October 19, 2014 - Shelley

October 19, 2014

We’re not sure, but we think that rainy season has started.  Since we arrived five months ago, we haven’t seen even one drop of rain until Friday.  Then we had a spectacular storm with thunder, lightening, and torrents of rain – for about 3 – 4 hours.  We’ve been told that the rains will be around for about six months, and then it’s dry for about six months – so we’ll have to see.

We’re encouraged that a couple of our “projects” are underway.  One is the replacement and repair of the latrines at Mapendano School.   It’s been dis-appointing that all of this couldn’t come together before the start of school in September, but we have found that some wheels turn very

S-L-O-W-L-Y.  ☺

This is a picture of Flavien, our translator, in the school principal’s office with some of the supplies that have arrived.

In the bathrooms, the workers have started installing some of the new latrines and getting things painted.  The following picture shows one of the stalls.  Still to be added are the ceramic tiles around the toilet.  It’s what we call a “Turkish Toilet”, but it works!  (I’m not volunteering to try it out! haha)

Another project is having desks made for one of the village schools.  Below

you can see that Clark and Flavien are trying them out for size.  At the school I showed in my last letter, there were 5 students sitting at each of these desks.  Hopefully, it won’t be that crowded at Bukanda School – about 3 students for each is typical here.

(Fortunately, the students will be more like Flavien in size!  Haha)

This is where the magic begins!  It’s not the type of workshop we would usually imagine, but the work is getting done.

This week we also took one of the other senior missionaries with us to visit the orphanage we have been working with.  Sister Riendequ was born inFrance, although she has lived in the US for all of her adult life.  Her father was a famous French painter, and she also paints.  Therapists at this orphanage use painting as a part of their therapy with the girls.  So Sister R. showed the girls some of her techniques in painting.  The real reward was seeing how special the girls felt having this one-on-one attention – something they rarely get.

We started out this week with some fear and trepidation, but ended the week with a deepened appreciation for the Congolese people!  We had ben asked by Operation Smile to provide volunteers for their campaign here. (OS is the largest medical volunteer charity in the world.)  The response we’ve had from church members has been phenomenal!  To put things in perspective, one has to remember that Clark and I were the only volunteers who drove a vehicle to the hospital – everyone else came long distances in VERY crowded vans that are used for public transportation.  

The campaign is being held at Sendwe Hospital, which is located right in the middle of town.  It’s a huge facility that  was once the premier hospital in the whole country.  Alas, the years have taken a toll – and now it’s old and falling apart.  There are very few patients.  I asked someone where the rest of the regular patients were – and he told me they died!  He said this is where people come to die!  Not a good endorsement for a place to do operations!  To make it even worse, the city morgue is located right next door.  In the middle of the day, you can hear people wailing and chanting.  Not too comforting if you show up at the hospital and hear all of that.  Anyway, this hospital was chosen by OS because they have enough room to house the patients and someone has recently donated equipment for an operating room.

The patients were brought by buses and vans from outlying villages in the Katanga Province.  Some patients were even flown in from remote areas.   In this campaign, OS is repairing cleft lips and palates.

We took hundreds of pictures, but I’ll only include a couple.  

I thought this was such a cute picture of a mom and her little boy!

Here is family with twins. The dad and one twin need surgery.  The wife will be expected to take care of all of them.  Each prospective patient came with at least one caregiver, but some came with the whole family.

Below is one of the hospital rooms.

They are being housed in hospital rooms that have 30 – 40 beds.  That means one bed per family!  The rooms have windows that are broken out – and the nighttime mosquitoes have definitely made their presence known – much to the distress of everyone.  No mosquito nets to be found!

The patients were all evaluated by a team of doctors, including dentists, plastic surgeons, speech therapists, etc., from Operation Smile.  Then today (Sunday), it will be announced who will get to have surgery.  I can hardly think of how sad it would be to have to be the bearer of that news.  One of the plastic surgeons is a church member from Las Vegas.  He attended church with us this morning.

One last picture that I must share.

Steve Mutombo and Flavien Kot, our translators, are the true heroes of this volunteer effort.  They were desperately needed by the medical professionals to translate all of the local dialects of the patients into French and English.  They have put in 12-hour days with the same smiles you see here.  They are both wonderful men and we feel it is such a privilege to work with them!

We heard the phrase “T.I.A.” when we first came to Africa.  It basically means that “this is Africa” and nothing ever works the way you think it will.  So many things are different from the way the western world expects them to be.  So when something goes wrong, people just throw up their hands and say, “Don’t forget – T.I.A.”.  Well, recently we had a visit from the church’s wheel-chair specialists, John and Marcia Dow.  They shared with us this same phrase, but changed the letters to mean – “This Is Awesome”!  It is with this attitude that I end my letter.  It is awesome to be living among such Christ-like, humble people!

Much love,  Mom/Souer Davis