The day we discovered the smell was pigs.

Thursday

We started working at antenatal clinic this morning.  We’re getting to the point we could run the clinic.  If we could speak more Lamba. 

I did all the HIV education.  They still translated for me, but from their eyes I saw that I was getting my message across.   Except that I forgot to talk about staying faithful with your spouse and abstinence before marriage as forms of not spreading HIV.

I guess you can’t even assume that in a culture that covers their ankles.

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After lunch we were picked up by Lorna, Brother Bob, and Henry.  We went to Chipote (making me want Chipotle) which was a lepper colony. 

Leprosy still exists in some parts of the world.

But you know that if you read my blog 2 weeks ago where I talked about how I wiki’d leprosy and found out they’re not sure how it’s transmitted, but it’s probably respiratory and how it’s not too hard to treat.

We ran around for a while and played with the children, being really careful not to touch our eyes or nose after playing with them.  We also washed our hands really well when we got back home.  Because most of them had snot dripping out of their noses.  

But they were still precious and wonderful children of God.

[smiles]

Playing with kids is easy.  Games cross cultures really well.  Holding hands is so comforting and easy.  You don’t have to worry about speaking the same language, smiles are the same in every language.  Why can’t medicine be this easy??

[Frances and the kids playing follow the leader]

Frances fell in love with the children and the tree.  It was bright purple.  It was so pretty, she asked Henry if she could grow one in Texas.  He told her probably.

But sometimes I think he just likes to humor us.

[purple tree]

We got a tour of the leprosy colony and were amazed.  Many of the people have lost fingers and toes because leprosy makes you lose feeling in your extremities and they get hurt but don’t feel it and can easily lose fingers. 

There were rows and rows of vegetables and trees.  We’re craving bananas but the banana trees weren’t ripe.  What a tease.

[the original cabbage patch]

We found a well.  I always wanted to know how they worked.  So Henry demonstrated for us and I tried it.  It was fun, but much more work than turning on the faucet.  And I don’t know that you could take a shower at a well.  But it’s clean drinking water, which I’m a huge fan of supporting.  In exchange for teaching us how to use the well, Frances taught him how to use American phrases like LOL and OMG.  I think that’s a pretty fair trade-off.

[Shannon at the well]

After the well we walked towards a little house.  It smelled terrible.  Then we found out it was full of pigs.  Go figure.  Pigs smell everywhere apparently.

[pigs eating]

Before we left Lorna, our supervisor, handed all of the children a “sweet.” They really enjoyed it.  I’m not sure if they enjoyed Frances and I doing our white-girl dances more or the sweets more.  But they smiled and we loved that.

[Lorna and the sweets]

On the way home Lorna talked about how little these children have and how they have so much less than Americans and how they manage to smile so much more.

Maybe having more stuff doesn’t equal happier.

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Then we went to Ibenga hospital and saw the theater. 

[the theater]

Which is what they call the operating room.

I would have loved to see inside, but we visited around 4 pm, which is visiting hours, which means the doctors were no longer working.  It would be nice to begin at 8 and be done by 4 every day in America.

We took a self-guided tour of the hospital grounds, which looked like a bunch of clinics strung together.  There was a children’s ward with an ICU.  There was one baby inside crying.

They had separate men’s and women’s wards.  They had no doctors or nurses working after 4 pm.  The families took care of them. 

That would never fly in America.

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We slept hard that night, exhausted from all the running around.  Entertaining kids is hard work!!

I thanked God for all the beauty he created!  What an amazing God we have!