The last surgery is over, a cancerous piece of liver in an umbilical hernia in a 65-year-old lady: I doubt that this has ever been described before. Her general condition was, expressed in the mildest way, miserable. We get to a number of 35 surgeries, including about one third under intubation narcosis. I still wonder how difficult it is to convince people of the vital presence of oxygen in an operating theatre!

Anaesthesia and reanimation is nothing else than oxyology in practice. A filled O2 cylinder with 3 cubic metres, to be collected by oneself in Bujumbura costs about twenty euros according to a Sister (what means a lot of money even for my team mates). On the other hand, the prices for diesel and patrol here in Burundi are comparable to our prices. The price for a Hartmann infusion is, for instance, about 1 euro.

Supper with the Sisters with a prayer before and after (as in the college back then) was welcoming and sometimes magical due to the repeated power cuts: the Sister disposes of light in her cell phone awaiting the lighting of a candle.... Here, at night, it is indeed pitch dark, and the moon will appear only later in the night.

Also the operation by a still very young surgical nurse was mesmerising. She asked me to take a resection piece with me to Bruges for anatomopathology. Analysis here in Bujumbura (if it was ever performed) could take up to one year. Thus I take a piece of human flesh with me in my suitcase. Who was the one who said: "Semper aliquid novi ex Africa? ".