Seke!

(Note from Steve: I received the following post as an email today.  The group should be flying back now, but I wanted to forward this to you asap so that you can begin to picture what the group has been up to.)

The first question we need to ask here is: How long will this battery last? The generator is on from 7 to 10 p.m. It is on during the day when there are surgeries, most the time now that Drs. Smith and Moosavi are here slicing away. This is a different kind of living to which most are adapting quite nicely. We are staying at the hospital which has housing on the campus that is much better than we expected... flush toilets, beds, tile floors.

The doctors who work here all the time have reached hero status. Daily they face relentless challenges which require creative response to life or death situations. Miraculously, they have been gifted with the ability to nurture life in death riddled situations. They need encouragement, so please pray for them. Dr. ABD and Dr. Erdi (a Dutch doctor) deal not only with physical problems, but funding problems as well. Clearly their hearts are here and their integrity is solid. They love these people and are pouring their lives into them.

We arrived finally on Saturday after spending a night in Lungi because our flight came in late. I have learned that driving here, especially at night, is a ridiculous experience. (Ron got to drive one day and didn't kill anyone.) Every flight on the way here was either delayed or cancelled, yet in the end we were only 90 minutes later than expected. Getting from Lungi/Freetown to Makeni requires lining up our cars and loading on a ferry. It is time to go when the deck is full, and the last act is for the locals who are going across the river to run on. They ride for free and bring their wares across to sell.... baggies of water, bananas, mangoes, fish, coconuts, cigarettes, ground nuts, and a variety of other things that fit on a basket on their heads that might help them eek out an existence. We were, gratefully, met at the airport by Dr. ABD who has celebrity status in this country, apparently, and eased the customs process and led us smoothly thru the ferry process. Two hours or so later we laid our eyes on Magbenteh Hospital, Mallory and Kindel (Alma College students who arrived a week earlier) . Ahhhh.

On Sunday we got a tour of the hospital, and immediately Dr. Moosavi was called in to emergency surgery, and I was allowed to go in to watch. The first one involved a woman delivering who waited too long to come for help. The baby was dead and the mother didn't survive. It was a tough start.

The last four days Dean Wilson, Stephanie Benn, Mike Karr and the non-medical folk (Ron, Mal, Kindel, Kyle and me) headed a couple hours down the road into what we call The Bush. The ride on the road was like a Disney Land roller coaster gone bad, even with our wonderful local driver, Abraham. We went to Yele, the home town of Dr. ABD. People were waiting for us to arrive, and once we were there the mass of people multiplied exponentially. The medical people diagnosed and prescribed and the rest of us did intake, crowd control and pharmacy. Overwhelming. A local doc, Dr. Turay, went with us as the expert, though I must say our med folk were impressive. There is no way to see every person. Many of the complaints had to do with body pain....and who can wonder? These people walk everywhere and have no modern convenience to help with their farming and moving about. They work hard in order to survive and are desperate when help shows up. 

 

The surgical team has been pushing hard through 10 surgeries or more each day. To them I think Africa looks like the inside of the “Theatre” (operating room), but they love their jobs and are completely committed to doing as much good as possible.

A volunteer, Todd, who is here for 6 months has allowed me to use his computer, but warns me that we may or may not be able to send this, and it may or may not take several hours. But I am thankful for the chance to let you know a tiny bit of what is happening even as we wind down toward our going home, and thank you again for helping make this happen.

I have a thousand pictures of African children and each one is beautiful. Can't wait till I can post them for you.

Dbw