05-AUG-B-1

OPENING A NEW AFRICAN ADVENTURE: FROM AZERBAIJAN THROUGH EUROPE TO ASMARA, ERITREA

1. Index to Aug-B-Series, with the Asmara Eritrea experience following Azerbaijan Caucasus Mountains adventure and transit through Baku, London, Frnakfurt.
2. Closing the Azerbaijani adventure and opening the new African experience in transit through Europe to Asmara, Eritrea: another kind of pilgrim between continents and cultures along with white-towel clad Umrah Moslems on pilgrimage from Islamophobic Europe to Mecca, as I transit between extreme adventure to African surgical mission and changing loyalties from what might have been.
3. Arrival in high elevation Asmara, Eritrea in cool Center City of a new nation “under reconstruction” using my “Nafka” and settling in for two weeks of another kind of adventure with my team.
4. Evening at dinner, coffee ceremony and the Eritrean Festival then a full day at Hazhaz Hospital in first day operating with hernias and goiters screened and thyroidectomy done with a return in rain to a failed attempt at Internet Café connection.
5. A busy, very general surgical day in Hazhaz Hospital: a recurrent hernia repair, cholecystectomy, plastic surgical wart removal, total hysterectomy for fibroid uterus, and a bowel resection for small bowel obstruction, with the promise of many more cases to come—all made to order as teaching cases .
6. A still more spectacularly classic “general surgery” day operating in Hazhaz Hospital demonstrating classic operations that none of the current medical students or residents had ever seen or heard of except in classic textbooks: open cholecystectomy, suprapubic transvesical prostatectomy and hernia repair, and  truncal vagotomy and retrocolic gastrojejunostomy for a total gastric outlet peptic obstruction, all done well and slickly in a very upbeat operative team.
7. Our operating day begins with rounds through the wards, and the community, receiving thanks and blessings of God and Allah, before a series of thyroid operations:  the full spectrum of thyroid mass lesions.
8. Still more amazing cases and “OR Door Consult Cases” posted for our continuing efforts in a stunning series of operative adventures at Hazhaz Hospital followed by hosting our wonderful team’s local surgeon apprentice Dr. Heregu at another Chinese restaurant, The China Star in Asmara.
9. An unusual weekend day begins with some extra add-on surgical cases, and “OR Door Consults”, then my first tourism day with a special excursion as the rest of the teams go to the Red Sea coast while we males (only) make a pilgrimage, to Nefaset and climb to Debre Essim to the Coptic Monastery.
10. My only weekend “day off” begins with a wonderful high altitude run, amid the “waste of war” in the graveyard of junked military materiel and a taxi tour of the Asmara “Paradizo” environs, to see the rocky terraced countryside, and return to meet with Dr. Haile and GWU Dr. Bryan McGrath and Italian dinner over GWU strategy in future partnerships.
11. An unusual day begins as I mail out the trip log and got to Hazhaz for operations, returning early with Amy and Sherry, for lunch and the confirmation of Lufthansa return tickets, as Amy leaves tonight with my film packed for processing; I then walk to Orotta Hospital visit and an incidental visit to St. Michael’s Church, finding myself in the middle of a massive funeral ceremonial procession caught on film.
12. The penultimate day in Asmara begins with a pair of goiters for thyroidectomy  and a young hernia repair demonstration for GWU delegation and goes on to medical diplomacy with the  Eritrean Minister of Health.
13. Final full day at Asmara, Eritrea begins in operating further cases, with a traditional coffee ceremony at Hazhaz Hospital OR, moves on to packing up for final dinner, and departure for Asmara airport, enroute to Frankfurt to Washington DC, the end of a long two-venue saga for summer-‘05.
14. Re-entry to Derwood disaster: all electric power out for my one month absence; all four refrigerator/freezers rotting in the hottest summer period, while Audi A-4 is also dead—I am supposed to be prepared for intensive ELDP classes in Ashburn while awaiting ADT response and Pepco restoration of power before massive cleanup of the Derwood I had left clean and pristine with its new furniture and grooming.