West African Adventures

     Since I have been in Togo, I've been on two overnight trips. They have been great ways to get to know fellow Mercy shippers. These two trips have also shown me more of Togo and her people. Over a week ago, I went to Lake Togo with four girls from the Mercy Ship and three local Togalese guides. We stayed in bungalows overlooking the lake. They were cute, but really basic. Each bungalow had a double bed, a shower, toilet, and fan. Thank goodness for the fan when there was no air conditioning! I slept on a mattress on the floor because I was coming down with a chest cold and the girls were concerned I might get them sick... I tried not to have hard feelings about that, especially since there was an ant colony that had taken up residence next to my mattress. As the ants gradually began to find their way onto my mattress, I decided that I was going to have to move my mattress to the other bungalow where there were less ants to be found!

Anyone that knows me, knows that I am deathly afraid of all things creepy and crawly. I had a difficult time falling asleep that night due to the knowledge that I was on the ground and there was a crack underneath the door wide enough for cockroaches, rats, and who knows what else! Well, after four am, I finally fell alseep, too tired to worry anymore. If anything crawled on me that night, I was not aware, which I guess is good enough for me. We had a fun time on this trip, hanging out by the lake, playing cards, frisbee, and singing. Our West African friends love to sing, so we sang! They love repetitive songs, which is fun for maybe the first 12 hours... After 24 hours, it begins to be, well shall we say, exhausting! By the end of the trip, I decided if I never sang again, it would be fine with me! They randomly would shout out, hallelujah, praise de Lord! Oh they were funny at times. One of them proposed marriage to one of the girls I was with; he told her that they were meant to be together. That night they built a campfire on the beach and we sang and danced around it. It was a memorable night for sure. 

Amy (a pretty cool kiwi) and I

Our group

Our leaky boat before taking off

The boat above was our ride across the lake to our bungalows. We also took one of these to Togoville, a small community on the lake that was originally founded by the Germans before WWI. The boat was fully loaded with our group and another French tourist group. As soon as we all were on board, I noticed several leaks in the boat. It took us almost one hour to cross the lake, and water was steadily trickling in at a good rate from several places. I was a bit worried, but the lake is shallow and I'm a good swimmer so I thought there's no need to worry. We made it safely, but the bottom of our boat was full of water by the end of the boatride. Its funny because I don't think the Africans even noticed.
     There are many random circumstances in which I find myself here in Togo. One such moment was when our group was trying to find accomodations when we first arrived to Lake Togo. We came to a hotel called the White House. It might have once been stately, as it was trying to mimic its more famous namesake. It had old white columns with paint peeling. There were pictures of Obama around the reception desk. The West Africans here all love Obama. Many times when locals find out where I'm from, they will excitedly say, "Obama"!!! I just have to laugh. While we were talking to the receptionist, a short, almost midget, Frenchman approached us. He spoke broken English and informed us he had worked in Vietnam after the war with other Americans after the war. He was a funny little man, red faced and round, but very friendly.
     My favorite memory from this trip was when we passed an elementary school and all the kids came running out to greet us. I think African children might possibly be the most beautiful children. We got to sing and play games with them. We asked permission from their principal first, and he said it was alright. All of the kids swarmed and surrounded me. They wanted to touch my blond hair. After I gave one high five to a little girl, they all wanted one. All of the sudden, I was giving high fives to fifty kids! I read a quote that I think is so true after my experience in West Africa so far. Franz Wisner said,

"The smiles of the children with nothing are just as big, if not bigger, than their affluent counterparts."



  

Learning not to take offence at being hissed at...

