM our time, coming up to about time for my "post call nap." I maybe would even be frantically putting in discharge orders and dealing with the CCU nurses at this point in the day. I think I prefer a flight to Africa over being on overnight call any day of the year.