helping the helpless

A week ago, I was a medic for a day. I visited some villages with Maritza, a doctor friend who volunteers a few days a week at a clinic about 30m/50km from Lome. She works at the clinic but also goes with the local pastor to various villages. This is what we did last week. We got out of the car, set our box of “goodies” on a chair under a tree, and got to work. There were a number of people who had boils on their skin, which had become infected and needed cleaning. I got really good at squirting Betadine cleanser on gauze pads for Maritza to clean the wounds. I was also the antibiotic cream squirter and bandage holder. Pastor Hammer cut the sticky bandages. There were some really disgusting wounds, the worst of which was a lady who had a hand and foot with really bad leprosy. It’s really sad. These people live in a village about 10km/6m from Vogan, where the “hospital” and leprosy clinic are. Leprosy treatment is free in this country but transportation to the clinic is not. This lady’s husband left her when she got sick and she has had no money to go to the clinic. She goes to meet the doctor or nurse who comes out from Pastor Hammer’s clinic, about every other day, to have her wounds cleaned. That’s about the best treatment she can hope for.

I believe the most heart-wrenching thing I witnessed was a little baby who was slowly starving. His mother had left him with his grandmother who already had other children to take care of and this one wasn’t a real priority to her. Although the grandmother had been given soy
formula and shown how to use it, she obviously hadn’t done it right. The boy was terribly anemic and hungry. Hammer talked to the grandmother while Maritza gave him some iron. I can only pray that the lady will actually feed the infant now and give him the medicine. I found myself incredibly upset because I felt so helpless. Unfortunately, it is complicated. There are no social services here. It’s up to the family and village. I have a hard time watching the TV and seeing programs where people spend loads of money to save a little kitten, when there are babies starving to death because of poverty and a lack of education.

By the end of the day, I was VERY dirty, tired and hungry, since we didn’t eat lunch until 4pm. However, I felt somehow changed because of my day as a medic. I realized how desperate these villagers are and how difficult life is for them. I also realized that Maritza and the other medics there, although they work hard, are really only scratching the surface of the problems facing these people. I have a whole new respect for them.

Remembering Pip

As planned, we buried Pip's collar at her favourite spot in our garden. Her memory rests in the shade of a coconut palm tree.

We all thought of something nice to say about her:

Sydney: "I liked Pip."

Fiona: "She could have been my grandmother. She was so old."

Elena: "She had such sad eyes."

But April is not herself today (which is actually nice for a change). She is so sad that her mother has gone.

two feet under

We buried our dog yesterday. I didn't know what to expect, since I've never interred a bigger animal in a city. We put her into a sack and carried her through a garden, over a wall and into another garden. The owner had agreed to have a grave dug among his maniok plants (for a price, of course).

I'm glad Sydney went with me. She was the only one who volunteered to join Pip and me on her last journey though Lomé. Somehow I didn't want to be alone. I think, I must have gotten attached to Pip more than I thought.

This afternoon we are going to have a 'remembrance service' in our garden. Pip had her favorite spot under a palm tree. That's where we'll bury her collar.

A sad day

I'm not sure how many of you followed the saga of our dog Pip (the bigger of the two we "inherited" here, who was also the mother). She has had some sort of infection for months now and has gotten progressively worse. Even after weeks and weeks--months, actually--of antibiotics, we still couldn't heal her. She was losing weight and even with lots of food, she just didn't get better. The vet here, who is actually about the best we have in Lome, basically came to the end of his knowledge and didn't know what to do. We wrote home and asked a vet (thanks for all the help by the way, Sheila and Bryon) if he had any idea. He came up with an idea and we tried it. However, he didn't have much hope. It seemed to give Pip some relief these last couple of weeks and she didn't have so much pain, but she wasn't getting better.

Anyway, sometime in the early hours of this morning, she died. Yesterday, as we left to do our shopping, she looked terrible and we stopped by the vet to make an appointment to have her put down. When we got home, she had perked up and was hanging around the garden looking happier. We didn't have the heart to put her down when she had perked up again so called the vet. However, by evening, altho she ate, she never seemed to recover again.

The girls are handling it well. They don't understand why God let her die even though we prayed for her. We've tried to explain but if any of you have any ideas, please send them!! Elena said, "I wouldn't mind so much if I knew she was going to heaven." What more can we say?

Roger and Sydney have gone with the vet to bury her. We had to contact him and he had to "find a place". Then he had no shovel or pick axe, so Roger had to bring them as well. We'll see how that went when they come back.


I'm putting a photo of her before she got sick.

School

Well, school has started. We got off to a good start on Tuesday and Fiona promptly proceeded to get a tummy bug and missed most of what we did on Wed. Today was normal again. It's nice to be in our new classroom and we now have Sydney with us. You can read a bit about her on the girls' blog.

Our school has a name: Kingfisher Elementary. Here the girls are with their teacher in front of our new sign.

Sydney says good-bye to her bushy Papa. (By the way, I have a quote from Minnie Pearl. "Kissing a fella with a beard is like a picnic. You don't mind going through a little brush to get there.")

Theology according to Sydney

Today while driving in town, a lady, with a large load on her head, decided to cross the road right in front of us and Roger had to slam on the brakes in order to keep from hitting her. While recovering from the shock of nearly knocking down a lady who hadn't made a very wise decision, he said, "What kind of brain did God give you?" (referring to the woman, of course). Sydney in one of her moments of saying the first thing that came to her mind, said, "Maybe she worships a different God." Then later... "She almost made us run over her, maybe she's not a Christian, maybe she's a real sinner."

You know you're going on holiday in Africa when...

1. You drive down the road, dodging enormous potholes, and see a chameleon crossing; then you have to turn around and pick him up, amazed that he actually made it across.

2. It takes you 2 days to drive to your vacation spot, approximately 470 miles/750km away. (Mainly because the roads are so bad that it's physically exhausting to travel more than 6 hrs at a time.)

3. Each village along the "highway" has put up their own obstructions to slow traffic down as it passes thru (ie huge tree trunks or large branches across ancient barrels).

4. At every town you pass thru some kid shouts, "Yovo-yovo," (a local term for white people) or its equivalent, as if they had never seen one in their lives.

5. Countless trucks, which are terribly overloaded, have broken down in the road and, if you're lucky, are marked by branches in the road some hundred feet or so before as a warning. And, all occupants have set up camp under the truck knowing it'll likely be a while before they set off again.

6. Your kids think "swimming" in the run-off ditch of a small dam, in the "middle-of-nowhere-Benin", is the best thing they've done. (Has a lot to do with the fact that they were surrounded by a bunch of other kids, which is rare for them here.)

7. Finding that there is almost as much water rushing OVER the only bridge connecting the north of the country to the south as there is rushing UNDER it. But finding that same bridge still intact on the way home a week later. Whew!

8. Noticing that there is no real connection to the large red line on your map indicating a highway and the road you're traveling.

9. Stopping to eat your picnic lunch in a place you were sure was "secluded", only to find a dozen kids watching your every move, within 3 minutes of getting out of the car.

10. Being too cheap to go to a hotel (or perhaps there isn't one) so you stay in other peoples' houses--even tho they aren't there (right?) =)

And finally...

11. You see some amazingly beautiful scenery and wonder that God has allowed you to live in such a place.

Just a few thoughts from our great holiday visiting friends in Benin.