5 Cent Mission: Our New Normal

A young girl filling the small bowl, then dumping it into
the large bowl to carry home

The first weeks of work have flown by – though maybe the hours haven't. Christine and I have spent the weeks mostly alternating between working either a morning or afternoon and keeping up with the boys.

Christine has been in the hospital sorting through the inventory of respiratory devices and equipment along with attending morning rounds and sitting in clinic with the doctors. She assessed a patient with a nasty rib fracture that was poking into a lung, and another 'post-thoracotomy for TB' patient with a chest tube that needed to do some deep breathing exercises. She was also able to attend the weekly devotion time the medical staff have before rounds every Friday morning.

This is not supposed to look like this. It will be made better!

Same with his drawer. Stuff that doesn't work will be fixed
or removed, and new stock added

Prepped for one of three C-sections that occurred one night

The other night a car went off the road up in the mountains behind the hospital compound. It rolled over at least once. A young man died and five others were injured. They were brought into the hospital for assessment also. Christine was called away from supper earlier tonight to help with a patient that the doctor wanted additional assessment on.

I have been busy working around the grounds: cutting dead limbs off trees, repairing a screen on a window of our house (from an errant throw of a water balloon.... Keenan....), adding an extra wide push bar to our screen door (so I don't have to repair that screen) and numerous other repairs for leaky sinks, broken fans, etc. With a short-term team here we've been tearing down a couple of tractor engines that need need new pistons, rings and sleeves with the mechanic they brought. One is working out alright, the other needs some serious help – more than we can give here! Not nearly as exciting as Christine's stuff, but WAY, WAY more sweaty!

John, Derek and Logan discussing what we think we can get
for this backhoe at the scrap metal dealers.

The maintenance staff was asked to go to the local Christian school a few minutes down the road last Friday. The staff desperately needed help unloading a 20 foot shipping container filled with books for several Christian schools in Togo. There were 24,000 books in boxes on the container. We had to unload them all by hand in a long chain gang into an empty classroom. Then we had to off-load the empty container from the truck - using only a small farm tractor, two planks, 6 chunks of pipe and gravity. Once it was off we had to move the container into it's final position where it will get converted into the school's library. After the container was re-positioned, we then had to reload it with the books we just took off. Everyone was drenched with sweat, thirsty, tired and hungry, but in relatively good spirits. A job well done and much appreciated. Pretty cool for us to know that so many kids are going to get Christian education training from these schools.

A Birthday and Food

Logan celebrated his 12^th birthday on the 21^st. He didn't get anything special that day because we had celebrated with family before we left. But, he did get a fresh-baked brownie cake with whipped topping sprinkled with M&M candies as a birthday cake. That was a treat for us all! Christine is doing well at keeping us fed, despite being shorthanded by supplies and lacking access to anything resembling a grocery store. When I ~~cook~~ reheat stuff, it's about surviving until mom gets back!

We can, however, buy some produce and fresh bread right across the road from the hospital. Since the hospital can't afford to feed the patients (and if they were fed, some wouldn't leave) there are food stands set up where the family members of a patient can purchase basic items (breads, some produce and fruits, maybe a live chicken or some dried fish) to feed them if they are too far from home. It is also convenient for hospital staff who haven't yet figured out how to get to the bigger shopping centres for restocking!

We also had our first snake experience last week. We were able to watch the Togolese gardeners take it our of the tree with their slingshots.

Almost 4' long. Not sure what type it is, however.

Trip To Kpalime

It's pronounced Pal-ee-may. The letter K is silent at the beginning of some words. It's not wrong, it's just different. Keenan thinks it's wrong, though. There's no changing his mind. But what might be the attraction to this town? Let me tell you.

I got to drive to Kpalime – in a 70 Series Land Cruiser - which was fun for me. (Significant because they aren't available in North America; and it's a preferred vehicle for African travel.) All of the passengers seemed relaxed during the trip, so that was a good sign. We went with Donna and Mark Thomson, and Kiong – who is a family physician from Scarborough, Ontario... another Canadian is here!

I'd LOVE to have one of these in Canada!

Kpalime is the home of ABWE's school for the blind called Village de Lumiere – Village of Light. The school houses about 30 kids from around the region and teaches them basic skills they could not learn at a regular school – if they could even attend. It also supplies all of their food through a really cool aquaponics system. They get several kinds of vegetables and also talapia fish – who fertilize the plants as well as provide a good diet for the kids. It's pretty amazing to watch low-vision and no-vision kids navigate the grounds of the property without too many collisions.

Some of the tanks at the aquaponics system

The talapia fish

The kitchen at the blind school. A small cooking fire, firewood
and a bit of storage space

A soccer goal. I would love to have seen the kids play!

While we were there the kids did a small presentation for us, reciting lots of memory verses and singing a couple of songs and hymns. They did a great job. Logan was called up and a blind boy about his size was asked to describe him – by feel, running his hands over Logan's head, face arms and legs. The boy was a bit shy but eventually described Logan as having long, soft hair on top, small lips, a pointy nose and big ears. All the other students laughed. Considering the boy's point of reference he wasn't incorrect. I was reminded that our point of reference for living in this country is quite skewed, too. We're different, not them. Same for our spiritual lives – we should be different.

After stopping by the boutique / craft store on site that also raises money for the school (and Logan catching a beautiful lizard), we headed off to get lunch and stop at the market in the middle of town to buy some much-needed supplies for the pantry and fridge! Donna and Mark's experience was good to have in the market. They knew the right stalls to go to. There are SO MANY stalls, and people, and motos... everywhere. And, at the Galaxy 'store' I even found a bottle of Pepsi! We made it home safely in time to greet the new short-term team coming to stay for a week.

Logan - The Lizard Whisperer

Typical views of the Kpalime market

Stay to the side to avoid getting run over by one of the dozens
of motos buzzing back and forth

Donna and the used jug lady

Short Term Team

One of the members of the incoming team from Virginia forgot his CPAP machine at the hotel they stayed at in Ghana after landing. Dr. Gayle, the medical director here, called our house and asked if Christine had anything to help the gentleman out. The man and another team member stopped by and got all set up with a new machine and a clean mask. He was very grateful but a bit embarrassed he had forgotten an important piece of equipment. Hopefully someone will be able to pick it up and bring it here, or at least get it when they fly out.

And we caught another lizard in the house this evening after supper! Seeing lizards means there are no snakes nearby. Christine's a fan of lizards!