the pregnant woman

Yesterday, a woman arrived in the village coming out of nowhere. She was pregnant and the labor had started already. Pierre and I had to react really fast. We still don’t know either where she comes from or how she managed to find her way through the equatorial forest by herself in her state. The baby’s doing well with his 2.9 Kilos. As I was taking care of him, I found myself wondering how much I’d love to have one of my own. But this thought flew away quickly. Always look on the bright side of life tells the song. This is our motto here too.

welli

A new membership has joined the mission, Welli. He followed Pierre and I in our rounds for 10 days. He seems to be very interested in what we’re doing. But Pierre and I agree, we’re going to have to teach him the basics of our job. I can’t stop telling myself that knowledge is not worth a thing if not to be shared and transmitted. However, I feel so much concerned with what really matters. How can a population survive today with nothing and without any medical care?

new neighbors

Yesterday we met our new neighbors. A French scientific mission has settled camp only four miles from our base. Alex and François remained very vague about what they are working on. What a surprise… Honestly, to see new faces was good to me. I didn’t think that the first thing I miss would be people and that our camp would be so isolated from everything. Sometimes I dream of a warm bath and a glass of Chardonnay. God, if Alex could hear me he would laugh of such a feminine lightness as he says.

i don't miss a thing

Finally! It seems to me as if like we had been isolated for ever. We had a terrible storm here that destroyed most of the Lab and the medical equipment. But thank God, no one has been hurt. It took days to Konstantin to come back from the nearest town (4 days by boat!) with enough to replace what had been damaged or broken. At the end, our equipment is lighter than ever. But everything is okay now and I find that I still can surprise my own self. I don't miss a thing, I don't miss civilization, I don't miss modern "comfort". I mean this experience compelled us to adopt the village’s lifestyle and share it with the inhabitants. Why didn’t we do that before? I don’t know but what a waste of time.

mysterious work at the lab

Alex and François spend hours in the Lab. The rest of our team seems to find this normal. There’s some sort of mystery around the topic of their research. A few days ago a new load of boxes and crates arrived from Santa Fe from Matthew and Alex spent hours over the phone with him. But I can’t resent Alex for being so passionate about his work, he’s doing such a great job in the village at the same time. I think each of us found his place here and our presence doesn’t seem to unsettle the inhabitants anymore. Oh yes and the little Yuly finally recovered completely, but how this happened is still a complete puzzle to us.

rain!

It’s finally here: the rain! Pouring like an open faucet above our camp. We should have anticipated that. I can't say how many days it’s been raining now. For sure it’s a big difference with Santa Fe. Anyway, the mission moves on. Alex and François are working night and day. I don’t know precisely what they are working on. Pierre and take care of the children. They look so cute and bright and reactive. The little Yuly (I’m fond of this name) strikes most of our attention. She’s got a persisting fever that hasn’t been dropping since days and we are all clueless about that.

settled

We have finally settled. Eight people are part of the mission. Alex and I are the only ones coming from North America. Marie is a French biologist (and Professeur Malud’s partner too), Konstantin is German and in charge of telecommunications and logistics, Will is a French ethnologist and Francisco is an Italian naturalist. He came with his wife Francesca who is supposed to cook for all of us. I’ll look after the children of the village with Pierre, the French pediatrician of the team and finally, Alex will be working with François. This melting pot is really a stimulating environment and it does feel so good to have a new opportunity to speak French again. What we could call our house is modest to say the least: we’re going to share a room with two other people. It’s not going to be easy! The biggest building has easily been cut in half: one side is hospital, the other side is the lab. The village inhabitants are wondering who we are and what we do… It’s quite understandable. I can’t go out walking in the village without having a growing bunch of kids running around me like buzzing little bees. They follow me everywhere I go and they seem fascinated by my blond hair. François told me that till today they had never seen a white woman with blond hair...