Guinea

the wall spider, just one of many

The days are somewhat running into each other and most days of the clinic were a lot like the one before. A few things that DO stand out: I saw my first wall spider at the clinic, they are large and are supposed to stay on the wall, also they eat mosquitoes :-) I shed a tear during this experience but God gave me courage to face the future spiders I encountered. At the the clinic, I also encountered my first RAT yes R A T. I was in the lab with Julie, we were facing each other and I heard/felt something fall on my foot, thinking that it was an object Julie had dropped, I asked her if she wanted to pick it up. I lifted my pant leg and the rat ran out! I literally jumped into Julie's arms and screamed bloody murder, we were great comic relief for the nationals! They laughed and laughed, it ran down the corridor past all of them as they waited.
Thursday we treated the teachers in the village, this is their day off of work. There are 6 of them and they each teach 100 students. For all of you teachers out there, let this encourage you on your toughest days! They are wonderful men that LOVE teaching, they all speak French and Yalunka and were so appreciative of our services. One that lives close to the Anderson's, is so sweet! He has a large Goiter.
On Thursday night Julie and I were awakened by Dawn at 10:30pm stating we had a mom in labor, if we wanted to deliver it! I don't even remember climbing down the bunk. We walked off our porch, heading toward her hut and Dawn stepped right onto a snake! we stomped and stomped, it would not die! So we went and got a machete and cut it's head off, now off to deliver a baby! We are definitely in Africa. :-) I could never convey what unfolded in the small hut in Niaya for Dawn, Julie and I. What I can tell you is this; it was beautiful, magnificent and such a wonderful gift from God to us and hopefully that mother. The Matron was present but 2 hours into labor, with the three of us there, she found a spot on the edge of the hut and went to sleep! We were able to assist the mom in a more "American" way. I did a lot of massage, Dawn gave her a soft place to lay and Julie "guarded the gate" (only the three of us will truly appreciate the last part) The only light in the hut was a small fire, until it died, then we relied on flashlights. This would never fly in the States. I'm not going to go into to much detail because, as my friend Jamie said, sometimes when you have experienced something so beautiful and magical, when you say it, it takes something away from it. I will tell you, that it was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had and I will never forget it. This was her 6th baby, it was a boy that weighed approximately 6 lbs. He was born after a set of twins so he is automatically named Sion.
We did not finish and get home until close to 3 a.m. We were on such a high, it did not make a bit of difference the next day.

With the leaves

So we wake up and get to Dawn's house for a meeting on how the clinic would be organized and who would be responsible for what. Although we had a team of approx. 15 experienced people, only two spoke the tribal language of Yalunka. We had a church leader from another village that spoke English and Yalunka which translated for the doctor. Julie and I were put in triage and would also do anything else that didn't require much communication. ie: wound tx, lab work, ect.
Our first day of clinic began at about 10:30am (we will treat 580 people in 4 full days of clinic) we treated a boy that was brought in by his father, he had a fungal infection on his scalp. His dad had taken him to a witch doctor that had them treat him with "black medicine". The treatment was to boil leaves in oil and then place them on his head. He came to us with infection and 3rd degree burns. He was maybe 11-12 yrs old, we had no pain meds to give him while we debrided and dressed it. He whimpered once and immediately his dad reminded him that he would shame his family is he cried. Julie and I plead with a translator to explain the damage of the black medicine and how painful this was, that we were so proud of him. The odor from the infection was overwhelming in the Africa heat. My oldest is his age and he is all I could think about while I treated him. He was on the clinic porch with a smile on his face first thing every morning, waiting for Julie and I. Dawn e-mailed and told us that he has been to her house to have the dressing changed and questioned her abilities, asking where Julie and I were. :-) Multiple wives is prevalent and therefore lots of STD's were seen and treated. Julie and I were surprised at the average weights. It is shameful to be thin so they wear layers of fabric. Coming to clinic was a special occasion, so everyone wore their best outfits and jewelry, it was stressed to us that Africans love to dress up. The people were average height and weighed between 80-100 lbs for women and 90-120 for full grown men. I saw one man that was 160lbs and he became a novelty! He seemed educated and they said that he probably had a thriving farm, he could tell that his card was different and asked me to convert his lbs to kg for him. He was quite happy with himself. Most looked as if they were wasting away. The babies and small ones came in with fevers and belly pain. Everyone got treated for worms and most for malaria. EVERYONE received vitamins, (thank you Aboite Missionary Church!) We worked the clinic until 5-5:30pm each day and would open by 8am. By the end of the day we were exhausted. I have never worked so hard! We would eat dinner with Dawn and head home to wait our turn in the shower line. This is fun, we were there in the "dry season" which means there is not a lot of water. We drained our water tank twice in the week we were there! Poor Jim had to keep pumping more in for us! We here at home really take that for granted!
Thought for the day: Nothing is easy here. Nothing.