     Well a lot has happened since I last wrote. I keep meaning to write an update and then something comes up to distract me. In the past week and a half I began working evening shifts, got sick, went on two overnight trips, and met some very interesting people. Although this experience started off a bit slow, it has gotten very busy. I have been in Africa one month and I now see how quickly this trip will go.
     Ok, well for highlights, I am enjoying working. So far I have taken care of more adults then children. When I get to take care of the kids, its such a treat. They are my favorites for sure. The children here are beautiful! I took care of a sweet little girl who was just under two years of age and she only weighed eleven pounds. She was malnourished due to chronic feeding difficulties as a result of her cleft lip and palate. Her mother was so sweet and thankful that her daughter was able to receive a surgery that will allow her to now receive the nutrition she needs for life. Another patient that sticks out in my mind was a young teenage girl that had abnormalities in her jaw which severely restricted movement. Post surgery, I had to help this girl perform jaw stretching exercises so that her jaw would not return to the state it was in pre-surgery. The goal was to have her perform exercises for five minutes on each side of her jaw each hour. Through the translator, I explained to the patient that she needed to begin her exercises; after 10-15 minutes I came back to check on a different patient in the same ward and I heard a hissing sound. I turned around and the patient's caregiver, her grandmother, a sweet, little, wrinkled woman was hissing at me. This is the normal sound that locals here make when they want to get your attention. Guys hiss at you on the street when they want to say hi, and shop keepers hiss at you when they want you to see their wares. At first, I felt it was really rude until I understood they do not mean it in a rude way. So anyways, I went to see what the woman wanted and with distress she pointed at her granddaughter who still had the stretching objects in her mouth. I realized then that they had not understood my instructions. They had been waiting for me to come take the objects out when I thought they understood to take them out after approximately five minutes. The caregiver seemed upset and frowned deeply at me. I grabbed a translator and apologized and then proceeded to re-explain the instructions. The caregiver and patient both accepted my apology. The old woman told the translator she didn't know what five minutes was, so I let her borrow my watch every hour. I showed her how to watch the second hand go around the face five times. Her face lit up with understanding and she was so diligent after that to make her granddaughter perform her exercises. After that we were fast friends. She taught me how to say your welcome and thank-you in her local dialect. I have realized that these people are a gracious and forgiving people. They are warm and appreciate physical touch.
     Through my interactions with Africans thus far, I am learning that I need to be a learner and observer. I have always had too high of an opinion of myself. Being humble and ready to admit I am wrong seems to go a long way with the people here. In the simple circumstance above, my immediate gut reaction was to be annoyed that the woman hissed at me and was upset with me. Internally, I thought I was not wrong, she just did not follow the instructions I gave her. Thank goodness that the Holy Spirit prods us to act outside of ourselves. If I had not apologized, I would not have had the blessing of getting to know such a sweet woman. I hope that God uses this trip to smooth more of my rough edges. I am realizing everyday how many I have.
    

I'm finally working...

     Well I started working in the hospital on Wednesday. At first it was a bit crazy; first days always are. Everyone has been very helpful though, answering my many questions. I am working on a different ward than I was assigned to because the plastic surgeon has not arrived yet, so we are taking maxillo-facial surgery patients right now. I am working day shifts this week, five in a row (7-3:30). The eight hour shifts are nice because it makes for a shorter day. I do miss working three days a week though. We work with day workers who are from Togo, neighboring Benin, Sierra Leone, and Ghana. They come from far away because Mercy Ships pays them decent wages. They help translate for us, as well as cook and clean. They are very helpful! I took care of two toddlers today that were just adorable. I also have been taking care of adults too, but I love the kids. One of my patients, a man in his thirties, was so annoyed with his NG tube that he just pulled it out. I walked up to him and he motioned to me that he did not want it anymore. I had to explain to him with the use of a translator why he still needed the tube. He listened and I placed another one. I have had to greatly exercise my patience here because often times the translators do not understand what I am trying to say and will translate inaccurately to the patient. Also, because I work with nurses from other countries, sometimes we do not understand one another! Its interesting at times; I try to laugh about it. Anyways, I'm glad to be working. It is why I came! I'll be writing more, but now I need to get to bed. I work early tomorrow morning!

Our Hospital staff!

This is the entire nursing staff of the hospital.

These are the ward nurses. I am on top of the land rover on the right.

The Africa Mercy!

Screening Day pictures

This is one portion (above) of the line of people waiting to be screened for surgery outside the stadium.

Jim (above) interacting with a little girl waiting to be screened.

This baby is one of our future patients!

We passed out thousands of water bottles to people waiting in line to be screened.

Testing potential patients' blood for a variety of things.

This is a picture of the man I wrote about in my blog that I performed a health history on.

A few stacks of the health histories we performed.

We saw many patients who had very large goiters.

One of our British nurses who works in the crew clinic.

The stadium that we screened our patients in.

A few snapshots

     I have wanted to post some pictures to this blog, but it has proved difficult. The wireless signal is at times very slow. Here are several that I have taken. The first is of the rear of our ship in port at Lome. The second is of a Togalese woman after the church service had completed, standing outside by the street. I snapped that picture out of the car window. The women here have beautiful dresses made out of bright colors, especially on Sundays for church.

     The next picture below is to give you some idea of how crowded the streets are, and how dangerous it is to drive here. A motorcyclist ran into one of the mercy ships vehicles the other day. No one was injured thankfully. The most common form of transportation here is by motor bike. Entire families ride on one motor bike together without helmets. Most of my pictures are taken through the car window because its not safe to expose your camera, phone, or anything of value on the street. Thievery is a huge problem here. 

