6-4-13: Back in Muanda

After getting into the hotel in Kinshasa late(ish) last night (around 9), I had a late dinner and then went to bed in preparation for getting up early to go running before we had to head to Muanda in the morning to begin the MEDRETE. As it turned out, I didn’t go running (the alarm went off and I disregarded it), but I was ready for the flight to Muanda.

View from the Fleuve in the morning

The flight was the same as last time—small prop plane, a little warm, stops in Matadi and Boma—before we landed in Muanda around noon. We loaded up the rental cars (and by cars, I mean Toyota Highlanders), dealt with the usual drama associated with traveling in developing countries, and made our way to the hotel. Fortunately, the advance team was already on site and had ordered our lunches ahead of time, so we only had to wait about 30 minutes before we got to eat.

View of Kitona Base, from above.

Around 2 pm, we headed back to Kitona Base, to meet with the hospital commander and a few representatives of the medical department of the Ministry of Health, who had traveled from Kinshasa. We hammered out the final details in preparation for tomorrow (which I still think will be a disaster) and then called it a day and headed back to the hotel.

We’re staying at the Hotel Prosper this time, which is different from my hotel when we were here in March (I was staying at the Eunice). The rooms aren’t as nice, the air conditioning doesn’t work as well, and as of yet, I still don’t have running water. This will make returning from my run tomorrow interesting, I’m sure.

My room in the Prosper, complete with sequined pillowcases

We had a meeting of the medical personnel right after we got back from the hotel, to hammer out who’s giving what presentations during the academic portions of the mission. We’re going to be working closely with the physicians in the morning, seeing patients while paired one on one with the DRC military physicians, and then the afternoons will be spent in academics, some of which will be given by us, and some by DRC physicians. I still don’t know exactly what I’ll be talking about, but a couple of the other physicians came with canned presentations that will work nicely.

               

It’ll be interesting, let’s just put it that way.

                

The day wrapped up with dinner at New Cliffs, which we ate at before (as it’s one of three restaurants in the whole town), and like before, it was a 2.5-3 hour wait before we got food. We did get to see the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean, so that was kinda neat, but really, we were hungry.

Watching the sun set from the beach by the New Cliffs

Tomorrow, after a short run in the morning with a few of my teammates, it’ll be the first day of the mission. Should be interesting.