Local School and Hospital in Lero, Guinea, West Africa

Lero school building situated on the outskirts of the village. Just before I took this photo a cow was shooed out of the first class room

Continuing my posts about Guinea, West Africa about the three years I lived there, today I show the school and hospital in the village, Lero. These were maintained by the gold mine company I worked for. I published a monthly newspaper for the Guinean staff in our company, in English and French, with photos and news of daily happenings amongst the people.

I worked in the maintenance department as administrative manager (actually a secretarial position) and often travelled into the village and surrounding areas with my boss the maintenance manager and where I could get topical photos and news for the paper.

The young learners are so enthusiastic to be able to go to school

Visiting the school, was heartwarming and heart wrenching at the same time. The young learners were so grateful to attend school, which was just a bare room, openings in the wall for windows and a cracked and broken blackboard. Their educational supplies were dependent on the government subsidy which was something ridiculous like .003% of the GDP of the country. I undertook to help supply the children with pencils, rulers, erasers chalk and crayons which friends from Australia, the UK and South Africa sent up to me. At work I asked the various departments to keep their printed paper; especially the pages which may only have one line or a quarter page of typing on it. The geology and mining section kept their huge A3 sheets which translated into many pages of paper for the children to use.

This was only a drop in the ocean, one grain of sand in the desert, I know but I felt I had to do what I could.

Here they pose sweetly for me to take photographs

Two technicians, the doctor, an assistant (on haunches) and my department assistant, Moosa (in blue overalls and dark glasses) pose in the laboratory

The hospital was situated within the village of Lero and "equipped" for any emergency. There was a laboratory where technicians scrutinised blood tests and other samples under a microscope. There were drips on wooden drip stands and hospital beds with matresses, no sheets or bedcovers. There was a birth delivery table.

The doctor (in green), two assistants and my boss (in khaki) seen here with a mother and child who came for consultation

The Guinean doctor dealt with all the ailments and injuries his fellow countrymen and women brought to him in his surgery. Infants receive their shots and drops as in any normal hospital in a first world country.

The doctor administers polio drops to this young patient. Sadly infant mortality is very high in a country like Guinea. Many children do not survive to see their second birthday

The doctor poses next to a hospital bed and drips on wooden stands

The doctor and Moosa pose at the birth delivery bed

When I took these photos, our company maintenance department had just received approval from the Head Office in Norway to refurbish the school and hospital buildings. Later on an English hospital donated new a new operating table, drips on modern stands and 24 new iron beds and matresses. I had already left the company to come home to South Africa and didn't get photos of the "new" upgraded hospital.

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Thanks to the MyWorld team,Klaus Sandy Ivar Wren Fishing Guy Louise for creating and maintaining this meme.