Subway, McDonald's and Taco Bell are all CLOSED? I guess we are on our own for lunch. . . .

We recently traveled to the capital and I was once again faced with the decision of what to eat while on the road.  For many in the US, packing a picnic lunch is a fun experience – where they stop at a national park or picnic area, complete with benches and water fountains.  For us, packing lunch is a necessity – at least to have the basics.   

That is not because gas station snack prices are outrageous – though they are.  It is more because gas stations can be few and far between and break downs happen and food that is safe to eat can be a rare find.  Just last week, we had a team that left our house to travel to the capital.  I had offered to send lunch, but they planned on being in one of the bigger cities by lunch time so I just sent snacks.  Their car broke down an hour into the 11 hour trip– thankfully they were near a missionary friend’s house that was able to scrounge up something for them to eat.

Road trip breakfast is usually muffins of some variety and maybe apples if we have any left.  After our last trip – and because of many previous trips - I have decided to outlaw bananas in the car.  They never seem to travel well (and also I just do NOT like bananas!).  By the time we arrived in CKY this time, there was brown, sticky banana juice all over everything – a result of being accidently smashed in transit.  Jim, being the frugal person that he is and NOT wanting to waste food, was trying to eat the nasty brown little things as I was trying to pitch them out the window!

In the past, we have always packed a complete lunch – usually sandwiches – USUALLY TUNA (I get so Very tired of tuna – please don’t EVER feed it to me in the US…) and Pringles (about the only chip that is reliably not broken into bits and is usually still crisp).  I try to bake cookies or add some carefully doled out granola bars or candy that we get occasionally from the US.  

On a recent emergency trip to Conakry, I was focused on getting to the capital and very stressed about the trip, so I didn’t really plan on any food for the road.  I was traveling with Mr. Bah and felt kind of badly that he didn’t have anything to eat either.  In one town, we found “donuts” – a batter that has been deep fried in oil.  Mr. Bah went off looking for coffee – either served in a cup or put into a small plastic “to go” bag – but he couldn’t find any.   

When lunch time arrived, we stopped in a rather large town to find some food.  Mr. Bah went off looking for “sheep balls” - a meatball like food made from pounded sheep meat and peanut butter and salt and hot pepper.  I decided to pass and look for a sandwich.  I found meat kabobs in one little stand – which they put back onto the grill to warm up, day old bread at another stand (which, sadly, had ants in it, and more sadly, it was a fact that didn’t discover until the sandwich was nearly gone), and two little triangles of Laughing Cow cheese at another stand. 

 It was a fairly tasty sandwich – at least until I discovered the ants……  If I think about the meat kebobs too long, I have a hard time swallowing – because usually the little grills are set right next to the stand where they butcher the cows – complete with huge legs of meat hanging, chunks laying everywhere, lots of flies, and a herd (gaggle? flock? covey? ) of vultures.

Some people brave stopping at a roadside place to get rice and sauce (often also next to the butcher stand) – but that always makes me a little nervous; besides the fact that you cannot be sure you will be in the right place at the right time.  Little things like typhoid and amoebas have me running scared.

Water is another necessity that you must take with you.  You might not find safe drinking water on the road.  Occasionally, you can find cold pop or water at a gas station – always a treat.  As you reach the capital, they sometimes sell little bags of cold water – you just bite off the corner and drink.  (The nurse in me cringes to know how many hands have handled that bag – so I either avoid them or wash them with something.)

Last week, we returned from Dakar, where we visited the boys for about a week.  Often, on my return trips from vacation are a little iffy, since I haven’t taken the time to plan.  We pretty much scrounged the whole trip.  At the end of the first day, as we arrived at our kind of scary hotel (?) for the night, we asked if meals were served at the small café there on the property. 

