Antsy

Day shifts went along as smooth as expected for such an adjustment. 12 hour shifts are long anyways, but when you tack on walking that adds up to about three miles and the heat, it just makes it that much more exhausting. There are still little small flow of care issues that probably need to be addressed to make the transition complete, but we are taking baby steps in this process. It was starting to really mimic a western hospital. With the switch to 12 hours shifts, they started the “emergency room” back up as well as another place for more critical patients. There is still work to be done to set up a post-op/close observation unit. It’s difficult to do when electricity only goes to a few of the buildings. It was a lot of changes to make at once, but the staff seems to be handling it well.
MSF (doctors without borders) offered to take some of our more long term patients to give us some relief. It was kind of sad to have them go. One of the boys had been there since December, and I think it was hard to him to leave as well since this had been his home for the last seven months. There was another child that they were going to take --had a gunshot wound to the spine, resulting in paraplegia, with pressure sores that we have been trying to heal for about two months--but when they came to pick him up, they said that they had already tried treating him before and could do nothing else. So he will be staying with us for quite some time now doubt. One of the other patients that left is one that came to us knocking at death’s door from an infected appendectomy procedure. It took a couple surgeries and lots of dressing changes, but he was able to take a few shuffling steps before he left. I just hope he continues on his recovery road.
It’s round two of night shifts tonight and tomorrow. Still not that excited about nights, but once they are over we will practically be in the middle of August, meaning I will be back in just one month! I have loved my time here and it has been so blessed with peace and joy, but my mind is starting to shift towards home a little. Oh, and no more skyping, pictures, or lengthy internet use for us…ants got into the modem at the hospital and ate the insulation or something to that effect so the internet no longer works. We just have our tiny, expensive usb modem, but at least it’s something! Joe took the hospital modem back to the states with him so hopefully when he gets back (in a month) it will be back up and working for those who remain here, because by that time I’ll be in Brazzaville! Some days are still stifling here, but the mornings and evenings are usually cool and breezy. I hope everyone at home is having a lovely, and what I assume is a hot, August!

Kitchen Capers

So we have been getting progressively better in the kitchen, some nights are better than others, but we have returned to having Mexican night once again! I just don’t go in the kitchen while the evil pressure cooker is on. Thankfully my hand is healed, and you can’t even tell I was attacked. But we found avocados the other day, so we had fresh salsa, guacamole, fresh tortillas, and a can of corned beef, which we added a pack of taco seasoning, and it made the taco meat taste just like taco bell! That’s gourmet stuff here! But really adding the other fresh stuff to it, really did make it delicious. Our second Mexican night was bean burritos, with a European flair. We made beans, then added sautéed eggplant, okra, and green bell peppers (a rare find at the market!) with some fajita seasoning. An odd mix, but it tasted delicious! We then made refried beans with the leftovers…we are getting quite creative. We have also made chili, and then our basics of stuffed bread, and spaghetti. I am surprised at the variety of stuff we can manage. We even splurged the other night and brewed up some sweet tea!
Brenda Marsh has got to be one of the best bakers I now know! She hails from New York, and is Dave’s wife, who is a nurse at the hospital. We are in Africa and she turns out some of the best sweets/dessert I have tasted! We have just commissioned her take make us brownies once a week. And when you can make good brownies when there isn’t even real cocoa powder, I feel that says something. However, I have yet to find a cook who can hold a candle to Serg, the Harvey’s cook. He is Congolese, and turns out the best food. We had electric catfish the other day with a ratatouille and it was one of the best meals I have eaten here. Considering he knows the foods, and the flavors of Africa, he can come up with the best stuff, and the bread he makes is perfect. He has his own boat so he goes out on the river himself to catch the fish. Talk about some fresh food.
Just a little spiel on food. If you’re curious to know, Sarah and I did survive on night shifts, but our one of two days off in between was pretty much a catch up on sleep day. Definitely not my favorite time to work, but thankfully we only have to do 6 more this month. A lot of work still needs to be done with organization and maintenance of the system, but I think that’s going to be a progressive task.

Night Shifting

This month we have started a new schedule…12 hour shifts. What I am used to in the states, but still, it’s a different kind of work here so I was curious to see how that would go. It goes work two nights, off two days, work two days, off two days, work two nights, and so on. Thank goodness Sarah and I have a twin schedule, we thankfully survived the first night shift, but I am not so sure how I’ll make it to night two on only four hours of sleep after being up for 28 hours straight. We started off by taking a taxi since we didn’t want to ride our bikes in the dark…fun experience, got to see a little of Impfondo evening life. The night experience wasn’t all that bad though. It’s just a lot of foot work walking around to all the wards taking two sets of vital signs and three med pass times. Luckily the generator was on for the first set of rounds so we could have electricity, but after that, it was difficult to juggle the flashlight, chart, meds, and trying to step around the family members sleeping on the floor. It looked like a camp ground in each building complete with mosquito net tents and straw mats. We had three people come in during the night. One was a kid with malaria that was having seizures, another was a guy who had a concussion, and the last one came in the morning. It was a kid who had been throwing up and had a fever, so I performed the basic vitals routine, did a hemoglobin and paracheck and lo and behold, I diagnosed him with malaria! Not that it’s that hard to figure out with a 15 minute malaria test, but it was the first kid that I had done the whole work up on so that was good. We got him hooked up with meds and hopefully on the way to a speedy recovery. It difficult to guage the malaria kids, because sometimes the parents don’t bring them in until they are comatose or seizing, so it’s good when they actually bring them in before that stage, but better when they bring them in at the first signs so nothing too serious happens.
The rough part was the morning report after we got off work…I totally didn’t make it. Every time I nodded off I “woke up” to someone giggling at me, but I didn’t care, I was exhausted! Then we had to wait around an hour or so for someone to drive us back, which ended up being another little tour through the neighborhood of Impfondo to pick up people to take to the airport. Finally we were dropped off in front of the mission, and with weary steps made our way to the house, where I took the coldest shower ever since I have been here. It really didn’t matter though, I was so tired I just fell into bed after that. So night one was manageable, even with the wall I hit about 3am; I just hope I can make it to midnight tonight. I’m off to make as strong of a cup of coffee I can make with instant coffee powder.

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.