Saturday, 14 January 2012

Heading to the lab to drop off specimens



















This little boy makes everyone smile!












This little one suffers from malnourishment. Many do.














Watched a bit of these men butchering a bull in the back of a pickup truck. The meat was then taken into the hospital kitchen.

At breakfast we made some Munali coffee—grown here in Zambia and courtesy of Marlys and Chris. It was a delicious change from the instant we have had until now. In addition to our staple of peanut butter toast, this morning we each had a hardboiled chicken egg at our places.

Rounds at the hospital again. We saw again an old friend of Wanda’s, a nurse who has some health issues of her own. When we greet her and ask how she is doing, she consistently replies, “One day at a time!” One of the assignments for the J-term course is to conduct an interview with a nurse here at Macha. I think that most of our students have had that chance by now—they will write up their interviews in a paper.

I’ve been impressed with the work that the girls are doing in their free time. They have reading to do, and they’ve also been putting together their portions of Monday’s lecture on the ear, nose and throat which they will present at 8:00 Monday morning. They are creating power point presentations with simple outlines—the Zambian students are accustomed to writing down word for word what the teacher presents because they do not own textbooks.

Wanda and I stopped at the shop to buy some crisps (potato chips) for the girls who have begun to crave a little junk food. Interesting flavors to choose from: cheese and onion, salt and vinegar, roasted chicken, and fruit chutney.

A few days ago we were joined here at MIAM by a Johns Hopkins entomologist who eats meals with us in the dining room. He has been coming to Macha a couple of times a year for research since 2005. He is, of course, the only male at the table.

Our hopes for an afternoon hike to the dam were thwarted by scattered showers—the mud would have been quite a mess. We will save that walk for a sunny afternoon later in the week. Instead there was time for reading, napping, jigsaw puzzling, and homework. Just a bit before the evening meal, we realized that conditions were perfect for a rainbow—bright sunlight from the west and rain still falling. Sure enough, there was a brilliant rainbow arching over the hospital compound. We stood in joyful amazement. “You can definitely see Roy G. Biv!” said Rachel. (Forgive me if I ever reference the wrong girl. After the first two days I had finally gotten all the names attached to the right person, but I may forget who said what.) And then it was time for supper… we’ve gotten into what may well be a bad habit of talking about foods we miss. On the way to the dining room, Katie L. said that earlier she thought she had smelled Cinnabons and then, she added, “I started to crave them hard.”

To make a long story short, a pilot from Rachel’s home church knows a pilot stationed here at Macha’s airport (airport sounds perhaps overstated—there is a runway and a sign…) Anyway. This Macha-based pilot connected with us (and took Rachel out for dinner on Thursday evening), and we were invited to their home Saturday evening for games. He and his wife have three lovely children and we enjoyed several hours sitting in their comfortable living room, laughing, eating delicious brownies, and hearing the story of God’s leading in their lives. He kindly drove us both ways so we wouldn’t have to walk the mile+ in the dark.