 There were six of us – they said they had 4 chicken dinners and 2 spaghetti dinners.  We agreed – since we didn’t really have another option.  After a short while, as we were settling in, we heard and saw the white rooster, who had been minding his own business, being chased.  Suddenly it got quiet.  About an hour later, supper was served.  :^(

So, I confess, that when I am in America, it give me great pleasure to be able to pull into a gas station or stop at a restaurant or drive through for a meal. I enjoy NOT having to think hard about what we are going to eat or drink.  One of the small pleasures in life!

Fire – check. Pot – check. Semi-rotten meat – check. Wood hatchet – check. Let the Cooking class begin!

For several months now, I have been spending most of my Wednesday evenings with my friend Isatu, learning how to cook like a Yalunka woman.  It has been an incredible learning experience.  She loves it, because she gets to be the teacher.  The village loves it because they get to see me make a fool out of myself and it pleases them immensely that I am learning more about their lives.  

I love it for several reasons:

1.        It gives me a MUCH better appreciation for what women here in this culture go through.

2.       It allows me to help a struggling family with food – when I go and cook, I usually take most of the ingredient with me.  I say it is so I can learn, but mostly it is to help relieve some of the burden on them without hurting their pride.

3.       It puts me in a learner role in the eyes of the village- who seem to feel (very falsely) that I know everything – especially about medical things.

4.       I get such an interesting picture of real life when I sit for hours in Isatu’s back yard and listen to people talk, laugh, argue, discuss, etc.

So last week, Isatu showed up on my porch early in the morning with a bag of meat.  Someone had brought it the night before to offer to her to buy. However, she didn’t have any money (though she desperately wanted the meat), and didn’t want to come and offer it to me that late at night, so she came the next day.  By the time she reached me, the meat smelled quite ripe.  She explained the situation and I said, “Hey, I haven’t learned how to cook meat yet.  Why don’t I buy it and I will bring it tonight and you can teach me?”  I was rewarded with a big smile and I suspect that was the plan all along.  I took it, wrapped it in more plastic bags, and threw it in the freezer – to at least prevent any further decay.

The evening, I took off with my supplies and my meat swinging in a bag beside me.  I was really hoping not to meet up with any dogs, because I knew they would smell me coming.  Isatu was there when I arrived, sweeping the dirt in the cooking area.  As strange as it sounds, it really does look better when people sweep the dirt – probably a little like raking leaves.  She had already chopped up the firewood that we would use.

She needed water still so I went to the well and balanced precariously over the opening with a fraying, rough rope and lowered the 5 gallon water jug down into it.  

 The rope is not attached to anything at the top and it always scares me that I am going to drop it down into the deep well and then someone is going to have to try to fish it out.  I try to stand on the end so that doesn’t happen, but standing on the end of a rope, balancing so you don’t fall in, watching the jug fill with water and hauling it back out without falling is a lot to do at one time, even for someone like me who is fairly good at multitasking.  Alas, success!  I filled up the buckets and we started.

We needed to divide the meat because I wanted to share some with my other friend who works for me.  But first we needed to wash it.  I pulled it out of the bag – trying not to get nauseous.   Actually, though the smell was so strong, the meat good pretty good – not green or anything.  I washed it off in some water and then I held it while she cut off some chunks for me to send over to Kanko’s house.  At first, it looked like quite a bit of meat – but there was a big chunk of bone in there.  (Thankfully, there was no stomach or other nasty stuff.)   

There was quite a bit of meat between the bones, and she was not about to waste it.  The knife we had was too small, so she looked around.  Finally she got up, went over and brushed off a big slab of wood that sits in the yard, grabbed the hatchet that she uses to chop up firewood (she wiped that off with a cloth), threw the meat down on the slab and started chopping.  She was done in no time and we continued.

We got oil heating in the pot that was sitting on the blazing fire we had started by stealing coals from someone else’s fire.  All of the kids were gathered around in anticipation of getting meat.  (It is a real treat in the village to get anything other than dried, pounded fish.)  While the oil was heating, I chopped up onions and put those, along with some salt and tomato paste, in with the meat.  By this time, after washing the meat and putting in the seasonings, it was looking pretty good.  The oil was hot, so I dropped the meat in and stirred it up.

