Long Overdue

So according to the blog I was still in Congo, so I thought it was about time for an update. I did make it back, albeit five hours late, a delay that was much shorter compared to other people who were delayed 25 hours when returning to the states. A few tears were still shed at the airport when they told me I wouldn't make my connector flight to Atlanta, but lucky we figured it out, and I got to run (more of a jog) into the arms of my family at the Birmingham airport. It was a lovely reunion, and PF Changs helped welcome me back. Jet lag actually took a little while to get over, but I've been back in the states a little over a month now and feel like I have sufficiently integrated back into society and a normal sleeping pattern. I have probably only been in Hattiesburg about two of those weeks...I've had the privilege to go to the beach twice and spend a few days in Birmingham. It's been fun chilling out being home, but when I started getting antsy and bored, I started the job search...this was about two weeks ago. That was what my Birmingham trip was for. I hit up three hospitals and scored two interviews and a meeting with the nurse recruiter, so I thought that was pretty successful. Now I just get to wait around another week or so to see what they decide.
I have started my baking back up...I just can't get rid of that one love. At first I did well giving it away, but every once in a while, the sweets sneak in and get put to the side (for later snacks) of the dishes headed for the taste testers. Luckily Logan working at the church five minutes away made for an easy drop of for the plethora of baked goods I whipped up earlier in the week (pumpkin biscuits with cinnamon honey butter were the biggest hit). It was the test run for the cooking I was going to do for mom and dad's dinner party, which was quite successful, if I do say so.
Next weekend we are headed to Charleston to visit the newly engaged Jessica! Weird how we lived together for a year, then all of a sudden didn't see each other for half of a year! Crazy how time goes, but I am super pumped about visiting Charleston and this long(6 months)-lost sister! All in all, I miss Congo, but oh so glad to be back with my family and friends. I have placed it in God's hands, and just waiting for the doors to open or close. I'm curious to see what comes next, but so far, Life is GOOD.

Congo Coast

I spent my last few Impfondo days quite leisurely. I way overestimated my packing time and started last Saturday, but it only took me about an hour to pack, so I had about two and half days worth of free time. I just soaked up Impfondo, visited with friends, and then watched movies with Claire and Isabelle; it was pretty sweet way to wrap up. Finally Tuesday arrived and our plane luckily came. We had a few minutes to greet/say goodbye to Joe and Becky since they came up on the plane we were leaving on. We stopped in Brazzaville, made sure our luggage got back on the plane (quite literally, we had to pick it out of the luggage being taken off so they would put it back on) then arrived in Point Noire! Steven and I rode in the bed of the pickup with the luggage through the sandy roads, and I got the first hand glimpses of the dusty city. Sarah and I are staying in the guest house at the Christian Missionary Alliance mini compound. It’s different being in the big city, since I’ve been in the village for so long, but this vacay should be fun.
I will certainly miss the people that I have left in Impfondo, but they will be in my prayers, and maybe one day I’ll return to see them again. Home is on the horizon! But first a little R&R and tourism on the Congo coast!

Down to the Wire

I’m wrapping up my time here; I’m in Impfondo just six more days. I only work two more days, then it’s the weekend and I will be packing to leave for Pointe Noire (on the coast of Congo) on Tuesday! Sarah and I are going with the Wegner family for four days then flying back to Brazzaville to wait for her dad and sister to arrive. Then I will chill out in Brazzaville for a few days before I leave for the states on the 16th!
There have been cold showers, laundry by hand, three mile bike rides to work, limited electricity, making every item of food from scratch, smoldering days, just today we ran out of water, and yet the past four months have been some of the most peaceful and content months I have had in a long while. Watching the sun rise over the river and seeing the boaters peacefully glide along the gradually rising river have been just a few of the perks to living in such a beautiful place. Not to say I didn’t have my frustrations or my days of homesickness, but even behind all of that there has been a sense of peace here in Congo. I have been surrounded by spiritual warriors, crusaders, and sages of the faith. I have seen how these things are important in a culture that harbors superstition and still refers to their local witch doctor for fetiches to cure their maladies. However, I have also seen the power of prayer, miracles of healing, and how faith can lead us through. I have to admit, I was somewhat of an outsider looking in on how the hospital functioned and the missionary team interacted, and I actually liked it that way, it was interesting perspective. But, I have seen a lot of growth, endurance, and progress at the hospital, with the team, and in myself. God is good.

