Green Adventures: August 2013

Saturday, July 27, 2013

To all who have faithfully been checking in on our blog – and repeatedly finding nothing new – so sorry! I don’t even have the excuse of poor internet! Each day is full & ends with exhaustion. Now Joel & I are enjoying a quiet Saturday evening – the kids are in bed, so I’ll try to catch you all up on our adventures here in Rwanda. We have certainly been keeping busy over the past several weeks. Hard to believe that August is only a few days away! Honestly, I don’t know where to begin. The days go by quickly & the weeks even faster.

What is a day like? Each morning the crickets’ chirping turns into bird songs to wake us all up between 5:30-6am. We eat breakfast together as a family – a novelty for us! Joel goes off to work at the hospital just ¼ mile away at 7:20am. The kids & I clean up the house, make beds, deliver our laundry to the laundry man (on Mondays & Thursdays), tie up the mosquito nets, feed the rabbits our banana peels from breakfast, read the Bible & pray for Joel as he is always facing medical challenges that push him to his knowledge & skill limit. At 9am our friend, Josiane, comes to our house. She is a nursing student (24 years old) who was desperately seeking a job to earn money so she could return to school in the fall. Our missionary friend, Julie, introduced her to us & suggested that we hire her as a babysitter. Consequently, I have made a great friend & we all look forward to seeing her every day! More on her later. We play together, take walks, clean, do small jobs that Julie has given us, etc… until lunchtime. Josiane then goes back to her house & we eat lunch with Joel around 12:30. Naptime for Lauren, & quiet rest time for Anna & Levi – I let them read books on their beds or choose to play a game on my phone during this quiet time. Joel returns to the hospital at 1:30 or 2pm. Lauren wakes up around 3pm and Josiane comes back at 3:30. We have a snack of cookies & bananas or bread & butter before heading to the pediatric unit at the hospital. We take the eggs from the chickens that we have hard-boiled & give them to the nurses. Then we get to play with the kids until about 5 or 5:30. We play with whatever is around – sometimes a kid might have a balloon, so we hit it around. Other times we play more organized games like tossing bean bags onto a mat for points or races, or duck duck goose. You may have seen, or even own, a bead necklace made of magazines…. We make the beads with the kids & moms down in peds! This week we played jump rope a lot. Josiane had made jump ropes with my kids, so we brought them to the peds unit to play & they loved it! The nurse in charge of “play therapy” brought out a couple other jump ropes & after everyone warmed up to the idea, not only the kids were jumping, but the moms too! The moms would throw their babies into another mom’s arms so she could have a turn jumping. Once I even saw a mother jump with the baby still tied on her back! (maybe that’s how the baby with the broken femur that Joel treated got hurt!?!) And not just the kids & moms, but the nurses as well! Any time a nurse walked by she would jump right in & take a turn. There was a lot of laughing this week! Levi was quite brave & tried to practice jumping every day, but my Annie, who prefers to have something perfected before trying it out in public, would bury her face in my skirt anytime someone tried to coax her to have a turn… until Thursday. On Thursday, Anna made up her mind to give it a try. In front of a whole bunch of moms, kids & nurses, she tried jumping rope with either Josiane or me twirling at one end. She didn’t get it right away & kept missing the jumps. Everyone smiled at her & laughed, but I think she knew they just thought she was cute & weren’t making fun of her because she kept trying. Pretty soon, she jumped 3 jumps in a row without messing up! Everyone cheered for her! It was sweet! Before long, she was jumping for minutes & doing so well! It took a lot of courage for her to do that & I’m so proud of her! She loved it & told me she couldn’t wait to go back to the peds unit next week!

Back to our schedule – after we are finished playing at peds, we walk Josiane part of the way back to her house and then come home to see if Joel is home yet. When he arrives, we eat dinner, then give the kids baths. They really need a bath every night – it is the dry season here so everything is incredibly dusty! The tub water is so dirty after baths that we can’t see the bottom. We usually have to put Band-Aids on knees after baths because everyone has so many scrapes from falling on the thousands of hills & ruts everywhere we go. It is pitch dark by 6:30pm…. Every day… all year long. So it always feels later than it is – good because remember how the birds wake everyone up at 5:30am? After baths, we may have time to play a game like “Go Fish” or occasionally watch a movie using the computer & a projector (last night we watched a couple Leave it to Beaver episodes), then it’s bedtime. We have been reading books we have found in the school house here on the mission. Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins…. After they are in bed, Joel usually has to read for his cases for the next day, or we play a game like Ticket To Ride with Julie & some other new friends who are here for a short time with us (Niall & Victoria – both medical students from the UK), or we just collapse into bed – exhausted from a long day of being stretched mentally & emotionally.