We moved on to the rice.  Because rice is hand harvested and dried, it usually has lots of stones in it.  To get rid of the stones, you have to use 2 dried out gourds.  You put the rice and water in one of the calabashes (the dried out gourd) and swirl it “just so”, little by little spinning it into the other calabash.  You do this over and over and at the end, the gourd has trapped the stones (in theory) and you throw them out.  You have to repeat the process several times to get most of the stones.  Many a person had cracked a tooth eating rice.   

This is a process that I have finally mastered and actually enjoy doing.  (Mind you, I would hate to do it on a daily basis – but once a week, at someone else’s house, it is a challenge to see how many stones I can get.)

I got the rice cleaned and put into a pot.  Then we moved on to the sauce.  I put a big slab of peanut butter into hot water and used a special stick that looks like an arrow on the end to mix it in.  You have to put it between your two hands and twirl it back and forth.  It works great!  

 I added some bouillon and pepper and got it boiling.  By this time, the meat had been cooking for nearly an hour, so we took it and put it into the sauce.  I washed up some of the dishes we had used and sat down by the fire to tend my food.  Isatu was in and out.  She loves to go off and do things while I am cooking.  I told her I thought it was a bad idea – not wanting to screw up her food, but she says she isn’t worried.  I visited with the other ladies and kids that wandered in to see what I was up to.

Finally it was all done.  It was dark by this time and I was quite anxious to get home to my family.  But there was still work to do.  She brought me all of the different plates and I divided out the rice and sauce, putting meat in her container, and also her husband’s plate.  (Families don’t usually eat together – dads usually eat separately from the wife and kids).  When we got to the big bowl that feeds all the little kids, I noticed that she only put sauce on it and left the meat in the pot.  I asked why. She explained that, because there wasn’t a whole lot of meat, it was better to let the kids fill up in rice first and then she would divvy out the meat – that way there was less fighting over who got what.  That sounded about right to me.

She also followed her tradition of setting aside some for me to take home for Jim.  I hate it when she does that, knowing how many mouths they have to see.  I usually just take a little.  She insisted on putting some meat in there too.  Now, the meat had been cooking for a very long time in very hot oil, but I was still a little nervous to have him eat it.  On top of that, we get meat WAY more often than they do.  So, when she went inside the house, I tried to sneak it into the bowl where the kids were eating.  Two of them grabbed it at the same time and started fighting.  So much for being inconspicuous!   

 She came out of the house and asked what they were fighting about.  I told her I had given them a little meat – not mentioning where it came from.  She walked me home –balancing the little pot of rice and sauce for Jim on her head.  I had called him on the little radio I had to let him know we were coming, so he came out and ate some, declaring it very good.  She raved on and on about what a good cook I was and how much I had learned.  And then she walked home.

I love my cooking lessons with Isatu.  While I am fairly certain that I will not learn much that will help me in my cooking at home, I learn a host of other things.  I learn to be thankful for the conveniences that I have in my kitchen – like running water, instant fire, ovens, food that I need.  I learn how hard the women work here. I learn to be thankful that we have food to eat and never go hungry.  And I learn about being part of a community.  So the cost of my weekly cooking class is some bouillon cubes, onions, peanut butter, pepper, and sometime rotten meat.  But the pay-off – PRICELESS.

Hunger Pains

I have to admit, though at times past I would have denied it, I have never really known hunger.  I have thought I was hungry, but Lord knows, I had enough reserve that I could have survived without a meal.  I think that is mostly true of people I know.  Even when I hear – MOM, I’m starving – I know is it NOT really true.  We have food to eat, and it is rare that we don’t eat 3 meals a day.

Around here, people face hunger on a daily basis.  We are in the middle of farming season.   Farming season =hunger season.  The rice and peanuts have been planted but nothing is ready to harvest yet.  The rice from last year is long finished, and no one has money to buy what is for sale.   Any money that was around has gone to buy seed rice and peanuts, to pay for workers to go and plant it, and to feed those workers.   

