Round Two

Last week of July! I almost can’t believe it, but it’s true. Last week we had some missionaries, the Robins, from Central African Republic come visit, and while they were here they did a team building seminar for the staff. When I hear “seminar” there is an automatic aversion to the word/event, but this one turned out to be quite good. Cami Robins was very enthusiastic and was very good at getting people involved in the discussions and exercises. By the end of the week, the staff was asking if they could stay longer and when they were going to come back, and it was great to see how excited the Congolese were about the team building they had done. I think it was their first ever event like that, so they didn’t take it for granted, and really got involved. It was an encouraging sight to see.

Monday I tripped it to Epena with Sarah Speer, Joachine (Congolese nurse), and Joan. It’s a small village about 85 km from Impfondo. The road was thankfully paved; however, there where sections where the jungle had encroached on the road and it was only wide enough for one car. Fine, until another car comes speeding at you from the other direction and your horn doesn’t work…but par le grace de Dieu, we made it safely. I toured around the town with Sarah while Joan and Joachine saw their patients. The hospital was very small and their only inpatient they had left that morning, so it was empty. However, the director did show me around their admin building, or of the skeleton of it. There was a lab, but with no microscope or really any other equipment for that matter, the pharmacy/closet, which doubled at the prenatal teaching room, and then the room that could quite possibly give me nightmares-the birthing suite, which had one rusted, corroded metal table with old vinyl pads and a wash basin. I honestly hope mothers find another room to have their babies in, or that baby’s going to get tetanus within seconds of entering the world. The director saw the look on my face and said in French “real life Congo”…yep, sure is, hopefully moving towards a new reality soon. After Joan saw her patients, we loaded back up in the Land Rover (!!) and headed home. On the way back we stopped in Mbimbo because they are known for their grapefruit…and oh what grapefruit! There was a huge tree just behind the houses and when we asked to buy some, one of the men climbed up the tree and started throwing down HUGE grapefruits into a basket. We got 27 deliciously sweet grapefruit for $2! The whole way back, to keep Sarah awake, I asked questions about Congo’s and Impfondo’s history, found out some pretty interesting facts…story for another time. The trip was quite a success, I thought, and we made it back safely, even without a working car horn. New favorite food in Congo: Saffou-it’s a oval shaped, purplish, fruit with a tart thin layer of fruit encasing a large seed. It’s dipped in sugar or salt (I use sugar), and it’s just delicious!

Rainy Season

Lately I have been devouring books. Not that we have and unlimited access library, but there is a small library and people often leave the books they came with. Over the past weekend I read two books. One was a fictional WWII story of German occupation creeping through Europe and the other was a memoir by Nicholas Sparks titled Three Weeks with My Brother. Even though some of Sparks’ movie adaptations are good I have never been particularly interested in actually reading his books, but after reading this memoir one, I kind of want to read a few now. He was really good at telling his own story so I can only wonder what he makes up. However, I also get emotionally involved in books so now I want to visit Germany and Austria again, and take an around the around-the-world trip….next summer sound good? Yeah. Next up the sequel to my WWII book and The Silver Chair (I wanted Voyage of the Dawn Treador but it wasn’t in the library).

This week I’m working in the pharmacy. In the first five minutes I was thinking it was going to be so monotonous and boring, but the next thing I knew, Sarah was telling me it was time for lunch…I thought it was still early in the morning! It’s a busy little place in the hospital. It was fun though getting to chat with the patients, granted my “chatting” only takes me so far, but I did talk with moms, husbands, or sisters of the patients and ask how they were doing. I even jotted down a few of the phrases in Lingala when the person didn’t know the French terms. I couldn’t ever figure out though if there was any inventory going on. Even though we wrote down each time we gave out a medication or supply item, there didn’t seem to be any check up system with that. So usually when someone notices a med getting low, they tell someone in administration, but often that system fails and we are left without the med/supplies that we need. It’s interesting to try to get people to think ahead for the future when usually they are used to living/surviving day to day.

In other news it has just been a rainy few days, with a torrential downpour today that made it seem like all of Congo was sleeping. And we are possibly switching to 12 hour shifts for nurses. It’s only in the first stages of ideas, but something to pray about nonetheless.

Cultural Superstition

Be warned this is a post of the carefree genre: The Congolese culture focuses a lot on death. The funerals are large affairs and there is much traditional flair that surrounds them. There are rituals, dancing, drinking, and superstitions that no longer have a foundation. This is not to say that there shouldn’t be a mourning process, but it is just in stark contrast to the fact that a birth isn’t as focused or celebrated of an event, and they wait a certain number of days to name the baby. As of late there have been a steady average of deaths, and it was starting to weigh on my heart and those of the team. This week we had a child pass, and the family’s reaction was certainly a grievous one. The father accused the uncle of putting a curse on his child that caused him to die and proceeded to attack the uncle and his family. They attempted to burn down the house and kill his children, but somehow one of the pastors from our hospital heard the commotion, went over to the house, and got one of the children safely out of the house. We assume the other children and the wife escaped, but the husband is in the government hospital, and the found child is staying with the pastor’s family. My apologies for the somber mood of this post, but my purpose is to ask you to pray for both families; for the hope that they focus their beliefs on God rather than superstition, for the grieving family that lost a child, and for the uncle and his family that were attacked. Also for contintued strength, courage, and hope for the missionaries here.

