A F R I C A

Sunday 10/23 - First day in AFRICA! Woke up this morning to the most beautiful day! Blue skies, 70 degrees, and all the bright colors of Tana staring back at us. We met downstairs in the hotel for breakfast at 9:30am and hit the road by 10am to make the 3hr journey (160km) to Antsirabe. 

  Side note: In Oct/Nov, several awesome seasonal changes occur. The Jacaranda tree blossoms to a beautiful purple color, mangos are in season, and baby lemurs are born. We were lucky to see a ton of beautiful Jacaranda trees on our drive! So we just have mangos to eat and baby lemurs to cuddle....

We drove out of the capital and made our way south, passing many small villages and lots of farmland. All I can say is Madagascar is one of a kind... I felt like I was in Asia with all the rice patties, in South America with the bright colors of the Sunday Market, in Colorado with the windy roads and overall mountain landscape, and in the Deep South as everyone was letting out of Sunday church services wearing their big hats and nicest dresses. 

We passed by women doing laundry in the mucky rivers while the men fished nearby. We saw kids playing soccer, foosball (there was at least 1 in every town), or helping out in the fields. Fun fact: over 50% of the population is under 15yo. There are kids everywhere! We saw families walking on paths that are kilometers from the next closest village while balancing goods on their heads. We saw lots of poverty but we also saw structure. Madagascar has a great brick making industry so most of the houses have four sturdy walls and a straw roof. Some have brightly painted walls or doors while others are slowly cracking from settling over the years. 

Finally we made it to the Lutheran hospital compound in Antsirabe and it is something! I've worked in 3rd world hospitals before in Peru but this one is very unique. It sits in the middle of the city inside a gated fence. The main hospital is in a 2-story white building that looks like an old house and was probably build over 100yrs ago. The rest of the medical areas have been built around the main building to turn the hospital into a "full service medical center". The pediatric unit is to the right and the triage, dispensary and OR are in buildings on the left. The triage area is actually made out of 2 shipping containers that were sent over several years ago with supplies. A separate dental clinic and eyeglass clinic are also on the property in addition to Dr Harrison's house and the guest house.

Dr Harrison and his wife Damoina live in a cute yellow house at the front of the property. The house has a separate apartment on the ground floor so that is where Megan, Jill, Scarlet, Joel and I are staying. The rest of the crew is in the guest house near the back of the property. As soon as we got to the guest house, we were served an amazing lunch! It was chicken and rice and fries and veggies and mac and cheese with ice cream for desert... definitely not gonna lose weight on this trip! 

After lunch we were given time to settle in before getting a tour of the hospital. And this is when the flexibility kicked in. The housekeeper had locked up the basement apartment where we were supposed to stay and didn't leave the key anywhere so we couldn't get in. While Domoina went to track down the key, we went back to the guest house to find a bunch of kids outside playing. So what did we do? I channeled my inner Megan Thornton and Jill and I started playing soccer with them. We started with a game of keep away that we explained using pointing and random sounds since no one knew Malagasy. Then it progressed into a full court scrimmage of boys vs girls. Meg was in the goal and we were doing great until all the girls slowly quit and it was just Meg and I vs the boys. To say it was unfair was putting it mild. So I recruited the older guys (16yo+) who had been sitting and watching to come play on our team! They reluctantly joined but once they did, the game was a lot more interesting and way more fun!! 

Dr Harison was no where to be found for the hospital tour so instead we began our unpacking and sorting the 17 bags of donations into pharmacy, nursing, and hospital supplies. Hospital supplies were taken to Dr H's office for storage. Nursing organized their stuff for the clinics this week. And pharmacy took center stage with a full blown packing party. We counted and filled countless baggies with prescriptions to hand out. By 8pm we had finished and then had an amazing dinner by flashlight. We had zibu (type of beef) with veggie lo mein and rice with fresh fruit for desert! 

Why did we eat by flashlight you ask? It's because earlier that evening we couldn't find Dr H bc he had been pulled away to work on the broken generator... apparently the hospital had no power all day and the men couldn't fix it! There is only one generator for the entire compound so it looks like we would be living in the dark tonight! Domoina and Dr H kept apologizing profusely but we told them not to worry. We all had flashlights and head lamps so the show would go on! But no power = no lights in the OR for the emergency c-section of a baby boy with cleft palate that came thru. No lights in the hospital floor where sick patients were. No lights in the dispensary where the pharmacists were supposed to electronically record the meds handed out.  Instead the hospital began to glow by candlelight as night fell over us. As Damoina said, this is African medicine. 

 

Daily devotion: Great is Thy Faithfulness hymn

Even when things are dark and troubled, God's faithfulness and mercy never fails. His grace and loving care do not change. Remember this when times get tough and patience grows thin. Please pray for the people who travel to see us tomorrow in clinic. Let us be able to serve with the same enthusiasm from the first patient to the last.