Slowly, okra and cassava (a tubular root with little nutritional value – but very filling)) are starting to be harvested.   Millet is not too far behind.   But with peanut butter (a main staple in the sauce that goes over everything) being so expensive, the diets are limited to mostly empty carbs.  (The peanut harvest last year was terrible – so the cost of peanut butter is rising.)

Many people can barely eat one meal a day.  We have a friend in another village who remembers as a little boy not having food.  His mom didn’t want the kids to cry of hunger on the nights they didn’t have enough food to cook twice a day, so she would put a pot of water on the fire, like she was preparing food, and the kids would fall asleep, thinking that food was coming.  When they woke up in the morning, she would have food prepared.  I can’t even imagine.

Most people don’t complain.  I stopped by my friend Isatu’s house Sunday night.  As I sat and visited with her, I noticed that she wasn’t busy cooking anything.  I asked what they were eating that night.  She said, “I am taking a break tonight.  We will eat tomorrow.” 

I realized that she had nothing to cook.  I had brought some popcorn for her kids and watched them scramble to eat it.  I felt horrible.  I thought about the breakfast and lunch and snack we had at our house that day – and how we were heading home to eat leftovers for supper.  If I thought they would have eaten the leftover pizza, I would have taken them some.

On Wednesdays, I go and cook with Isatu.  A few months ago, her husband told me –“Don’t go and cook with her tonight.  She doesn’t have any food to make.  Come next Wednesday and she will teach you.”  I went anyway, and took most of what she needed for the meal.  I told her –“I am your student.  I need to bring the things with me to cook so I can learn.”  

 So that is what I do now.  It works out well, because I cook with her on Wednesday – the end of the week grocery wise.  Market is on Thursday – so pretty much most things that were purchased last week are gone by then.  Of course, every night we cook, she INSISTS on taking a pan of rice home for Jim to taste what I made.  I take as little as possible, seeing the MANY hungry kids they have to feed.

But other than sneaking food out the door whenever I can, I feel helpless.  I can’t feed the whole village.  And if I did have food for the whole village tonight, what would we do tomorrow night?  It is really a horrible feeling.  You want your family to be healthy and have food to eat – you know you can’t possibly feed the whole village – What do you do?

For the most part, we just try to help when we can.  I hand out leftovers, buy gifts of food when we are in CKY to gift my workers, pay for them to make a meal for me, so they can have some too, and take food when I am learning to cook. When their kids come, I give them crackers and bananas if I have them.  But those are all short term solutions.

We are also trying to look at the bigger picture.  Our team has worked to start oil palm plantations for the believers here, as well as orange trees.  We are trying to introduce the moringa tree – which is occasionally used here – as a great source of protein and nutrients.  Jim is helping the guys try to increase their honey production – both to eat –and also to use as a cash crop.

Recently I had an interesting conversation with two of the believers here in the village.  We were talking about temptation and how, as believers in Jesus, we will be tempted to sin.  But, even if we do fall, God will convict us and we will not be able to live in our sin.  Sayon said to me – “Gulunga, nothing tempts a person more to sin than being hungry.”  The people on the porch all agreed.    

We talked about how even Satan knew this, as he tempted Jesus in the wilderness – tempting him to turn a stone into bread.  That is not something I can relate to, but I can see who it might be true, especially if my kids were hungry.  I might be tempted to do all kinds of things to get food for my kids.

In the meantime, we are doing what little we can - trying not to feel helpless or overwhelmed. And trying very hard to be grateful that we have food on our table – not taking it for granted.

Sadness

Yesterday I experienced a sad and frightening evening.  I have a good friend who was 6 – 7 months pregnant.    The beginning of her pregnancy was emotional.  She had gotten pregnant while breastfeeding her 21 month old little boy Mamodi.  Getting pregnant while you are breastfeeding is a HUGE taboo around here.  So, even though her husband was the baby’s father, they wanted to have an abortion so no one would find out that they were sleeping together.  (In this culture, a husband and wife cannot have relations from when she knows that she is pregnant, until the baby is weaned from breastfeeding – at 2 – 3 years of age.)   