The boy washing in the front yard
part of our welcome
Our front porch!

Apparently, I had a conversation with Julie in my sleep. (Renee & Duane you can relate to this!) So we get up the next morning, wash up and prepare for the 9 hour drive to the village. We are packing up and I realize that I can't find my passport. It's almost comical but not really. I can only think of having it last in the dark corridor in the airport....Julie was very comforting assuring me she would not leave the country without me. I later told her, it's always easy to see that things will work out when it is someone else's passport that has gone missing! :-) I was forced to tell Jeremy Tice, a missionary that came to drive us back to the village. He was uncomfortably calm and requested the copies of it that we were carrying. When I asked if we could go back and check the airport, I think I heard him laugh. :-( So our escorts from the airport arrive at the mission house because the wife, Marie, is joining us in the clinic this week. (these poor people) Kent, her husband, recommends that we search every possible bag because he would have to stand for two days at the Embassy on my behalf trying to get a new one......We found it! Apparently they have had this happen a couple of times and the passport has always surfaced. I obviously felt your prayers!
Moving on...We set off with Mr. Bah, our driver. There are no obvious road rules or emission control! The waste and filth on the streets was unexpected. The heat intensified the odor of EVERYTHING. Several times we saw people urinating on the side of the road right next to where they were cooking or shopping. Once we get out of the city, the roads are winding, rough and the smells turn into a more "wild" scent. We came to a gas station that actually had a toilet, (which is rare) so Julie and I anxiously jump out and arrive at a hole in the ground. The odor mixed with heat equals dry heaves for Amber, providing loads of entertainment for everyone. We are back on the road again, we stop for lunch at an empty missionary home, we had Lebanese bread with summer sausage and of course Conya bottled water. We were back on the road again...I don't usually suffer from motion sickness but the roads, combined with the smells and hours of flying the day before, called for some Dramamine. :-) So we are an hour or so away from the village and we stop for gas, there is no electricity so the generator is used to pump gas. Unfortunately, the generator is not working, we waited 20-30 minutes for gas. While waiting, I looked across the road and noticed a boy about the age of Caleb, washing laundry with a bucket and scrub board. I'm wondering if his mother had to ask him twice? We get our gas and move on. A while later, Jeremy asks if we are ready to see Dawn? Of course yes, Julie and I have been dying for the last hour, wondering if the journey would ever end. He says, well here she is! Along the road, next to the tall African grass is a truck and out pops Dawn! She is real! This is apparently a common way to exchange people, there is no where else to meet! The days of travel have been made worth it. We ride with Dawn and she turns off into the bush with no apparent landmark, we drive for another 30 minutes and come through the foliage to a village! We have stepped back in time hundreds of years. There are mud huts with grass roofs, Nationals are gathering and following our vehicle. We had a warm welcome. Everyone is so excited that we have come, we are a novelty. Before I came on this journey, I dreamed about our bedroom here, I would share a room with Julie and we would have bunk beds, I would be on top. Guess what? They had a room with bunk beds in our house, it was our room! We stayed in a home that had been lived in by missionaries. We had solar electricity, and a bucket of water to shower in. Dawn said you have this amount of water, maybe 5 gallons, is that going to work? I don't know about you, but I have NEVER measured my water while bathing. Let me assure you, it's not that much water. :-) We had 7 people staying in our home, one of them male because he was married to one of the ladies. He and I became extremely competitive and were showering with just a quarter of the bucket by the end! We had a large window in the front of the house, and with our "fire burning" at night, we felt like a television show for the Nationals. Our porch always had someone on it, watching the white people. You never know what we might do, I wanted to stand on my head or do a back flip to make it worth their time. :-) We walked to the "clinic" to see where we would be spending our time, our entourage followed. We went to bed and were to be at Dawn's by 7 am to prepare for the day. No bugs, rodents or snakes at this point! Yeah, am I really in AFRICA?
Thought for the day: You could never describe the smells and the sounds, which is 90% of this experience.

