A COMMUNITY IN THE SISTERS’ HOSPITAL, IT WAS TIME!

The idea of a community within the land of our hospital Simbok in Yaunde has been around our minds for about 10 years, but during all this time, the brave sisters challenge the bet of distance (about 3 kilometers) in limit dangerous conditions due to the disrepair of the highway for many years. Thanks God and the pavement of the highway, the situation has significantly improved. Population has grown at such an incredible speed that even traffic on highways has been intensified. However, since the hospital is located in an isolated area, the most common mean of transportation to arrive to it is motorcycle. We are in a context in which -according to the African Economic Commission of UN- our country and Uganda register the largest number of deaths due to traffic accidents (16.853 accidents and 1.500 deaths in 2019). It is true that the community has vehicle and that there are sisters who can drive, but most of the times, we prefer to lend a motorbike and ride it just most of the citizens do.

Thanks to the Provincial Team’s vision that took into consideration several parameters, they focused on the need of the presence of the resident sisters in the hospital to try:

• To accompany closer the personnel, to always help them to answer in a better way their tasks, because competence is becoming stronger in terms of health structure (some English religious communities that escaped from war zones installed their facilities for example in Yaunde, Simbok. In addition, another hospital was opened in one of the areas where many of our patients come from).
• To show more our compassion to the admitted patients through regular visits without time limit.

It was considered positive to open a community, where the pioneers are: Postulant Marie-Edith, Sister Annette and myself from December 2020. As any news that wakes up enthusiasm and joy of exploring new paths (including the price that must be paid), this is the atmosphere of our new first steps in this experience that has fulfilling us of deep satisfaction. Apart from our presence in the hospital, another objective of this community will be to promote our integration in this area, which has become very populated and that by strong circumstances (the war mentioned in the above paragraph) it has become a bilingual place since it has become the home to a significant number of people and displaced families. Therefore, it is a call to an opening to another culture and an opportunity for those who search for a place that facilitates learning English.

We thank from the deepest of our hearts to the Provincial Council for providing us this decisive step that finally allows us to materialize a delayed project, thus increasing the horizons of our missionary work in Cameroon.

Sister Carine WANKO