They asked me to give them something to help abort the baby.  Obviously, I refused.  We prayed with them and talked with them and showed them a picture of the fetal development at that point, and they decided to keep the baby.  That night, she started weaning Mamodi.  Because they were so ashamed of how she got pregnant, they wanted to keep it a secret, saying that her mom would beat her if she found out.  Since extended family is the one who normally helps the weaning process by taking the child away from mom for a few days, we became the extended family.  Mamodi came and spent time with us – especially when he was crying to nurse.  It was a long few days, but Isatu was strong and everyone survived.

Eventually, the crisis passed and life settled into a routine.  Mamodi was growing stronger and Isatu was slowly beginning to show.  In June, she was at my house one morning and we pulled out the fetal Doppler that I have and listened to the baby’s heartbeat – nice and strong.  Secretly, I was hoping it was a girl, since she only has boys. (She had a little girl a few years back, but it died within a day or two of birth.)  Every mom here wants a little girl to teach how to cook and to help with the work.  In my mind, I was trying to figure out when she was due, and whether or not we would be in town.

A few days ago, she came to me and asked me to check her.  She said that she was having some low belly pain.  No problem, I said.  She came in the afternoon and I pulled out my Doppler.  No heartbeat.  I tried again.  Nothing.  I was beginning to get worried, but didn’t want to her know.  ”Well”, I said, “I can’t hear anything; maybe the baby is in the wrong position.  Come back in a few days and we will try again.”  She agreed and left.  My mind was racing.  If the baby was not alive, and I was sure it wasn’t, what were our options?   Does she have to go to the hospital or do we wait it out?  If she started to miscarry in the village, would she have problems?  Another friend of mine nearly bled to death having a miscarriage.   I got out the sat modem and sent off an email to an OB-GYN friend to ask for advice.

            

    Isatu came back later that evening.  We talked a little.  I promised to try again the next day to find the heartbeat, but told her, “I don’t think your baby is strong and healthy.  I am concerned for you.”  All night, I was overwhelmed with sadness and concern.  Yesterday afternoon, we tried again.  Nothing.  We talked.  I said, “Maybe you need to go to the hospital and have an x-ray (meaning an ultrasound) there.” (I am not actually sure that you can get one done in Faranah.)  I went back to work.  Later in the afternoon, while I was seeing a porch FULL of patients, she called me from the back porch and told me that she was having some pain in her lower belly and had a tiny bit of bleeding. 

 I debated about whether or not to send her to the hospital, but she said she didn’t have a way to get there.  I sent her home with some Gatorade and Tylenol and told her to rest and that I would check on her later.  I pulled out all of my books on women’s health and midwifery.  All seemed to say that most miscarriages pass without incident and gave warning signs of what to watch for.  I was feeling better about her staying in the village.  We ate supper and I was preparing to go and check on her when her husband, Mordeka, showed up, saying that she was having a lot of pain.  I grabbed a back of supplies and headed out. 

               

 When I entered her dark room, I found her lying on a cloth.  The bleeding had increased a lot, as well as the pain.  I check her – sure enough, her cervix was open and I could feel what felt like the baby’s head coming down.  I sat down beside her and waited.  We talked a little, but mostly we were quiet.  Her kids kept popping their heads in, so finally I pushed a chair up against the door.  The pains were getting stronger.  She gave a push out and pooped what I thought was the head still encased in the amniotic sack, but soon discovered was just a sack of fluid.  I was getting nervous.  She was bleeding a lot.  I am still fairly new at all of this midwife stuff, so wasn’t sure if I should break the sack or not, like I do with a normal delivery.  Would it cause her to bleed more?  I called my family on the radio and asked one of the boys to bring down my delivery bag, which they did.  