Dr. Ken
Cooking on the street
inside the mission
outside the mission

I'm thinking what better way to begin than at the beginning. :-) November 24/25, I hitched a ride to the airport with Joe & Norene Beavers.(our church secretary and her husband) They happened to be taking their daughter for a flight back to Arizona after a Thanksgiving visit. This is a better option for us because of the sheer number of children we have. :-) I met up with the other nurse, who is now my Guinea sister, Julie and her entourage. We had 4 trunks, packed to 70 pounds each with medical supplies, we were EXCITED! We met up with the Doctor in Cincinnati, we arrived at our gate as it was boarding and he had been there for 6 hours thinking to himself, I'm not boarding without the girls. We knew right then we had the right traveling partner. He has done several trips to Haiti and it had been made clear to him that he was responsible for the rookies. :-) We arrive in Paris, I was surprised to learn that not everyone in the world speaks English! (It is my understanding that this is a very "American" way of thinking.) Dr. Ken was a trooper, he marched around the airport with us trying to find something to eat and drink other than chocolate and alcohol! (to no avail) He also did his part assisting me in trying to mail a postcard to my family, the cheapest souvenir in Paris. :-) As we flew in the evening and early hours a couple of times, en route to Guinea; Julie and I commented on how the pilot navigates in the maze of runway lights, this info. comes in handy shortly. We meet up with a dentist and volunteer in the Paris airport, and press on to Guinea! We arrive in Guinea around 10:30ish, the FIRST clue that we weren't in Kansas anymore, there were scattered, dim and a fraction of the typical runway lights. We knew before arriving, that the city is without power for certain times of day in a somewhat random manor. (not a comfort when flying at night) We begin to exit the plane, there is no ramp the leads to the airport, we walk out of our Air France (huge plane) down several flights of metal steps to the ground. Doc immediately says, "This is not a time to get separated, stay together girls". The air was hot and thick, we began to sweat as soon as we reached to door of the plane. We had been told that an escort would be meeting us from CMA (Christian Missionary Alliance) it would be a tall white man and his wife, our eyes were peeled for them. We walked toward the airport and were greeted by men lining the walkway wearing fatigues, barrettes and M-16 guns. The people were rushing and shoving to get into the door, we were trying to make ready our passports. We entered a side door, there were two lines one for Nationals and one for visitors (not that we could read the signs), while in line we looked forward to our right and saw a white mans arm waving furiously. Yeah! We got through the passport check and were immediately taken aside to a dark walkway, Kent (our escort) requested our luggage claim tickets. I had given them to Julie in Paris, she could not find them. Let us pause for a moment: Neither of us had ever traveled outside the U.S. and have never needed those tickets to retrieve luggage. Had we known this, they would have been kept with our passports. NO ONE told us the value of these little stickers, not World Partners, not the ticket agent in the Ft Wayne airport. Continue: We don't have the stickers, it's hot, we are tired, the environment is a constant reminder that we are very far from home. Kent is pressing us to search our carry on for the 7th time, I shed a couple of tears and begin to pray feverishly. The "officials" are looking irritated, Kent is trying to pull in a favor. He had done a dental clinic for the airport employees, which makes him an asset. (he has security clearance throughout) After much time, he returns to us and says to follow his wife out, don't make eye contact with anyone and don't let anyone search our bags. Right in front of the door out was an 8 foot table with people in fatigues grabbing bags and "searching" them. Apparently this is an unofficial process that we needed to avoid. LOTS of praying going on, we exit the small building only to find mounds of people in the lot surrounding. Just sitting, it's like an obstacle course getting through them. We are taken to a mini bus and introduced to Mr. Bah, he will end up being a part of Africa that we will never forget. My face must have said it all, he greeted me with "You are are O.K.?" He kept saying thank you for coming, Guinea welcomes you, this would be the first of many times that he takes very good care of us. He ushered us out of the line of vision and puts our bags where they would be safe until the Doc and Kent arrived with our trunks. Mr. Bah speaks Creo sp? a mixture of forty different languages, the main language spoken in Sierre Leon. The English portion pops in that environment and we could definitely understand him. He was a great comfort to us as he drove us through Conakry to the mission building we would spend the night in. There is no air conditioning in the vehicle, but just the movement on thick air helps. The odor in the air is just as thick, the vehicles are diesel with LOTS of exhaust, people are cooking in the street, there is only fire light in the tin houses along the way. We pass the American Embassy, it is a reminder of home, the most beautiful thing we saw in the city. We didn't get a good view of Conakry that night because there was no electricity, that comes tomorrow. We arrive at the facility and honk to be let in the gate which is guarded 24/7, it's not glamorous though, it's all concrete and every cement house has the concrete wall around it. The wall has spikes coming out up top to prevent people from coming over the top. Julie and I washed up in our room with ice cold water and did not care, it felt great! The generator was started so that we had a light fan to blow the hot, thick air through our mosquito netting. Ah, we are in Africa. Cliffhanger: Do you remember when I mentioned we went through the passport check right before the claim ticket saga? Hold that thought, it comes in handy in the morning!
Thought for the day: Just because you are in an International airport, does not mean anyone speaks your language.