The weather is pretty much perfect (though I really love the rainy season & those awesome storms!). It is chilly enough in the morning for sweatshirts & sweatpants, but quickly warms up. By 10am it is blazing hot in the direct sun – so we are usually in the shade until it begins to cool around 3pm. Because the sun is completely set by 6:30, the sunset begins early & the cooler evening air begins to feel refreshing by 3pm. Then evenings are cool – we are still comfy in t-shirts, but we all sleep under a couple heavy blankets at night.

What do we eat? I’m embarrassed to tell how easy we have it here – there is a wonderful man named Simeon who is our cook. He makes yummy food that almost tastes like home. A couple times a week he comes to me with a grocery list & the cost – I give him money, someone goes to the market (they know how to get fair prices) & then Simeon makes all our meals. I thought about doing the cooking here – I really enjoy cooking at home. But Simeon is employed by the mission & if there is no one to cook for, he is out of a job. So having him cook for us helps him feed his family of 6 kids and it lets me do other things. There is no convenience food here. He makes everything from scratch – for all of you who love organic foods – this is your place! If we ask him to make us a salad, he goes to the garden & picks the lettuce & carrots, bleaches them to make sure we don’t get sick & prepares a salad. If we ask for soup, he makes a better than Campbell’s vegetable soup & potato soup… all from scratch. We eat bread a lot – toast in the morning, sometimes sandwiches for lunch & bread with soup for dinner….. all of it has to be made in our kitchen. He makes us tacos! They are my favorite! He makes the soft tortilla shells on the stove. He even makes us pizza! He loves it when he finds out how much we enjoy something he makes – he sometimes makes Levi extra French toast and serves it to him with a twinkle in his eye J Simeon speaks about as much English as I speak Kinyarwandan…. So we smile & say thank you a lot.

We drink water. We fill up pitchers of water from a slowly dripping filter connected to the sink, then we filter it a second time in a water filter on our counter. Then we fill up plastic bottles to keep by the bathroom sink for brushing teeth & in the fridge for cold water to drink. It’s not difficult. And the kids have been really great about remembering not to swallow the bath water or water off a wash cloth or drink from the sink. Joel has a few pictures of surgeries where he has had to remove long white worms out of the bellies of kids – those pictures convinced our kids not to drink the unfiltered water!

We have a beautiful view of Lake Kivu right out our back door. We watch the fishermen out on their boats early in the morning & sometimes with torches on the boats at night to give light. The lake is gorgeous! It is down the mountain from us – it is probably a mile or 2 to walk down to the water – and the hills are STEEP. But the mission owns a piece of property a few miles down the road. It is a narrow peninsula into the lake & the land is called “Kumbya”. We have been there several times on the weekends. We can walk – but that’s challenging with Lauren still being too small to walk the whole way by herself. We usually hitch a ride with Julie driving a car. Once we took a boat! That was pretty fun! Kumbya is all natural – no one has farmed it – so it looks like Rwanda used to look before all the hills were turned into gardens & crops. It’s very “jungly” and we see monkeys in the trees & lots of amazing birds. There is a diving board & a raft that you can swim out to. We have spent a lot of time in the water! The kids love it of course! The water is crystal clear – and there are no alligators, hippos or other dangerous animals in the lake. The lake does have schistosomiasis (something from snails that is treated with a pill when we get home) and methane. The methane is probably what keeps it so clean…. But also occasionally lets out a methane bubble that can kill anything at water level (it’s happened 4 times in the past 10 years)…. I just try not to think about that! Each year the missionaries from nearby African countries (Brundi, Congo, Uganda, Tanzania & Rwanda) have a week long retreat at Kumbya. There’s a VBS program for the kids, Bible studies for the adults, lots of relaxing time, chapel speakers, etc… like family camp for missionaries. This year’s retreat begins today! So we are looking forward to a week of fun meeting other kids & families who live & serve in Africa. We are going to go out to Kumbya for church in the morning tomorrow, pack a picnic lunch & swim in the afternoon. There are cabins for each denomination to stay in, some families pitch tents & some stay here at the mission.