 We sat and waited.  I was getting scared.  I prayed over her and sang while we waited.  Jim came down then and was sitting outside with Mordeka.  He was praying and the kids were praying.  We were not making progress.  I sent Mordeka to try to find the town midwife, thinking that, if I did break the sack, and she started bleeding, someone would be there to help me.  The midwife was at the mosque praying.   Isatu mentioned her aunt, who helps with deliveries sometimes, so Mordeka went and called for her. She came a short while later.  We began to work together.   

She was helping Isatu push.  The bleeding was increasing, along with my fear.  Were we going to have to take her to the hospital?  How was that even possible in the condition she was in?  Finally, I decided – I broke the sack.  That seemed to help.  Slowly but surely, the pain and contractions increased.  I could now see the baby’s head.  The midwife showed up – she thought that Isatu was in labor because she was at her due date.  We told her that the baby was not living.  Finally the baby was delivered – a good sized little boy - stillborn.  I was filled with sadness.  He couldn’t have died that long ago.  We got Isatu cleaned up and I wasn’t sure what to do next.  I am still learning customs about death.  Amazingly, neither of the ladies seemed to know what to do either.

                 

We cleaned the baby up and wrapped him in a white blanket (bodies always have to be wrapped in white – thankfully I had a white baby blanket with me.)  The midwife told the aunt to go and tell the family.  She said, “What do I tell them?”  In some small way, that was a big encouragement to me.  Many times, in this culture, I feel at a loss for the right thing to say.  Here were 2 women- from the culture – who were trying to figure it out as well.  They thought for a few minutes.  Finally, the midwife said, “Tell them that the baby was born, that it was a little boy, but that he was not saved.”  She left to do that.   

We got Isatu settled in bed, and the 2 women looked like they were ready to leave.  I sat down on the bed beside Isatu, just wanting to be with her for a while.  She looked completely overwhelmed and sad.  I was afraid that she (and others) would believe that she had lost the baby because of how he was conceived.  I shared with them that I had a miscarriage before I got pregnant with the boys.  The midwife said, “This is the third miscarriage in the village in the past few weeks.” 

 That started a long discussion, and it seemed that we were going to be spared the false blame on the conception of this little boy.  I was SO thankful.  Women started to trickle in as the news spread – even at 10 pm.  The room started to fill up with women who came to sit with Isatu.  In the small 4 foot by 6 foot space, I counted 11 people – plus Isatu and Mamodi.  We had some togetherness going on!  Eventually, I walked home to grab some antibiotics that I wanted her to take – just to prevent any infection that could happen.  While at home, I had Ben warm up some rice that was in the fridge and took it back to her to eat.

She is doing okay now.  I went to check on her, but she was sleeping, so I left some food and came home.  Mordeka came and said she was doing better. 

                

 In the sadness of all of it, I found some things to be thankful for.  First, I was in the village when it happened.  Second, she didn’t have to go to the hospital and is doing okay.  Third, there doesn’t seem to be any blame on how the baby was conceived. 

               

 As I sat there that night on the floor with her, the small lamp casting shadows all over, looking at her leg lined up beside mine, the contrast in the color of our skin hit me.  We may be from different cultures, but we are both women and both moms.  At one point, when she was in pain, she laid her head on my shoulder.  I thought, there is no where I would rather be right now.  I am so thankful for the people here who invite us, not only into the celebrations – but also the sadness – of their lives.  We are blessed.

Eskimo Kissing in Africa?

I recently had a rather interesting experience.  I was called out to see a girl in labor.  As I entered the hut, I had some trouble picking out the pregnant girl.  Now, I don’t pretend to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can USUALLY tell who the pregnant, laboring girl is – at least as a general rule.  Sadly, this girl was about 15 years old and only about 8 months pregnant with her first baby.  The baby was clearly tiny.  The girl was from another village – but came to our village because I was here and she was sick with a runny belly (code word for diarrhea).  She was quickly becoming dehydrated.  

