25 Years as Capuchins

Today there was a Jubilee Mass for two Italian Capuchin friars celebrating 25 years of priesthood, most of it in Cameroon.  Brothers Angelo Pagano and Agostino Colli, OFM Cap. were ordained in Italy in 1988.  The Mass was celebrated by the Cardinal Archbishop Emeritus Christian Wiyghan Tumi and also concelebrating were the Archbishop of Bamenda, the representative for the Bishop of Kumbo, and 36 other priests.  On a Friday morning, the parish church was completely full including the altar and the balcony, and the Mass and ceremonies lasted over 3 hours and included the usual processions and speeches.  Of course, feasting followed.  While here in Cameroon, Frs. Angelo and Agostino have developed the Capuchins in Cameroon (there are now 57 Capuchins of whom 48 are Cameroonian).  These Capuchins serve the local parish, Sacred Heart, support the Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis who run the hospital and cardiac center, support the chaplaincy of the hospital, built a school (see below) and several other apostolates, and I am sure perform many other ministries that go unsung.  They sponsor several patients per year for cardiac surgery and interventional care and for this we are specifically grateful.

St. Anthony of Padua School

There are many schools in the Kumbo area.  However, schools in Cameroon, including government schools, charge tuition.  Students must also obtain their own supplies and uniforms.  Textbooks are not common in many places and most learning occurs in their absence.  As far as I can tell, science labs are also uncommon.  The Capuchins who serve this area have built a school oriented toward educating poor children.  For those of us who know of Franciscans, it is no surprise that they named it St. Anthony of Padua.

This school has recently made tremendous progress.  I visited in November of 2012 and again in November 2013, and the transformation was impressive.  The land was donated in 1993 by the Fon (traditional ruler of the region).  It originally served as an school for single mothers and then as an elementary school.  As children completed elementary school, the need for affordable secondary education became evident.  In 2010 the school opened as a secondary school in which many children pay reduced fees.  As it is a boarding school, there are students from all over Cameroon and the school now has more than 500 students.

Njinikom

Last week I was able to go to Njinikom for a visit.  Njinikom is near and dear to my heart for several reasons.  Njinikom was the first place that I went to in Africa, and the first place that I was sent by Mission Doctors Association.  When I arrived at the airport in Douala in January of 2010, I was met by Sr. Angeline Wongbi.  Sr. Angeline was a nurse anesthetist at St. Martin de Porres Hospital in Njinikom, having attended nurse anesthesia school in Nigeria 10 years prior, when formally trained nurse anesthetists were even more scarce in Cameroon than they are now.  She was so pleased to have an anesthesiologist visiting (“doctor anaesthetist”), and to consider my ideas in the context of other teaching that she had had.  I spent the entire month with her before I learned that she was 70 years old!  I was blessed to return to Njinikom in January of 2011 while she was still there.  Unfortunately, Sr. Angeline died in the summer of 2012 after a difficult illness.  I miss her dearly but will always be grateful for the time that I spent with her.

  

The anesthetists in Njinikom are now Mr. Julius, Sr. Martha, and Mr. Eric.  Mr. Eric is the newest, having completed his training in Yaounde this past August.  It is always a pleasure to be able to spend time with these anesthetists and to understand their practice patterns, look at their equipment with them in case there is any way to help, and consider options for anesthetics.  This visit, they had received some new equipment, including new anesthesia machines, via a container from Holland.  The current problem faced by all the hospitals that I have visited is that bottled oxygen is very expensive to purchase, and this is required to drive most mechanical ventilators on anesthesia machines.  Supplemental oxygen for spontaneous or manual ventilation can be provided by oxygen concentrators as long as electricity is available, but this will not drive a pressure driven ventilator.  Some new options for pressurized medical gases may be available soon; another option is electrically driven ventilators (useful when there is electricity!).

The matron at St. Martin de Porres Hospital, for a few more months, is Sr. Xaveria.  Sr. Xaveria is one of these people that just makes everyone feel needed and wanted, and exudes energy and organization.  She has worked with Mission Doctors for many years and shepherded many missionaries through their assignments in Cameroon.  All of the sisters in Njinikom, like the sisters in Shisong, are friendly and welcoming and greet me like I have been there forever even though I only spent 2 months there.

While I was in Njinikom I was able to attend the festival for the 20th anniversary of the reign of the Fon.  A Fon is a traditional ruler and the Fon of Njinikom is in Fundong and is Fon Vincent Yuh II.  The celebration consisted of Mass, speeches, and some traditional celebrations including a “fantasia” in which men on horses approach the Fon in formation and the horses dance and “bow”.
  

 

Currently serving a 3-year term in Njinikom are Drs. Jennifer Thoene and Brent Burket, there with their four children.  I had not met them before and so it was a joy to spend the weekend with them.  Since I do not cook here (and do not cook all that much anyway), it was a great treat to have Jennifer’s cooking for a few days.  It turned out that most of the Lay Mission Helpers from the region (the Hornes, who I have shown here before, and the Martins and the Newburns all serving in Bamenda) were also visiting Njinikom for the weekend, along with a family medicine resident (Connie Leeper) from Ventura, California there for a rotation, and a guest of the Hornes, Sara Tuzel. All told, there were 15 American children and 11 American adults in Njinikom last weekend.  St. Martin de Porres has a lovely guest house for the visiting medical teams as well as space for missionaries, and the views are spectacular.  Sunday morning we all attended Mass at St. Anthony parish, and I am sure we made quite a sight.  You can find all of the blogs at www.MissionDoctors.org and at www.LayMissionHelpers.org.  Of course, you can also find information there about serving as a missionary.
 

On Monday I was able to visit Mbingo Baptist Hospital.  This is one of the hospitals run in partnership with the Cameroon Baptist Convention.  They have a nurse anesthesia training program, an Australian anesthesiologist there until July, and a number of ex-pat physicians there for various periods of time.  Mbingo is one of the PAACS sites (https://paacs.net), whose purpose is to help address the need for well-trained surgeons at mission hospitals in Africa.  They have made great progress in their new ICU and recovery areas, which will hopefully open within the year.  One of the realities in mission service is the “siloes”.  There are many reasons for this, but I feel like keeping the lines of communication open can help to advance the goals that we all have to share the love of Christ and to grow medicine in Cameroon.  It is exciting to see these hospitals working so hard with their donors to upgrade both equipment and training.  Additionally I was able to hear resoundingly positive feedback about the Northwest Region Anesthesia Conference held here in Shisong on December 7.  The anesthetists were pleased to have had an English language conference and to be able to discuss issues of interest to them.  They, along with the anesthetists in Njinikom were very much looking forward to the next conference.

One of the most exciting parts of the trip was the progress made on the roads.  The trip from Shisong to Njinikom, which used to take 5-6 hours can now be made in about 3 hours.  This is also better for my neck, but not as good for the workout of my core muscles.

For those of you awaiting spring, I saw this blooming today.  It reminds me of forsythia which is beautiful in Rochester in the spring.
 

From todays’ liturgy (Feast of St. Hilary):
January 13, 2014
“It was not you who chose me, says the Lord, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” (Cf. Jn 15:16)