Surprise!

A curious thing happened when we were going across the lawn to the Harvey’s Sunday evening. We look over and see a woman on the ground and one of the girls with us said she was having a baby. I was thinking no way because this woman didn’t even look in labor, but to our astonishment, she did in fact have a baby on the lawn. It was a very Bethlehem-esque scene: in the grass, under a palm tree, and with a donkey just a few feet away. Apparently this happens often because on the other side of the mission is the medical clinic where the women try to make it to when they are in labor. However, this one didn’t quite make it to the clinic, but luckily had an uncomplicated birth and had her baby bag right there with her so she was ready to go.

We had another cooking episode in our kitchen: Mexican night. The menu was intended to be beans, salsa, tortillas, and chips. At first, things were going well; the limes were juiced, the tortillas made, and I was moving on to making chips out of some of the tortillas. I was being a little clumsy with the cooking utensils, and ended up splashing a bit of oil on me, leaving little red circles all up my left arm. Meanwhile Joan had cooked corn and made salsa. We were tackling the beans together in the pressure cooker. Now, I didn’t even know such a thing as a pressure cooker existed until I came here and apparently they are used all the time. However, I have no idea how to use it and really shouldn’t have been within ten feet of the thing. We assumed it was finished since the beans had been in there for the designated cooking time, and we had turned the heat off of them for a while. However, we neglected to take off the cap to the pressure cooker lid to let them steam out. So we wanted to get the beans ready, and I being too hasty and not at all patient with this thing, pulled of the cap, let the steam run out for only about a minute, and proceeded to try to take off the pressure cooker lid. Now I know why it was so difficult to get the lid off because apparently it’s a safety mechanism to stay on there. I forced the lid off and, since the pressure had not been fully released, hot water, steam, and beans flew all over the kitchen and on me. My hand is a tad bit puffy and red, and I just take comfort in knowing that there is silvadene burn cream at the hospital. We did eventually sit down to our meal and did enjoy it, but needless to say, we won’t be having a Mexican night for quite some time.

Be Thou My Vision

Just a lovely hymn to start off the week. :)

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Naught be all else to me, save that thou art; Thou my best thought, by day or by night. Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be thou my wisdom, and though my true word. I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord; Thou my great Father, I Thy true son. Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise. Thou mine inheritance, now and always; Thou and Thou only, first in my heart. High King of heaven and my treasure Thou art.
High King of heaven, my victory won, may I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’n’s sun! Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, still be my Vision, O ruler of all.

Creek Boating and Mefloquine Dreams

It was another jungle walk weekend. Sarah Speer, Suzie, Midhuna, Monique and I went to a village called Mowito (which sounds a lot like mojito and was certainly as refreshing) which was about 7km outside of Impfondo. It was a quaint little village, very neat looking, and had a satellite village of Akas. The outing was intended to be going out on a river boat, but when we got there, we noticed it wasn’t much of a river at this point, but a creek, due to low water levels. So we just went out on the pirogues for a small stretch of creek and even tried out hands at rowing the boat. I’m pretty sure we didn’t really do much rowing and the Aka that was in the back really did all of the rowing/steering work. It was fun regardless and the shade was absolutely refreshing. The water was a unique tea color, which cast a red hue to the logs and sunken pirogues just under the water’s surface. The jungle was reminiscent of a scene from Jurassic Park, rich greenery and abundant in jungle vegetation, we missed out on the dinosaurs though. We got the special treat of going into the “wilderness,” to which my response was “aren’t we already in the wilderness?” But apparently we weren’t and we ventured to a clearing of tall grass. It was the kind that when you walked into it you all but disappeared from view, and to really disappear, all you had to do was squat down and the thick of the grasses would hide you. We had our lunch out in the clearing, then ventured back to the village. Along the way we encountered army ants. They are the kinds that march in groups and will demolish anything in their path. These are the ants that have such strong pinchers that they use them as stitches by letting them bite the skin together then popping off their heads…creepy no? We could jump over the lines of ants, but at some points they were marching straight along our path and we had to bound through them; Suzy and Midhuna didn’t escape without some bites.

On another more odd note, my mefloquine (malaria prophylaxis) dreams may have started to set it…The other night I woke up board straight and breathing really shallow. Sarah was awake too and our conversation went like this:
Sarah: Are you awake?
Me: Yeah, but there are giant caterpillars right next to me
Sarah: No, there aren’t
Me: Really?
Sarah:…Yeah, Are you really awake?
So it’s been caterpillar season and we have seen tons, and apparently I dreamed about them and was talking in my sleep, which woke Sarah up. I was awake, but I guess also still in my dream sequence when she was asking questions. But I finally completely woke from my reverie and we just started dying out laughing and went back to sleep.

