Dear friends,

I thought that I would write to you all about a few "minor" problems. Of course, problems are there to be overcome.

I am writing from our Registry room at Mbingo. I arrived here on Thursday. My typing is generously accompanied by the noise of a large generator battering my eardrums, but I am grateful for power to write this mail to you all.

My room in the hostel has a flashing strip light and a sink with no water, or so I thought.  I have recently learnt how to turn a nearby valve to provide me with a cold supply! The hostel is so full that I am sharing with a young American internist, but this is not a problem.

I have just had dinner with a Dutch surgeon working for Smile Train (repairing cleft lips), an American cardiologist and his wife and a Catholic priest and his mother. Mbingo gets a lot of visiting specialists, unlike Banso.

These are only minor problems really but I do not want you to think that my two weeks in Cameroon are all excitement and adventure!

Prof Hesseling has been working hard to review all the childrens' files and enter data into a spreadsheet.  It is only by doing this that we know that the one year survival of our little cancer patients is 63% - the best recorded in small hospitals in such a resource-poor setting here in Africa.

The frustrating thing for the Professor is that some of our African colleagues occasionally keep poor records, but he remains very patient.  Interestingly, the nurses are often better than the doctors at recording.

I have been entering the same data into P.O.N.D. (Paediatric Oncology Network Database), a confidential website from St Jude's Children’s Hospital, in Tennessee, USA.  I use a template which I designed (or customised). Those of you who know my computer skills will realise that this is a minor miracle - or an answer to many prayers.

Prayer changes things and people.

Dr. Paul Wharin