Why Playing Claw Arcade Games is Important

This morning while drinking instant coffee and eating an egg sandwich, I wondered what I would write about. Nothing has really happened this past week besides the grim reaper camping out at the hospital. So I decided to put of writing and take out the rubbish bin and burn trash. I donned my gear so I wouldn’t get eaten by mosquitoes and traipsed outside to the garbage pit. As I was dumping out the trash near the edge of the pit, a spider on the side of the trashcan caught my eye. Unfortunately my irrational fear of spiders still exists, so I promptly dropped the trashcan…into the 20 foot deep pit. Now I guess one would just think, oh well, just go buy another trashcan, but being so wasteful doesn’t fly here. So I guiltily went back into the house and reiterated to Sarah what happened. In searching around the house, I found a coil of think wire, an iron hook, and some duct tape. In true MacGuiver fashion, I rigged together a fishing pole of sorts. So we started fishing. Coupled with humidity, the slant into the pit, and the smoke from the burning trash, the task seemed all the more daunting. After tweaking the contraption a couple times, and rotating around the hole, Sarah managed to hook the lip of the trashcan and pull it up. What a feeling of accomplishment! Lesson learned about being near the pit. And all of this before 8 a.m.

Tour Part Deux

Oloko ozali nini freckle? Ozana na freckle? Freckle Te. Wasn’t quite done with the freckle comments from Paul, it was just too cute. Respectively from Lingala to English: What is freckle? Do you have freckles? No freckles. But anyways, I’ll start where I left off. On to the surgical buildings. You walk back past pediatrics and toward the back on your right is the Bloc or operating building. It has three operating theaters, one mainly for putting on casts, and a sterilization room. Practically everything is reused. Washed and sterilized, but still reused, no wasting goes on here. To the left are the American wards (red, white, and blue paint on the buildings). First is the new surgery building which is either for pre-op or post-op patients, we haven’t picked a definitive name for it yet. Right now there are two recovering prostatectomies in there and an 18 year old who had some traditional treatment put on his leg, which caused a huge gaping ulcer/wound on the lower half of his calf. It’s on the mend. Last night we had someone come in for observation who had cut his foot with a machete and needed to be stitched up. It wasn’t too serious and he seemed to have pretty good spirits about the whole situation. That room is still undergoing some changes to be more functional as a close observation unit, but that will probably be some time before it’s really up and running.
Next is Chirugie Homme (Men’s Surgery). There are eight beds, four lined up on each side. Matthew is a young man in the second bed. He came in unconscious from a tree falling on his head. He had on open wound on the crown of his head and that periodically spurted blood because an artery had been broken. He was stitched up but since waking up, he had not be able to moved the lower half of his body, nor can he moved the upper half well. He has been in the hospital for about a month, so the surgeon is about to discuss what needs to be done next because we have done all we can do at our hospital. I don’t know the kind of person he was before the accident, but he is so kind. In the next bed is Simon, a chief of one of the villages who broke his leg. He has been trying to get to Brazzaville to have surgery, but they had trouble getting a plane ticket then the plane got cancelled, so he has been hanging out for about a month too. You can tell he is a little more high maintenance, but pleasant. His area is very clean, and his family brought him in a bedside table that has his radio and other personal items on it. He has a frank discussion with me and Dave about how much alcohol he usually drinks a day (2 liters!) and that it’s part of his job as a chief to do that kind of socializing, but he does take breaks. We explained to him that that was probably why he got such a crazy heart rhythm. He probably needs a pacemaker, but that’s definitely not technology that has made it here yet. Then there are the regular hernia repairs, appendectomies, and wound care.
And last is Chirugie Femme (Women’s Surgery). Eight beds in here as well. Cases in here are usually ovarian cyst removals, hysterectomies, oopherectomies, and I even saw a carpal tunnel repair the other day. Our last long termer left is Shelly. She is 9 years old, came in with a broken femur, and was put in traction. She is the cutest thing with the sweetest little voice. She likes to take her own temperature and read it out to you. She is just awesome. Her bone healed, but from being in traction, then in a cast, she had some skin breakdown, so now they are healing that wound, and trying to get rid of the foot drop she developed. Orthopedics is tricky here, that’s for sure. But her family is very attentive, so she is doing well.
So those are just some of the people you might see if you took a walk through the hospital. And I forgot to mention this in the first one: I did change names for the sake of confidentiality, but it’s still the people. Time is winding down, just three and half weeks until I leave Imfondo for the capital! Time is curious thing, but a lot of new experiences and people have been packed in there. Who knew four months would feel like a snap?

