The "harmattan" dust blew in Friday night so now the air is brown but it is cooler. The "harmattan" is north wind that sweeps down from the Sahara usually in December or January with lots of a very fine dust that gets into everything but the dust shields out some of the heat from the sun so it is cooler now. We did not have much harmattan dust last year but did have a very cool spell about this time with lows down in the low 50's F. It isn't that cold yet this year. Dry season began a little earlier this year as last year we had a shower even the first weekend of December whereas this year the last rain was in October.
We are just beginning to get some papayas off the trees we planted about a year ago. We are letting them ripen on the tree (most locals pick them before they are ripe so someone else does not get them) and they are much sweeter when tree ripened. The mangoes, guavas, avocados, cashews, citrus, and pomegranites that we planted will probably need a few years before they produce. The bananas seem a little slow also. Maybe whoever comes; after us will get to enjoy them.
Our Toyota 4-Runner runs much better now after Jamie showed me where to plug in the diagnostic tool I had which then gave a few options as to the problem. The place to plug it in was not to the left of the steering or of the dash as was told but sort of behind the ash tray about in the middle. We had thought the problem was the control module (computor) and even had one bought and brought out but we never used it or opened it. The problem turned out to be the MAF (mass air flow meter and sensor) which I cleaned carefully and now the car runs fine with no additional cost.
Gasoline has become more available and is down to 750 cfa per liter or about $6.00 per gallon here in Bere. I understand it is down to 490 cfa per liter or about $3.92 per gallon in N'Djamena so maybe it will come down some more here.
We have had some unusual appendix presentations the past few days. One was a large appendix in an inguinal hernia. One was a retromesenteric presentation that had necrosed and part of the small intestine was obstructed and blood supply severely compromised to the point that we had to take out about 60 cm of small intestine after a lot of careful dissection. Another was ruptured appendix one or two weeks or more previous with almost the entire abdomen intestines all stuck together and obstructed and had to take out about 70 cm of small intestine also. We also had an elderly lady with very large masses about 10 cm diameter in her femoral and inguinal areas that I guess were lymph nodes filled with soft black tumor like material although did not find any other that this might have metastasized from. We had a boy with a mass (probably a cancer) right over his brachial artery of his arm but got it off without sacrificing his artery. We had an elderly man with a 6 month posterior dislocation of his hip which we tried unsuccessfully to reduce then tried to reduce it with; open surgery and still could not even after considerable dissection. The head of femur was very soft and osteoporotic and the acetabulum was almost flat so we cut off the head of femur, closed the wound and put in a tibial pin for traction and he is now in traction and amazingly this morning his legs are almost equal length. Oh yes we still have some hysterectomies for large fibroid uterus, some hernias and hydroceles and yesterday a strangulated hernia but was in time so did not have to resect any intestine. Danae even did a c-section on a woman that had just died and got a living baby. We have interesting lives to some people.