     Below is a picture of Summer and I. She is one of the nurses I met in Washington D.C. when we were stranded waiting for our airplane to be fixed. We are standing on the dock in front of the ship. The last picture is again to show that motor bikes are the main mode of transportation in Lome.



Screening day

     Wow, words cannot begin to describe the day we had today! Today was screening day (screening day is when all prospective patients come to be screened to see if they are eligible for the surgeries that the Afica Mercy provides). All of the ship crew, nurses, doctors, pharmacists, xray techs, and anyone else I forgot to mention were divided up into teams with different tasks for the day. I began my day at 3:20 am. We all had a quick breakfast. I packed my backpack the night before with suncreen, bugspray, antibacterial soap, beef jerkey, gatorade, water... all the essentials for a 12 hour day in hot West Africa. We all piled into a long line of landrovers at 4:20 am and caravaned to a sports stadium 30 minutes away in Lome. After our caravan got slightly lost on the way, we arrived safely, only a few minutes late. As we pulled up to the stadium in the pitch black of night, we saw a line of West Africans already standing in line to be seen. Later on I heard that people had begun lining up the day before at 5 pm in the evening. We entered the stadium and there were Mercy Ships staff with head lamps on because of how dark it was. We quickly finished setting up our stations. Patients began to arrive at 5:30 am. I was assigned to the health history team. Each nurse had an interpreter, which was invaluable. Over the course of the day, we saw 1,660 patients with a multitude of surgical needs. This means each of us saw approximately 90 patients throughout the day! Many of the patients required simple surgeries such as hernia repairs. Due to insufficient dietary intake, many of the patients had extremely large goiters. These and the hernia patients were categorized under general surgery. We also had patients come in with a variety of different facial tumors; they were categorized under Maxillofacial surgeries. We had some patients come in with old burns that had caused contractures or facial scarring. Those patients will be plastic surgery patients. 

     There were many sad situations today. I guess I still need to process a lot of what I saw. On the way home, I began thinking about all that I saw and I felt overwhelmed by it. I met a 67 year old man today, while retrieving his health history and pre-physical. He was accompanied by his son because he's in a wheelchair and cannot walk. Immediately when he came, I saw that on the right side of his face he had a massive facial tumor that had encroached upon his eye, forcing it closed. The tumor had impeded his nostrils so that he had to breathe through his mouth. It was grossly disfiguring. Beyond this, he smelled of feces and urine; there were flies buzzing and landing on him. (As a side note, last night before bed, I prayed that Jesus would give me compassion and help me to see these people through His eyes. I have been struggling with having a bad attitude this past week here, feeling homesick and really being quite self-centered.) When I met this man, my stomach immediately turned. The odors were intense. I knew he could see me, and I didn't want him to know I was disgusted. I hope he didn't know. It was then that the Holy Spirit brought to my mind how Jesus would touch the lepers without any regard for himself. Oh how I wish my initial reaction was more like Jesus' was. There were many times during the 15-20 minutes that I spent with him where I was able to touch him. At one point, his son and I took off his shoes and helped him to the scale to be weighed. When I put his shoes back on this feet after wards, I remembered that Jesus was willing to wash his disciples' dirty, dusty feet. I am thankful tonight as I reflect, for Christ's example because it was what got me through today. On the way home, several other nurses and I were discussing how helpless we felt today. For the 1,660 we saw, only 700-900 people will get their surgeries. That is not including all of the people we had to turn away today because we had reached our cap of people we could screen. There was a line that stretched around the gates of the stadium. When the announcement was made that we couldn't see any more patients, one man (who needed a hernia repair) bolted through the gate trying to run up to the stadium to be seen. He was not violent, but he was desperate to receive the surgery. I found out that it is only $600.00 to receive a hernia repair surgery at a local West African hospital, but these people are so poor that they cannot afford that.

     On the way home, I was trying to make sense of everything. Two things that God really impressed on me: 1) God created those people, including the man with the facial tumor in His image. These people are equally precious in His sight. Just because they smell, are disfigured, are poverty stricken, does not make them less in God's site. He knows the number of hairs on their heads. If He cares for the sparrows, how much more does He care for them. He loves them more than I ever could. 2) God is a Sovereign God, nothing is outside of His grasp. He will have justice in the end over a fallen world.

     Well that is all I have right now. I am still very overwhelmed by today. What I said in the beginning is so true, words cannot express what we saw today.