Sunday, July 30, 2017

End of our First week and Maasai Cattle Market

Our work week ended at 7 pm Friday, after another long day of surgery. During that day we filled our surgery schedule for the rest of our time here. So the front desk will not be checking in any new patients next week. This is the fastest we have ever filled all available slots on the schedule. Dr. Kivuma and Dr. Swai will continue to work with the remaining patients who have been registered but not yet been seen by a doctor and it will take several days for all of their test results to be received and reviewed by the doctors. That means the team will still be busy facilitating that part of our mission, but the focus has certainly shifted over to the surgical side of our trip.

We invite your prayers, not just for the rest of the trip, but for a specific surgery Monday morning. A young 20-year-old man, Salumu, suffered a sudden, severe volvulus last year requiring an emergency colostomy. He was told to return to Dar es Salaam in December to have it reversed, but when he arrived and was told the price was 1,000,000 shillings, that was so far beyond his means as to make the repair impossible. We met with him on Friday, and this is a surgery that Doug can do, so other patients were moved to later days to allow Salumu’s procedure to be done on Monday morning. It is a long procedure with a higher risk of infection, as it deals with the bowel and large intestine.

Dinner Friday night was a celebration of the end of our first week’s work with pizza at a local favorite, Dragonaires. It was a great start to our weekend!



And our weekend continued with a trip to the Maasai cattle market, accompanied by Kishumu, Eliah and Epsilon. Eliah gave us a bit of history, which helped with our understanding of some of the Maasai traditions. We were warmly welcomed and greeted by the Maasai and strolled among the milling cattle as buyers and sellers discussed prices. Eliah ordered a portion of fresh roasted goat and beef for our lunch. This is sliced into strips with a machete and then bite-sized pieces of meat are sliced off of each strip and passed around. We added several portions of chips mayai which are French fries fried with scrambled eggs, seasoned with salt and hot sauce and eaten with a toothpick.






The highlight of our day was witnessing about a dozen Maasai warriers, including Eliah, singing and dancing. They stand in a circle and sing/chant rhythmically, following the cues of a leader. Some songs feature jumping where they will take turns, singly or in pairs (or even threes!) coming into the center and jumping as high as they can in time with the chanting. American Basketball coaches must not have seen how high these warriors can jump or our NBA teams would be full of Maasai!








Just before leaving, Eliah happened to talk to a man and discovered he was suffering severe after-effects from a spider bite. Eliah asked Doug to look at the injury and when the man, who we learned was called Edwin, rolled up his pant leg, his lower leg was overwhelmed by an area of dead skin about 6” X 8” and the leg is still, 6 weeks after the fact, swollen to more than double the normal size. In addition, there was a marked swelling and bulging of a vein that snaked up the inside of the leg and past the knee. We learned that he had consulted a doctor and surgery was recommended, but that the price was 350,000 shillings (about $150). He was trying to raise the money and had collected 130,000 shillings so far. Could we help? The team withdrew to discuss privately and we all felt like this man needed our help. So each of us chipped in personally and the money was raised to make his surgery possible. His gratitude was obvious to all of us and he welcomed our prayers. We all joined hands to pray with him for his recovery.




Before we left to head back to LJS, the team bought a nanny goat to bring to worship tomorrow as our offering. Lance has named her Georgia.


3 comments:

  1. "Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; They have the heart."
    Your team is blessed with generous hearts. God has placed you where s/he needed you to be.

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  2. Sounds like a good day. Helping in so many ways.
    Love reading the posts.

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  3. We will be praying specifically for Salumu's procedure in addition to the rest of your work. Thank you for sharing all of this as we look forward to the new posts coming out!

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