Good news for the hospital: Dr. Fuka, the surgeon, is back…poor thing is going to have one huge workload waiting for him. The financial administrator is back from the DRC, and we had a few boxes of medical supplies come in with them on the planes. I didn’t realize how heavily we relied on those planes coming. By the end of the week we are always short on something, and are trying to work out a system so it doesn’t happen so often. But when the orders come in sometimes it’s what they ordered, others it’s not. Luckily MSF (medcine sans frontiers/ doctors without borders) is here too, so they lend us supplies from time to time. Many of the times is it certainly by the grace of God that we get our supplies or what we have lasts us until the next plane arrives.

Independent Nations

Fourth of July is fairly uneventful in Congo. A few people did a special lunch, but Sarah and I just took an exploratory bike ride down the road to the outskirts of town. However, we pepped up the national pride at our Sunday night gathering. We sang our national anthem and a few other patriotic songs. Since it was also recently the DRCs independence on June 30, and France’s independence is just around the corner, the people from the respective countries sang their national anthems as well. We also heard the anthems for India (my fave!-it sounded so cool), Lebanon, Haiti, South Africa, Canada, and Rep. of Congo. It was collective nations’ pride night. We even broke out some sparklers.
The work week is going pretty smoothly. There are a good many people waiting for the surgeon to get back, and there has been an influx of malaria cases with the start of the rainy season. One of the patients who is in for chronic tophi ulcers related to hypercholesterolemia, likes to strike up interesting conversations such as would I stay in Congo if I married a Congolese man. So the other day he called me over when I walked by the building and gave me a stick of sugar cane as a gift. Dr. Wegner tried to convince me it was a marriage stick, but I beg to differ. Just a bit about the weather… I am astonished that we are practically on the equator yet we can have blissfully cool nights and mornings. Mind you, there are still the blistering hot days and smothering humidity, but not even in south Mississippi do we get these cool breaks in the summer, no, make that winter.
Meditations: Being still in the presence of God, just listening, and finding God in the simple things of life (thanks Kristin!). Who knew such a peaceful feeling would come from the simple act of service.

Photo!

Just a few pictures to feast your eyes upon


The rains have come the river is a-risen!...and there are some fishermen out on their pirouge

Pancake night with the Liberty team! They blessed us with their presence for five weeks!

Patients and Patience

Thursday: Week has been long and exhausting, but we are making it through. The patients keep on coming. We are overfull in two of the rooms and there are patients that are waiting in triage or consultation for a bed to open up. Also one of our patients came back. He is an Aaka baby with Kwashiorkor (protein related malnutrition). He was here a few weeks ago, but they weren’t complying with the treatment, nor was he getting better, so they sent him home. When he came back he was swollen up like a Michelin baby, even his eyes were swollen shut. At first there was a little unenthusiastic response of ‘oh no, he’s back’, but now I think most everyone has hopped on the compassionate train. So we are trying round two of treatment which will mainly involve patience. It’s hard to communicate with the family because they don’t speak French and hardly any Lingala. And last time the formula was kind of thrown at the family to deal with and that obviously didn’t go well. So we are trying to meet them on their terms. So today I went outside, sat with them on their blanket and slowly and patiently gave the baby the formula. We are off to a better start so far, we just need to figure out the right amount so he keeps it down. Moke, moke (little by little). The hospital is also getting short staffed in several areas. It’s around the time some people go on conge (vacation) for a month so there are gaps in the pharmacy, lab, and nursing staff. It has also been difficult since Dr. Fuka, the surgeon, has been gone for about a month now. Joe and Steven have been doing a good job with emergency surgeries, but here is still a load of other cases to be done.

Southern Cookin: Making Do

Tuesday: You can take the girls out of the south and put them in Africa, but you can’t take the south out of the girls! So our house is now me, Sarah, and Joan (Mississippi, Kentucky, and Georgia respectively) and we love our southern food. So the other night we made stuffed bread (which is pretty much pizza fillings inside a loaf of bread), sautéed spinach, fried okra, and nobake cookies. It was absolutely delish! And the fried okra (with the Tony’s I brought) were fantastic! Ok so maybe it was just the fried okra making it “southern”, but in Joan’s words they were “so good you could slap your mama.” We needed the comfort food night…the Liberty team made their final departure from Impfondo today and it was sad to watch them go! They were such a joy, and I wish them the best in their nursing ventures (MD ventures for Mike) and their aspirations towards missions! I feel it’s going to get a little quiet around here.
As for our house, we are trying to figure out what to name it. Some other houses are name after cities (Albany, Casablanca, Bethlehem) so we want to name our house something related to the south, because, well, we are all from the south and it only seems appropriate. Joan threw in the name Tara, but that was quickly shot down for several reasons… So ideas are welcome! We are also having another banana extravaganza since Pastor Justyn gave us a whole regime of bananas. We are slowly conquering it by way of banana cake and smoothies.