So who is Josiane & what do we do all day together? I already mentioned that she needed a job to help pay for nursing school – so she is our “nanny” while we are here.

She helps me out with the kids & I pay her less than $2 per day, for which she is super excited! She teaches them how to make all the fun Rwandan toys like jump ropes out of twine, brooms out of twigs, balls out of plastic bags & shows them how to have fun building towers with small stones & making letters out of dried beans! Last week she did build a fire in our backyard (twice!) – that totally made Levi’s day! (did I mention we don’t have a fire pit?) And she let the kids bring the bunnies out of the cage & play with them in the “fort” – in the woods…. And 2 of them ran off… luckily we found them with the help of a couple guys who had to crawl their way through the briars & thorns! Having a “nanny” is something that I have definitely had to get used to. For one thing, I don’t have a job to go to here, so I don’t actually need her to help me with the kids every day – I am very comfortable taking care of my children. And for another thing, I don’t love what it says to everyone around me when we walk about in the village: that I am a rich white woman who has hired someone to do all the work while I live my lazy life. But what I do like about it is being able to help her out financially, having a translator wherever we go, and most of all, enjoying the company of a wonderful new friend – one who I can ask all my silly questions to about the culture & know I’m getting an honest response! She is very comfortable in her role – and refuses to let me do anything. She takes my bag off my shoulder & insists on carrying it for me. When I wash Lauren’s way too dirty blanky in a bucket of soapy water, she takes it out of my hands & washes it herself. When Lauren wants me to carry her on our walks, Josiane tries so hard to coax Lauren into letting her carry her – so far that hasn’t worked. Lauren still prefers me J A couple weeks ago, I had begun the daunting task of cleaning out the school house. It was filled with dirt, mold, trash, dried out markers, broken crayons, disorganized books & buckets of gecko poop… all over the walls & on every single book. When Josiane joined our morning routine, I had assumed that she would play with the kids while I continued my school house project. That lasted about 3 seconds. She ended up in the school with me, taking the sponge out of my hands, mopping as only a Rwandan can mop – with a squeegee, and helping me clean up the place. There was definitely enough work to keep us both busy –so we brought in my phone & turned on some Taylor Swift Love Song (she liked it so much we listened to that song 100 times!)…. And after a few days, it was sparkling J It was great to have a friend to work alongside. And we both felt accomplished.

On the days when we aren’t cleaning or working together on a project, I occasionally will be able to do something that I haven’t done before. With Josiane watching the kids, I went to work with Joel for a morning – got to watch surgery, meet the operating room staff, round on his patients with him & meet the nurses. It was so good to see what he does every day & to see the reality of the hospital conditions. In the post-surgery room, where Joel rounds on his 72+ patients, there are maybe 30 beds in the woman’s ward & 30 in the men’s ward. These are not private rooms – they are in a room full of beds – and many times there are 2 patients to a bed! When the doctor comes in to round on the patients, the room gets so quiet & all eyes are on Joel. They are waiting for their turn when he will come & ask them questions, inspect their wounds & tell them what to do. Most of them are there for weeks on end – sometimes months. In the states, patients will be discharged with instructions on how to care for their surgical wound & how to take their medicine. Here, the patients would return to a home miles and miles away, in a dirty environment where keeping the wound clean is nearly impossible…. And they may or may not understand how to take meds, or may sell them, or may stop taking them too early. So they remain in the hospital until they are well. Their families stay with them & sleep in the patients’ beds or on the floor. The family is responsible for feeding the patient. I was so excited to recognize several of the children who play with us at the pediatric unit – they were in the post-surgery room. Some of them are recovering from surgery but remain in the hospital, though they are well enough to walk around & play. Others are waiting for surgery. Josiane, the kids & I brought some books to the nurses for them to give to those kids who have to be there for a long time and have nothing to do during the long days.

