Work Begins

We have had so much happen in the past two days it is hard to know where to start with this post.

When we stopped at Mazimbu Monday to greet everyone and unpack our gear, we were surprised to see that there were almost 20 hopeful patients lined up waiting for us. We asked them to arrive early on Tuesday, our first day to work, and they would be seen first. Because of that, our first day was not a slow start! We were busy with patients from the moment we arrived until the moment we stopped work.

Our team doctor is Dr. John Houck, an ENT specialist, is with the team. We are fortunate, however, that we have a good working relationship with a Tanzania OB/Gyn, Dr. Swai, who works as a team doctor while we are here. So we are seeing gynecological patients for Dr. Swai and Dr. John is working to help those who have other needs.

The team ended our first full day of work with a meal at one of our favorite restaurants. Although dining out with a group of 14 can take several hours, it gives us a chance to laugh and talk together as we share our life stories.

While we are here, Pastor Sally Houck is being treated to a personalized view with the Bishop or his assistant of various parishes and churches. Her day as an ambassador of the ELCA ends around 4 pm and she joins us at Mazimbu for the last hour or two of our work.

And our 4 Fundis (Swahili for fixer), Bill, Lance, David and Jesse, have been recruited to hang doors at a diocese school under construction. It has been a challenge because all of the door frames are not square. And the doors they are hanging are hard wood, hand crafted doors that are made to be “cut to fit.” So the fundis must make incredibly accurate measurements and then transport the doors in to the center of town to have a carpenter cut them to the specifications.

Even more patients have come today, some from very far away. We have tried to organize and give our best guess as to how many patients each doctor can see each day. Using those estimates, we are completely full until next Tuesday.

Our first surgeries are scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday. All three are gynecological surgeries. So our doctors will be in surgery for the majority of the day while working to see some patients between surgery.