I started her on some medicine for the diarrhea, and gave her a Gatorade-like solution to drink.  Over the course of the next few hours, the labor slowed down and stopped.  I was relieved, as I was not sure the baby would survive if born.  They approached me and said that they wanted to take her home.  They were very afraid I would be offended.  No problem, I said.  Just please have the other midwife check her one more time before you leave tonight.  They said they would.

The next afternoon, the midwife came to get me, asking me to come because the girl had delivered the baby.  I was surprised, but grabbed a few things, leaving behind my big delivery bag.  I assumed that the baby had been delivered, and cleaned up, and they just wanted me to see.  As I was walking with the midwife, I began to question her. Was the baby breathing okay?  Is it a boy or girl?  She didn’t seem to know very much.  I said, well, did you wash the baby?  She said, No, we are waiting for you.  

WHAT?  I said, did you cut the cord and deliver the placenta?  No was the reply again.  I was starting to get frustrated.  I turned around and went home to get my delivery bag.  The matron said she had been at the farm and when she got back into town, they called her.  She went, saw the baby delivered, and left it there to come and get me.  I was working to control my breathing.

We arrived at the hut to find the mom sitting on the cow dung/mud floor and the baby lying on a filthy rag beside her.  The cord was still attached to the placenta, which had not been delivered yet.  I cut the cord, wrapped up baby, and gave instructions to get mom cleaned up.  The baby was tiny and cold, but breathing on her own.  I debated about whether or not we should wash it – worried that the bath would lower her body temperature even more.  However, she was filthy and I was worried about tetanus.  Also, it was scorching hot outside and they had heated water.  

I told the midwife, let’s just quickly wash it up and get it wrapped up again.  She agreed with me and we took it outside.  Once outside, she took a look at the baby, pronounced it fully ripe (fully developed) and proceeded to wash and wash and wash the baby.  I was getting frustrated, fearing that the stress on the baby was going to be too much. I kept trying to take the baby to bundle it up.  She refused.  Everyone could tell I was getting frustrated.  

I was talking to myself in English, telling myself to calm down.  They said, Gulunga is getting worried about the baby.  The midwife said – Oh, she always worries about the baby.  She finally handed her over to me and I bundled and bundled and took baby into mom, giving instructions for mom to try to nurse it right away.  I told them I would check back in a while – intending to bring some formula if necessary if the baby was getting stressed from being so small and cold-stressed and trying to nurse.

As I got ready to leave, a short old woman came over to me.  She was a relative of some sort and had been with us the previous day while I sat in the hut waiting for the labor to progress.  She grabbed my chest and began to thank me profusely for the help.  Then she stuck her face up to mine.  I thought she was going to do the French air kiss on each cheek – though, frankly, I was a little surprised that an old woman in the bush would even know how to do that (see the footnote).  

With her hands still clutched to my chest, she reached up and started rubbing her nose on mine!  Hello!  I have to say that I was COMPELTEY unprepared for that.  She kept blessing me and thanking me.  Finally she let go and backed away.  I thought – Did I just get an Eskimo kiss in Africa???  Wow- I didn’t see that coming!  I know we have different thoughts on personal space but really!

I went home smiling and laughed when I told the story to Jim.  Just goes to show that in Africa, you need to be prepared for anything.

I am happy to report that when I returned that night, baby was doing okay and had nursed a little.  Praying that little girl continues to grow big and strong, despite the rough start to her little life.

FOOTNOTE

I just have this to say about the European way of greeting.  I find it sophisticated – but very confusing – though don’t mind participating.  It is just hard for me to figure out – which side do you start on?  Once you get it established, all is good.  But you do have the potential to accidently kiss someone (I should know) if you both start on the same side.  

Once, in Quebec, we were leaving a friend’s house and I kissed the wife goodbye and the husband came to kiss me goodbye in the European way and I started on the wrong side and nearly kissed him on the lips.  Sadly there was not a rock big enough for me to crawl under: “Hey, thanks for having me over, sorry I kissed your husband in front of you!”  Thankfully they were good friends and good sports so all was good.  