Freckle (Hospital tour Part 1)

I want to give you a little peek into our hospital. You arrive in the front gate to the hospital grounds where the guards greet you from their palm covered peyote with a booming “Bonjour!” On your right is the administration building where we hold our morning report and where the doctors’ offices are located. Straight in front of you is the largest structure on the premises; going from right to left: chapel, laboratory, echo graph, radiology, pharmacy, and then is has a part of the building that juts backwards further into the hospital yard with the emergency room and triage. The emergency room sort of doubles as a critical care where the patients who are having seizures from cerebral malaria, need oxygen, or are unconscious are kept for a tad bit closer observation. If you keep walking from there you hit two buildings: maternity and the birthing suite, both of which I have only been in once because there is one nurse who is specifically assigned to those two and that’s just not my cup of tea. I did however witness on delivery, and it’s not so much the cushy pampered deliveries at home, but more like they are yelling at the woman to be stronger. So anyways, breeze by those buildings.
To the left are three building in a row, Congo wards (they have painted strips of red, yellow, and green at the base). First you come to Medicine Homme (men’s medical) which has six beds, two of which are in a semi private room and one in a private room. Right now we have a man with cervical spinal stenosis, one with opportunistic infections from HIV (Adam), and the other with tuberculosis (Charles). Adam had his three month anniversary at the hospital yesterday, and has been in a different building each month. He started out in Medicine Femme, then had to be moved to the old Medicine Homme to make room for a patient with drug resistant TB, then this past week when we moved to a new Medicine Homme, he had to move as well. I think he will finally get to rest there. He has HIV, an opportunistic infection of tuberculosis and the lymph nodes around his face and neck are swollen and infected. He is on a boat load of medications, but everyday he puts on a big smile and greets whoever walks in. Charles is a new arrival, but I knew him because he went on the trip with us to the Epena clinic a few weeks ago. He is in for tuberculosis which requires that you stay in the hospital for a month of treatment then are tested to see if you are still positive, if not you go home, if so you stay another month.
The next building is Medicine Femme (women’s medical) where often times it is also an HIV/ TB ward. It has six beds, for which two are in their own private rooms (usually reserved for drug resistant TB or other more contagious cases). In the second private room is Anna, a middle aged woman with full blown AIDS. She came in extremely weak and weighed only 66lbs. It was a little touch and go for a while, but she is starting to slowly gain weight, and when I walked in the other day she was sitting up on her own and waved a greeting: HUGE improvement considering I was lifting her up so she cut sit to take her meds. Then there is Lilly. She has HIV and TB, but came in to the hospital with necrotizing fasciitis on her foot. The tendons were visible and it was almost to the bone. I was skeptical, but after being here for a month and half, through dressing changes and debridement, the skin had grown a healthy red over the tendons, and she was ready for a skin graft, which Dr. Fuka performed. I stood in to watch, and it was certainly the most interesting skin graft I have seen (well, only one I’ve see, but still). He used a straight blade razor and by hand, shaved off thin layers of skin from her skinny, skinny thigh and replaced it onto her foot. I saw Lilly’s foot the other day and it was looking so much better! The graft had taken well, and her foot was starting to look normal. However, since she also has other health complications, it is taking longer and she has also developed sores on her other foot, which look suspiciously like blisters from the premier infection. We only hope that since we are treating them from the beginning it won’t last long. She has a character for a mother the “cuoco” (grandmother/grandchild in Lingala depending on who you say it to) and her children are so adorable. Last Sunday the youngest latched on to me during and after the church service up until we left.
On to the last of the three buildings: Pediatrics. This is a building I tried to avoid when I first got here, because, well, I’m not the best with kids; however, as time has passed, I now will stop in there for visits and check in even if I am not working in there. There are eight beds, three of them cribs, and come vital signs or med pass, it becomes the wailing room. Often times it acts like a malnutrition and malaria ward, but there are cases of respiratory infections, burns, abscesses, and other maladies. Before you walk in you are likely to see a baby in a big bucket being bathed or one sitting on a small bucket completing his business…at least it’s being done outside. I am just going to single out two: David and Paul. David is 16 years old and has had HIV/AIDS since birth; he however, looks like he is a skinny 9 year old. He has outlived his mother, and it is amazing that he has made it to 16. He will sometimes try to keep other kids in line or do a little translating because since he has been there for so long, he knows the routine. However, we are trying to move him to Medicine Homme so he can be in less stressful environment. Right now we are trying to eliminate is ever persistent fever. Paul is 9 years old and is a gunshot victim from the rebel battles. He was shot in the spine, is a paraplegic, and is in the hospital to heal up the pressure sores on his backside. He has been there about two months, and when he first came he was pitiful just setting on his confining bed; however, about five weeks after he had been at the hospital, we found him a wheelchair. He is like a totally new kid! It took him a little while to build up the strength, but now he wheels around the hospital and has become a chatter box! He is absolutely precious and yesterday Sarah taught him the word “freckle.” Paul and Charles (new guy in Med Homme) are fast friends and Paul will wheel over to Charles and strike up a conversation. So yesterday, we periodically heard the word “freckle” in their Lingala conversation…hilarious!
I feel like I may be leaving out a few things, but it’s starting to get long so I’ll save the rest of the hospital for next time. But that’s just a small peek of what you see at the Pioneer!

