Day One

Today has been a great day, if only because we got to wake up in beds this morning! We began the day with breakfast, which consisted of milk and cereal, toast and jam, and apples and oranges. We then went over to the chapel in the hospital at 8:00 for morning chapel service. The service was very touching because we are thousands of miles from home, yet we can all connect on our universal faith. After singing a few hymns and hearing a short sermon, our group split up into our own specialized activities.

            Barb spent part of the day sorting through all the medical supplies we brought with us. She has concluded that we brought 800lbs of medical supplies! In Zambia, it is tradition that women do the heavy carrying of things. So when Barb and Tehanne worked with some of the Zambian men to carry the supplies down to the hospital, they were expected to carry the supplies themselves.  An interesting cultural difference.

            Tehanne and Lindsay went on an outreach with some of the hospital staff. This means that they drove out to a small village to give medical care to mothers and infants. They gave vaccines, weighed the infants, and helped the mothers with whatever they needed. Lindsay said that the highlight was when she got to use an authentic Zambian latrine, which consisted of a hole in the ground and some brinks around it. She said that people are supposed to stand, “But I squatted, because I’m a lady.” We all had a good laugh at that. Tehanne said that her favorite part was when she got to just sit and watch the outreach and saw a little girl playing. She said the girl was just twirling around in her skirt and that she saw how similar we all are. She said that she loved seeing how close the families were, and that even children as young as 5 or 6 would help carry the infants on their backs.

            Dr. Kari actually missed chapel because she went with Dr. Dan (one of our hosts) to meet the Health Officer as a representative of our group. Once she returned, she was able to see patients. Mostly notably, she saw a patient who has a potentially cancerous tumor in her uterus. This patient has 10 children and is in her mid-late forty’s, so Kari and the other doctors have concluded that a hysterectomy would be the best option to save this woman’s life. However, there is clearly a very big cultural difference because this woman needs permission from both her husband and her village’s elders in order to have this procedure.  As Americans we are so unaccustomed to this kind of authority and reliance. The woman’s husband has left to go seek the permission of their elders. The operation is delayed at best, or possibly canceled.

            Lori, as one of our nurses, spent the day working in the hospital. She wanted me to share about the extreme differences in the cultures and how we differ in our medical treatments in America.  In Zambia, the medical care is extremely simple compared to in the U.S. Only the worst patients get O2 here, and it is usually a sign that the patient is doing poorly. She was very interested in how the patients’ families are expected to do the general care – they bring their own blankets, get them food, etc. She was very amazed by these differences.

            Kari, as our other nurse, had similar activities as Lori. She made morning rounds with the physician. She was also interested in how they have mostly the same types of diseases and problems as we have in American hospitals, yet they treat things so differently. She said that she really liked the simplicity of it and is really enjoying her work.

            I spent the morning at the local primary school. I met with the assistant headmaster and he gave me a tour of the school. The school holds grades 1-9, and each grade has three classrooms. The students all wore uniforms, and the little children were very amused with me (I assume because of my white skin). Whenever the assistant headmaster would enter a classroom, the students would stand and say in unison, “Good morning sir, how are you today?” It was very impressive! After my tour, the assistant headmaster told me that he would have something for me to help with starting tomorrow morning. He had one of the students escort me back to the mission house, and I joined the rest of the men in today’s work.

            Jonathan, Larry, Bob, and I spent the day working on assessing the hospital’s water supply. John’s specialty in water maintenance has been extreme useful and he has been leading the way. The hospital has been having problems with their water supply because new houses have been built nearby that have been using their water supply and they are not sure how the water is all being used so fast.  We have measured the rate each of the three pumps in the wells can pump water. Only one well can be used at a time, so it could be extremely valuable if we could find one well that is better than the others. On a humorous note, I’ll mention that John broke the mission house gardener’s bucket after tossing it down from a 3-story tall water tower (we were half entertained and half embarrassed, so I taunted him by telling him the story would go in the blog). The two wells that are currently hooked up to the water tanks are producing 6 GPM (gallons per minute) and 11 GPM. We discovered that the third well, which is not hooked up to the tanks, is producing 35 GPM. John says that this third well has potential to produce up to 140 GPM! Because of this, our new goal is to supply the plumbing for this third pump to be connected to the hospital. This would give the hospital three times as much water each day! If the hospital someday got a better motor and bigger pipes, they could increase their water supply to the well’s full potential.  This would be extremely valuable. We are now in the process of finding a way to purchase the plumbing pieces we need.

           

            Thank you to everyone for your prayers! Again, if you have any questions on our activities please post them. Or if you would like me to focus more on something in my posts let me know. We all send love to our family and friends at home. God bless!