Mbingo - it's like Bingo with an M in front

Mbingo - the name of the hospital where we will work
Mbingo - the name of the city where we will live
Mbingo - "the land of the antelope"

Before April, people would ask us "what will Africa be like?" and we really didn't have a clear answer!  But fortunately we were able to visit for a few days between April 10th and 18th and now have much better answers both to their questions and our own.  This post is a bit long, but feel free to skip to parts that pique your interest!  For the visually inclined you can just skip straight to this album.

HOW DO YOU GET TO AFRICA?!?

Our route this past trip was the following: fly from ATL (that's Atlanta, GA) to Paris, Paris to Douala, and then drive (8 hours) from Douala to Mbingo.
There IS an option to fly from Douala to Mbingo, a strong consideration for our move.  Eight hours in the car after ~17 hours in the plane with 2 little ones might push Momma over the edge!

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR THINGS IN AMERICA?

Good question.  We are still trying to figure out what to do with our house --rent or sell.  We will likely sell our cars as it would cost double their value to ship and import them to Africa.  We will send a shipping container with a lot of our smaller and some bigger things.  OH, and WILLOW NEEDS A HOME!  Let us know if you're interested in adopting a precious 4 year old mutt.

WHAT WILL YOU EAT?

Chicken pot pie, banana bread, pizza, fresh fruit, coffee made from beans roasted on the compound (if you really want a taste Starbucks sells some from a mountain not far from Mbingo), fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and pork tenderloin - just to name a few!  Those are just some of the foods we ate while we visited!  We did try a few authentic Cameroonian dishes which were also great.
There is a small market just outside of the hospital compound where we will get a lot of our food, but we also plan to have a vegetable garden.  Some of the more difficult to find items (cheese, ground meat) can be found in Bamenda - a city of 300,000 people around 40 minutes away from Mbingo.

WORK WORK WORK

OK, there are so many things to talk about here.
SURGERY - for a brief summary of what Michael will be a part of, please watch this 4 minute film (may require tissues)...
PEDIATRICS - first of all, there really aren't "pediatricians" in Mbingo.  There are Internal Medicine doctors and residents.  When there are no expatriate pediatricians around, the IM doctors take care of the pediatric patients.
3 Main Areas:

1. Pediatric ward - Doctor is in charge of the 20 bed unit, which is usually full
2. Maternity ward - Doctor is responsible for "sick" babies - i.e. any baby that has abnormal exam findings (abnormal vital signs, abnormal nurses exam, fever, etc.)
3. Pediatric clinic - Nurse practitioner run, however  Doctor is the "attending" and is needed at time for questions

There are currently 2 pediatricians at Mbingo, both serving for a 2 year period.  One will be gone by the time we get there and Jenn will overlap with the remaining pediatrician for about 6 months.  Pray that someone else comes!  We're not exactly sure what Jenn's role will be when we get there.  Stay tuned for those details after we move :)