“The love of God, spoken through
the songs, laughter and play of children from generation to generation.”
Day-Trippers—yesterday, Monday, Courtney, Bailee and Cecily
went with Kilatu to Mikumi parish, very near the game park we will be visiting
Saturday, to visit a Batik making family.
They were given the effusive Tanzanian welcome we have come to
appreciate and learned about the art of Batik.
This was a very hands on lesson (literally!) as all three of them had a
length of fabric that began as a plain canvas and, after their work, was a
beautifully colored batik.
The group was very amused during the day when the Mama of
the family decided that Bailee would make the perfect wife for her son. She proceeded to take the group to her home
and introduce her son to Bailee, who protested that she was going to wait until
29 to get married. “We will wait,” was
the response.
Today Anne, Eileen and Diane had a short jaunt into Morogoro
and visited a preschool where the pastor welcomed the group over tea and gave a
brief history of the school. They were
then invited into the schoolroom where the children, clearly anticipating the
visit of the Americani, were all
smiles and sang Happy Birthday to Bibi (Swahili for grandmother to Anne, who
was celebrating her 80th birthday today.) The team was amazed when the children
demonstrated an animated game of indoor Frisbee! This was followed by a tour of the church
that has been under construction since 2009 and is anticipated to be finished
in 2016. It is notable that in Tanzania
almost all construction, especially church construction, is done on a cash
basis so the work mirrors donations.
After the preschool, the team walked to a kindergarten
classroom and were again welcomed and greeted with a salute like the most
important persons that could possible ever visit. Another round of Happy Birthday was in order
and it was followed by the same tune with “How old are you now? How old are you
now?” Bibi Anne was happy to answer that
question. Each child then stood and gave
their name in English. Eileen pointed to
numbers on the board and they recited the correct word in English.
Hospital crew—Both yesterday and today we arrived to a
full bench of people hopeful to see the doctors. This is heartbreaking to all of us because we
cannot see everyone that comes for help.
We are limited in our resources and our time. Dr. Andrea is scheduled for 3 surgeries each
of our remaining days and that takes the majority of her day. She can see only a handful of patients
between surgeries. Dr. Arleigh and Lana
are seeing as many patients as they can and the team is working from 8 am (the
doctors start earlier, at 7) until about 7 pm.
We still have to turn away
between 20-40 each day.
Today we took names of all of the people there by 10 am
and that is going to be our final list.
Anyone that comes after today will not be able to add their name to the
list. We are hopeful that we will be
able to see everyone on the list with our 2 remaining days of work.
Our first surgery today was cancelled because the
patient’s blood pressure was too high for the procedure. This was a blessing because the 2nd
scheduled procedure was far more complex than we antici[ated and took almost 4
hours instead of the planned 2.5 hours.
Dr. Arleigh scrubbed in on that surgery and was a great help to Dr.
Andrea.
Shortly after that procedure was finished, at about 4pm,
Mazimbu asked for Dr. Andrea’s help on surgery for a woman that has an ectopic
pregnancy. At about the same time, a
patient was seen who is so sick he must be admitted. Mazimbu currently has no beds, though, so he
must be transported to the Regional Hospital.
Dr. Arleigh stayed to try to stabilize the patient. The rest of the team retuned to LJS for a
late dinner. We have since received a
text message that the surgery has become very complicated and both Dr. Arleigh
and Dr. Moses have given blood. So our
doctors are still at the hospital and it is now approaching 10 pm.
Our Maasai patient, Isaka, continues to slowly improve
and Dr. Arleigh switched him from IV to oral meds today. We are hopeful he will be able to go home in
a day or two but continue to ask for your prayers for not only him, but all of
our patients and for the team. As our
time nears its end, we are in need of an extra boost of stamina and energy.
Finally, we had visitors from Young Life Africa
today. They joined the team in praying
for us and for our patients. We thank
God for this precious gift of prayer!
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