There are a couple other things I have been able to do while having a babysitter for the kids. Julie invited me to watch a C-section . That was pretty amazing. I haven’t ever witnessed a birth, outside of my own 3 kids – and that doesn’t really count. Julie is a NICU nurse & so great at her job! She let me help her out in the nursery/NICU. I got to put on gloves & tie the umbilical cord tight with string & trim it up after delivery. It was fun going with Julie to show the waiting Dad his new baby. He had been too afraid to be in the delivery room of the c-section. He was so excited!

Just yesterday, I was invited to go on a community visit with the palliative care team. 5 of us piled into a pick-up truck with a driver (he made 6). We drove about 45 minutes away from the hospital (on rutty, incredibly bumpy roads) to visit a man named John who had had an accident & been confined to a wheelchair. He was in his 30’s & lived in a house that Kibogora had purchased for him – as it would be impossible for him to continue to live up in the mountains in a wheelchair. The house was a cement room where he sold salt, sugar, spices, etc… with a small side room for him to sleep in – dirty, messy sheets, but at least a mattress. His mother lived with him & she slept in a tiny closet room on the cement floor with a blanket. They had a kitchen behind the “shop” which consisted of a tree & a hole in the ground with a grate to cook on. There was a room with a toilet & another room with chickens & rabbits. The mother had 10 children & John is the only one left alive. So the social workers & physical therapists who had come to visit examined him, chatted with him about cleanliness & about his shop & prayed with him. We spent the rest of the day having meetings with health center officials, the sheriff & his secretary…. All trying to figure out how to finance John’s care. Oh, and did I mention that everywhere we went, a crowd of kids followed us & congregated around …. They were so excited to see a white person. I guess we were out in the sticks far enough that many of them had not seen a white person before. They wanted to touch my skin & got so embarrassed & laughed when I smiled at them. Every time we entered a new building for another meeting, they children would peer through the windows & stare at me. And as we drove home, people called out “mazungu!!!” (white person) the whole way! We have gotten pretty used to the term. People shout it to us everywhere we go – and when we are driving, crowds congregate to watch the white people drive by. It’s always like a 1 car parade. They scream out for us to toss water bottles to them (we do if we have any).

Sunday, August 04, 2013

So a week has past & I’m still trying to finish this…. We have been busy! Each day this week Joel went to the hospital in the mornings & the kids & I went with Julie to Kumbya for the retreat activities. The kids enjoyed a really super VBS that was put on by a youth group from the UK who did a short term mission trip to serve the missionaries J The adults spent time in praise & worship, listened to a teacher from the UK and then spent the rest of the morning in small groups. It was probably one of the most inspiring weeks of my adult life. There are so many humble, wonderful, ambitious, hard-working, dedicated…. And just kind… people who have lived in Africa for years & years. Most of the families were training pastors, some were starting schools, there was a midwife, someone from World Relief, one woman worked in artisans & small buisnesses. Joel was the only doc and he was able to join in the community occasionally in the evenings. One night was “skit night” – and it was a blast to see all these missionaries let their hair down & be sooooo crazy & fun! It was fun to watch them be so obviously comfortable & relaxed in a way that they most likely aren’t able to be at home in their work among Rwandan folks. That night Joel was still working when we left. But he decided to come anyway. After work, he walked out to Kumbya. Alone. In the pitch black dark night. He used his phone as a flashlight part of the way! Generally, it is very safe around here. I wouldn’t be out walking alone after dark, but Joel was fine. We were so happy to see him, even though there were only 3 skits left!

Josiane came each afternoon, after Lauren’s nap. We still went down to peds this week. A few days, we found the ladies & kids rolling beads out of magazine strips. We learned how to do it & made a few beads. It was pretty cool knowing that some of those necklaces are sold in Grand Rapids!

