"Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you"

I'm very happy to report that my first day at Galmi Hospital was a resounding success, thanks to the wonderful family of staff that have welcomed me in!

The day started like this:

I rode in this tiny plane for about 2 hours with the pilot and a medical resident from Texas named Charlie

A view of Galmi city (top left) as we come in for a landing

When we landed, lots of staff greeted us right on the airstrip. What a welcome!

I was shown to my duplex, which is the perfect number:

It has a relatively big kitchen and a bedroom with lots of storage.

Also my back patio is the swimming pool, but it's not filled yet.

One section of the compound is housing, and adjacent to it is the hospital complex and outpatient nutrition center for mamas and babies. We were given a tour of the hospital by my counterpart Deb, and we were each hosted for lunch by a neighboring family.  There is a daily "siesta" from 1-3pm, the hottest part of the day.

I went to work with Deb, her OT student Amy, and her PT-in-training Barnaba in the afternoon. Deb is learning the local language, Hausa, but speaks French with Barnaba, who is Nigerien, and English with me and Amy, who is from New Zealand. At one point the client was Tamajeq so there were 4 languages flying around! Ayayay...no wait, that's Spanish...

As most of you know, I love having students, so I was happy to jump in and work with Amy and a young mom who had a stroke  postpartum, while Deb handled the Tamajeq boy. Later I had a tour of the rest of the compound, and dinner with Charlie, Amy, a couple from Mississippi, Anne from Oklahoma, and Mame from Minnesota. Tomorrow I will be in the clinic all day, yippee!  Everyone has already made me feel so welcome, it's hard to believe that I've been here for less than 12 hours!