Well, the day has arrived. My flight leaves at 6pm, my ride will pick me up at 3pm. I think it's surreal, I can't believe this is my life! It is so hard leaving my family, my comfort is knowing that it is only 10 days. I know that our time in the village will fly by, I'm hoping that the flight goes well. I probably will not be able to update the blog while I'm gone, but I will definitely update you and add photos when I return. Thank you all for everything, much love.
Amber

One week from right now, I will be arriving in the village. I received my itinerary and want to share it with all of you.

I fly out this coming Saturday at 6pm We arrive at 11:30pm Sunday night. We will stay in Conkary the first night, first thing Monday morning we set off on our 8 hour drive to the village. Tuesday Morning we hit the ground running! We will do clinics through Saturday, ending the week with a celebration dinner at the church. The Anderson's will return us to Conkary and we begin the journey back Sunday night at 11:30pm, we arrive back home in Indiana at 6pm on Tuesday, December 4th.

I found out yesterday that I have to pack and have my things at HQ by Monday A.M. Take a guess at what I'll be doing this weekend? :-) On the upside, I will be completely packed a week before I leave. A lot of this experience has felt unorganized and not very well communicated, I hope that is NOT the case once we get to Africa........ I will say that working with the state (as foster parents) has been good preparation for this experience, I'm used to not knowing much and going with the flow.
I've been asked a lot lately if I'm nervous,,,,,Nope! I am excited. I also think that as the person leaving, I am so consumed with preparing I'm not thinking of much else. I know that I'm going to get on the plane and wonder if I forgot to do something related to the husband and seven little ones I'm leaving behind! As far as my family goes, I do feel very organized and well prepared for them to be cared for in my absence. I definitely could not do it without many of you helping!

How wonderful our therapists were during the time we spent in the hospital? Our PT and OT came several times and either sat with my kids at home, so that I could meet with specialists or care for Bonnie so that we (Michael and I) could spend time together, with our kids. Our DT brought several meals, some to eat and others that were frozen to eat later. We are thankful for all of you and the encouragement that you give us.

One week and two days until take off! It is down to the packing at this point. With next week being Thanksgiving, (short week) I'm starting to feel like time is evaporating! We got word that the Guinea team has prepared the place we are going to stay, hanging the mosquito netting and sweeping it out. :-) Did I mention I have packed my Deep Woods OFF? (maximum deet)

Some of you know that we have been put through the wringer the past two weeks. I felt from the start that it was a full on spiritual attack to keep me distracted and perhaps doubting that I heard His voice clearly when he told me to go to Africa. I called it out, even at the lowest point, making it clear that I was going and I would not be discouraged. (I called on others to be in prayer with me for my family as well)
We have felt your prayers! Approximately one week ago, I felt a complete peace come over me. God is so faithful, he has brought us through this, refreshed and encouraged!
My funds for the trip have come in! Someone in my church offered to pay any difference which is only $300 at this point. So exciting!

The surgical patient was Bonnie, not Emma!

Our daughter came through beautifully! We are home and she is recovering in the comfort of her home.
Also, more funds came in for the trip today! I am so excited to see how God is bringing everything together.
BTW this idea to blog came from a great friend :-) Thanks!
How am I doing?

We leave two weeks from yesterday and I can honestly say......I can't wait! I am so excited and cannot wait to get there and experience EVERYTHING. Julie (the other nurse going) and I had the opportunity to meet with a woman who lived in the same village we will be serving in. She actually built the home that the Anderson's (the missionaries we are serving with) live in now. We had a great conversation about what to expect and she was able to give us the history of Naiya and the Yalunka people, it was very informative. Her name is Sheila and she has promised to cover us and our families in prayer during this time and while we are there. She is a beautiful person that makes you feel at peace and encouraged, I'm glad we had the opportunity to meet her!

In the meantime, we are preparing for surgery in the morning, with one of our seven children!