We all walked Josiane home a couple days this week. Joel was with us one night & we walked her all the way to her house. She is renting a room in the home of a family. There are a few other nursing students renting rooms in this house as well. We have been to her house several times now. You walk in through a skinny wooden door & down a very, very narrow hall made of mud brick walls. The floor is dirt. On the right is a doorway that you have to step down 2 steps to enter. There are often a couple little kids squished onto those steps playing with their teddy bear & his plastic bag dress. Josiane shoos them away & lets us into her apartment. It is a tiny cement room that we can all barely fit in. Maybe 8 x 5 feet. She has 4 chairs that we can sit around & our knees touch each other. Her kitchen is in this same room. It consists of a pile of dishes & pots on the floor in a corner, a cooker (electric, I think & the circular size of 1 pan) for her to cook rice & potatoes on (the floor), a bar of soap & a dish pan. The family is fortunate to have a running water spigot that is located outside near the cows, goats & chickens. She has another room, same size, that is her bedroom. It has a mattress on the floor with a blanket & mosquito net. Her clothes are hung on the wall on nails & her shoes are piled in the corner. She has hung up curtains on her tiny bedroom window & her door window. It is a little shocking the first time seeing a home like this. When we cleaned out the school house, she took a broken mirror I had thrown away out of the trash & asked if she could keep it. This is actually better than the norm for most people in Rwanda. They have running water & electricity – sometimes. The “dad” of the house she is renting is actually employed by Kibogora mission as a cook. Working on the mission or at the hospital is a coveted job. It pays the best around here – even though most of the time the government hasn’t paid the hospital, so the hospital can’t pay the workers.

This week, while sitting in Josiane’s house, playing with a small box of Legos that I gave her from the school house (again, going to just toss them!), she said, “I’ll be back in 3 minutes.” And she ran out of the house. When she came back 15 minutes later, she carried a long stick of sugar cane! The kids had been asking her that day about sugar cane & how we could get it at the market. She had told us we could go to the market tomorrow… and now she surprised us with it! She had run down the road to the market to find this for us! She got out a knife & showed us how to cut it & how to eat it… and how to grow it. This woman is incredible. She is one of the most generous people I have known, ever. And she lives in poverty that I can’t understand. She reads the Bible verses we have taped to our porch window that we are learning & reminds us everyday that “My help comes from the Lord!” (from Psalm 121:1-2). She comes from a family where dad left or died a long time ago & mom is farming to put the kids through school. She doesn’t want to get married yet because she wants to be able to become a nurse to help her mother using her nursing salary. She says a Rwandan husband may not allow her to help her mother. Selfless. Appreciative. Humble. Beautiful.

She has also acted as a missionary of sorts to our kids. When we go to peds, it’s a difficult balance between understanding that this is totally out of Levi, Anna & Lauren’s comfort zone – while trying to include them in a “fun” time of interacting with sick kids & let them experience this reality. The reality for them is quite a bit of fear. They can’t speak with anyone there, the nurses are quite “grabby” & try to hold them or tease them, the mothers laugh at them, the kids stare at them. Josiane has been a blessing time & again. She is able to draw them in, play with them on the side until they are comfortable to play with the group…. She does with them what I do with the Rwandan kids. It has been an amazing reverse in what you’d expect. God has given us a small “team” so that it’s more enjoyable for everyone.

I guess this has all been about the kids & I…. Joel’s job is intense & usually unbelievable. Sometimes it’s not so different from Kentwood J in Kentwood, he gets called to treat shotgun wounds in the middle of the night. Here he is called to treat machete fight wounds in the middle of the night. There are too many infections caused by bad hygiene, blood infections, malnourishment….. too many broken bones that don’t have the option of an orthopedic surgeon…. too many nurses who don’t speak good enough English to understand his orders, but too afraid to ask for clarification; results: poor treatment. But God knows all about it. He knows. He knows. He knows. “Know that the Lord your God is God. He is the Faithful God; keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations, to those who love him & keep His commands.” Deut. 7:9

“My sheep listen to My voice. I know them & they follow Me. I give them eternal life & they shall never parish; no one can snatch them out of My hand.” John 10:27-28

“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.” 2 Chron. 20:12

Every day that we are here, the easier it becomes to imagine living here. We see the needs & it is apparent where our place is in them. We are about to return home to Michigan in a little less than 3 weeks – to a place we love, friends & family we love. A job that Joel loves & residents he enjoys teaching so much. We are beginning to feel, more & more, the back & forth pull of both worlds. In one moment we are dreaming up plans for our new house in Byron Center…. Reading emails from the kids’ new principal & planning for school. The very next moment we are planning a nice spot for a flower garden out the back door of this house, planning on how we could make a welcome team to orient the many different visitors who enter the revolving door of Kibogora….how to make the operating room more efficient… We love both. So much.

We will not pray for clarification – but trust. I can’t even begin to imagine the creative way God will work this out & we don’t need to know. It will be a surprise anyway – that’s how it always is!

We love you all!!!

Blessings!

Paula