Medevaced

I have been sent to the Peace Corps Regional Medical Center in Pretoria, South Africa. It is actually pretty difficult to get there from Burkina Faso, but the trip was pretty enjoyable. I spent one day in the Peace Corps Med Unit in Burkina Faso and then I was flown to Ethiopia. Ethiopia is 3 hours ahead of Burkina so by the time we got there it was pretty late at night. There were a bunch of people traveling to South Africa and the flight wasn't until 8AM the next day so they gave us hotel vouchers and a bus and took us to a hotel to spend the night. Thus, I enjoyed a bed, a bit of Hawaii Five-O, and a hot shower the next morning (at 4AM). At 5 we were bussed back from the hotel, and left in the Ethiopian Airport for a while- not a bad place to be- definitely more going on there then the airport in Ouaga. From Ethiopia we flew to South Africa- and that was a huge change. When I stepped into the airport it felt like I was in Europe, or a weird place in the US where everything is green and people drive on the left side of the road and have the steering wheel on the right. Actually, it really reminds me of Puerto Rico. Anyway, it's kind of strange to think that it took me 14 hours of flight time to get here from West Africa.
When I arrived here, there were 3 other medevaced Peace Corps Volunteers who were all, interestingly enough, from Zambia. So much for the land of misfit toys that I had heard so much about. In terms of length of service, it varied. There is someone who is actually doing a 3rd year, someone who has 8 months left, someone who is 4 months into service, and then me (still in training). The whole being in training part actually causes a lot of issues here for 1) the IT people- I can't use the internet at the Peace Corps Bureau because I'm not in the system yet and 2) the rehabilitation process. Since no one knows what my site looks like (myself included) I don't know how I am going to be able to manage at least 4 weeks of no physical activity at site. In the states that usually means no exercise, etc for those weeks. Here that means, no pumping water, no bike riding to the market, no carrying water, no carrying the bucket I use to bathe- all that stuff. Clearly I'm going to have to talk with the country director and the PCMOs a little bit to figure out some sort of plan because as of right now, there is no way I can go to site.
I met up with the surgeon on Monday afternoon, and he wants to have the surgery Tuesday afternoon (it's kind of like scheduling a haircut...what are you doing tomorrow at 1?). So, all of the usual surgery rules apply- no eating after midnight, no drinking after 10am. Luckily I was able to check myself into the hospital early which will save me a bit of a headache Tuesday morning. It's kind of weird doing this all by myself and having to explain to people yes I work for the United States Peace Corps...no I do not have a gun.
From talking to the surgeon it seems like a fairly straightforward procedure. To repair the hernia (it's a left inguinal hernia) all they do is cut me open, push it back in, and then put in a mesh-net type thing to prevent my intestines from falling out of the hole again. I should be out of the hospital by Wednesday afternoon if all goes well and there aren't any complications or anything like that. No news on when I'm going back to Burkina Faso but given the new news about not being able to do anything physical for a while- I'm not sure what I would do in Burkina- and the PCMOs here don't seem to know either.