Hakuna Sindano

Some administrative changes happened at the hospital this past week, different people moved to different positions. This is hugely exciting as the ones now in charge will probably enforce rules and hopefully return to hospital to what it once was: well-run, very disciplined, and clean. Everyone who cares is excited, the ones who like to take bribes are not nearly as thrilled. Low census at the hospital on Thursday and Friday, which meant rounds were shorter, but more time to spend with each patient and more time to do teaching with family. We saw two interesting diabetic patients, one with a septic foot, the other one comatose. I have seen some nasty wounds in my time as a nurse… but I don’t want to make you vomit. She needed to just have her whole leg amputated. Surgery saw her and they were discussing if they could take it off below the knee or needed to go higher. She died the next day. The other diabetic lady was in DKA. The ward was out of glucose strips, so they weren’t giving her any insulin because they had no way to test her sugar. Do you tell them to just give the insulin and hope she doesn’t die from low glucose, or just let her die slower from high glucose? But we found out the supply room had strips, for some reason they just never got to the ward. So we got all that sorted and we’ll see on Monday if she’s there. It’s amazing to me the amount of patients that recover from comas here. It’s very easy to see God working and healing here, because you certainly can’t always say that it was the medical care that fixed someone.

Hakuna matata isn’t a real saying here. Sorry to break your hearts. It’s only said in touristy places. Also, Lion King apparently isn’t pure Swahili, it’s a mix of a bunch of different stuff and people think it’s a joke. However, “hakuna sindano” is a real thing. It means “there’s no needle” and you say it to screaming pediatric patients who are terrified of all things hospital. The amount of IV sticks by the students these patients have to endure hurts my feelings, but I try not to take over all the time. It’s brutal. The IVs get put in at the nurse’s station, and all the wards are open and connected, so the screams just echo all day long.

We saw some patients in the office. Several little old ladies came in with test results and I checked their O2 saturation… many had sats in the 80s. They have COPD because of cooking over fires their entire lives. I’m going to have COPD from the trash fires. All trash gets burned here. Very earth friendly. Not very people friendly. However, nobody smokes cigarettes here because no one can afford them. I truly think I’ve only seen 3 people smoking, and have only seen one store that sells cigarettes.

Fun fact: Ebola is way closer to all of you then it is to me right now. Dallas and Atlanta are much closer to Alabama than Liberia is to me. I hope you guys get that taken care of before I come back. America is scary.

I’ve said before how much people hate to have their pictures taken. I don’t know why, but they get very offended if white people pull out a camera. I just want you to know how excruciatingly painful it is for me not to take pictures of these gorgeous people and fascinating sights. I was getting my kitchen knives sharpened in town because the little sharpener I had was just not working. The man had a bicycle on a stand that had a grinding wheel thingy attached to it with a belt. He would pedal and hold the knife up to the grinding part and it sharpened it! Sparks everywhere, it was so cool. I think I could definitely make a living doing that, so I asked if I could take a picture of it and he very adamantly refused. It was fine, no big deal, so I’m standing there, and an African lady comes walking up from behind him and takes a picture of me watching him with her smartphone. So we pointed out to him that she had just taken a picture of him and he shrugged and said “You’re white.” So my plan is to hire a non-pasty individual to walk around with me and I’ll tell them what to take pictures of. Also, they don’t seem to mind nearly as much if you just subtly pull out your smart phone and avoid faces. So here are some photos that are not great quality, but less offensive to the subjects:

 

 

 

 

It seems that Saturdays at the beach are when profound thoughts come out of little children. “Let’s play follow the leader! You’re the leader!” “Ok, where do you want to go?” “Wherever you go. And I do whatever you do. Duh. Don’t you even know how to follow someone?”

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said.

This is God’s command: To believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love on another as He commanded us. 1 John 3:23

Follow Me by David Platt is an excellent book on the subject, in case you would like to explore what it means to follow Jesus.

https://kindle.amazon.com/work/follow-me-call-die-live/B008QGYCZO/1414373287

I know I write a lot about church services, but they’re just so gloriously vibrant. The doctor was speaking at a different church again today, so we went on a lovely adventure a bit further than usual. “This really is a road, I promise” I believe were the words that came out of someone’s mouth at some point. Road is a loose term here and I have a few new bruises. Though this church was further out of town than the others I’ve been to, it was the most luxurious. It had half a floor, doors, a drum, a guitar, AND real benches! Benches made with 2 planks AND they had a back to them! I was so excited, I really was. It had started pouring when we got there, so we kind of sprinted in… and then the tin roof made hearing anything nearly impossible so everyone there probably thinks I speak excellent Swahili because I greeted appropriately and then smiled and nodded at everything else. I love storms so much and I had an excellent view out of the windows, the rain smelled so good, and the cute little kids were running around. I was most content.

Eventually the storm calmed down enough to where we could hear, so the service started with some announcements and welcomes, the choir stands up, and then everything just stops. Everyone is just sitting there, no one’s doing anything, clearly I missed a memo. A rooster crows outside. A toddler pulls a handkerchief out of his mom’s purse and starts tying it around his head. The pastor yawns. 2 minutes later a lady starts humming… and then finally the choir starts. We continue with the usual hour of singing, the 5 member choir that has enormous volume, etc. This time, however, it suddenly got super amped up. First, a little kid had been slapping on a drum kind of casually, and the old lady sitting next to me takes it from him and starts going to town on it. I mean beating it so hard I had to casually slide away from her before I lost an eye.

 I had been warned about this church’s dancing beforehand, but it was so much fun to witness. This particular song goes something like “Who is the rock? Jesus! Who do we call on? Jesus!” etc, etc. A lady gets up and starts shuffling around to the maniacal drum beating and then suddenly all the women and the kids are out there doing this shuffle with their feet and then they all stomp rhythmically and clap. They would all be doing different beats and then suddenly be in sync for a stomp and then back out to different beats again. Good thing they were doing it on the concrete half of the floor and not the dirt half or we would all have died of dust inhalation. So about 3 minutes into this awesome dance the old lady with the drum gets up and takes it to someone else and joins in the fun… How she has not broken a hip yet I cannot fathom because she was going insane. She had on a long red and orange dress with a matching headwrap and it kept coming off and she would tie it back on, hike up her skirt, and just keep on jumping. So this goes on for 10 minute, some of the toddlers and little kids give up and stand out to the side with their little hands on their hips, trying to catch their breath. Eventually it stops, everyone returns to their seat, and the service calmly continues.

 Let me just say, people are not afraid to pray here. Everyone prays out loud, and loudly, all the time. It’s cool. We’re moving along quite briskly in the sermon, everything is great because sermons are easy to follow if you know the passages. Also, pastors tend to repeat key words often and refer back to the passage often so it was awesome because I could catch the gist of it, though I’m sure I missed a great deal without a translator. BAM CHICKENS. All of a sudden all these chickens are everywhere. They’re jumping in windows, they’re walking on the back of the choirs’ benches, they’re under our benches. One goes running across the floor and loses its footing and slides on its butt for a minute. The little kids and I thought it was funny, no one else giggled. Have y’all ever looked at chickens’ feet up close? They’re so gross. I was so afraid one was going to touch me with its nasty foot. Once the chickens got loud enough that they actually started disturbing the sermon, a few people casually waved songbooks at them and they eventually left.

I hope you have learned, as I have: Follow Jesus, love people, avoid chickens.