Days off in Congo

Since we have a new schedule, Sarah and I have made it somewhat of a habit to walk across the lawn the Harvey’s for lunch on our off days. It gives us the chance to hang out with Claire and Isabelle since they are the only two over there after their brother and dad left to join their mom and sister in the states for a few weeks. Plus, their cook Serge makes the best food! We cut it a little short yesterday because Sarah and I had both made bread, challah (with a silent “c”) and oatmeal bread respectively. It’s as if we are brushing up on our domesticity. Anyways, we had to rush back over to see how our bread was rising and if it was ready to be punched down or put in the oven. I am happy to say we both produced some beautifully golden, soft, fluffy loaves of bread that tasted delicious! If we aren’t just preparing ourselves to be the best housewives on the block! But really we do have the best conversations in the kitchen, and it’s fun playing around with the ingredients of Africa.
So yesterday when we were at lunch we planned what to cook for dinner. Claire has wanted to learn more about cooking and so she asked Sarah and me for some help. So since we had some ripe avocados and fresh tomatoes, we opted to have our weekly Mexican meal made in their kitchen. I prepped a few things, like washing veggies and crushing tomatoes while Sarah and Claire chopped and started on tortilla batter. It was fun to have out little crowd in the kitchen. Isabelle and I were on stools talking over her poetry book she had gotten for her home school curriculum, and we all chatted about movies we loved, songs we liked, and books we’ve read. It was so much fun to have a full kitchen. We tasted the food as it was coming along, figuring whether to add more salt, throw in a little more onion, or how much lime we wanted in the salsa. After our little kitchen hustle, Claire had completed totally fresh salsa and guacamole, flour tortillas and chips, corned beef (that we did cheat on by adding a taco seasoning packet), cheese, and fresh cucumbers. Probably one of our best Mexican nights ever! We had some really good genuine, tear-up laughs and left with stomachs content and hearts full. Our night humor what not quite done though. On our walk back across the lawn to our house, we have to pass under an archway of two large guava trees, from which ripe guavas are frequently falling from the heights. So just as Sarah, Joan, and I were just about through them, we hear a dull “thump” and we look back to see Joan with a hand on her head. She had become a victim of a falling guava, which resulted in hysterical laughter from me and Sarah and guava juice in Joan’s hair. We were all exhausted from our day (not that me and sarah had a rough day, but we never took sufficient naps after the night shift we came off of) so once back, we all crashed. Just another day in Congo.