Man, they should have a seminar about that!  I am just saying….

A Two Way Street

Many times, in conversations with people who have not lived overseas, I hear the same words/ sentiment expressed – Jim and Dawn, it is so great that you are living in Africa. You have so much to teach people about God, about medical stuff, and about community development. It must be a hard job- trying to bring people out of the dark ages in regard to knowledge.

Honestly, it would make me frustrated, except that I have to confess that, at first, I had a bit of the same sentiment. And when I am not careful, it can creep back in. There are nuggets of truth in that idea. Certainly, as Christians, we have walked with Jesus for many years and have learned a lot of lessons (and are STILL learning) on trust and what God is doing in our lives that we are anxious to share with people.

And medically, most of what I find here in the village is about 100 years behind where we are in the US right now. So we ARE thankful that God has allowed us to grow up where we did, and that He brought us here – for such a time as this. We believe that here are things that we can share with people here that will improve their lives- be it mentally, physically, or spiritually. And we are thankful for this opportunity.

On the other hand, the longer we live here with our friends, we realize the vast amount that they have to teach us about living in community and trust in God and sharing, etc. Let me give you some examples.

TIME – People here are MUCH better about taking time for each other than anyone else that we have EVER seen. Going to visit people is huge here and they think nothing of sitting for a LONG time, chatting or just sitting in silence as a way of being with someone else. Frankly, this is something that I am NOT good at. Usually I have a big list of things that I want to accomplish, and while, I am happy to go out and say hi, after about 5 minutes, I want to be done. I am working to take more time with people.

This is something that Jim is MUCH better at than me. Perhaps because of his personality, or perhaps because he is a faster learned than I am, he has realized the value of taking time with people. Every morning, he enjoys sitting on the porch with the 2 believers here, chatting and drinking coffee and visiting with anyone else who wanders up to the porch. He will go and sit for hours at a funeral or meeting – that would drive me insane. But he is great at it! Honestly, (confession time) for me to feel good about spending long amounts of time with people, I have to write it on my list of things to get done. :^(

TOGETHERNESS – In the US, we seem to value time alone. That is not something that is sought after here much. Perhaps that is a village thing – their whole lives are such a constant jumble of people in and out that there is rarely a moment alone. We might go out into the woods to get away. Here, if you see someone sitting on a bench by themselves, you go and sit with them, so that they will not be alone. Rarely do they just sit around by themselves. I saw a great example of this on my porch a few months ago.

On many days, the daily crowd was getting out of control. On days like Thursday, it is not uncommon to have 50 people waiting out there. People were getting loud and arguing over who would be seen first. So we decided to take the benches where people sit, and put them out in the yard, giving me some distance from the crowd. One bench was left on the porch, and the system is that the child that I am seeing and their parent, and the next patient in line, are allowed to sit there. Everyone else is supposed to be on the benches in the yard.

For the most part, this works okay, and they have just accepted it as one of the MANY strange things that I do. But often, when a sick person comes, several people come with them –to walk them to the house and to be with them. When that patient is called, EVERYONE who has a vested interest in the patient wants to come to the bench – which results in a small crowd, defeating the purpose of the benches in the yard. When I explain that only the patient and the parent should come, they give me kind of an odd look, like, Why would you do that? You want them to have to sit there alone?

Recently I saw a little boy who had a cut on his head. I bandaged it and told him to come back the next day. The next day arrived and he showed up with 2 little friends. They dutifully sat on the bench in the yard, and when I called his name, they each grabbed a hand and walked him up to me. They sat there quietly when I looked at him and put medicine on, and then quietly grabbed his hands and walked him home. (I was not really paying attention to the whole thing as I had a porch full of people but Jim watched it transpire and said it was just the sweetest thing to watch. These little guys chose to take the time to sit with their injured friend when they could have been out playing. Jim said it was a good reminder for him to take time for people).

Frankly, the togetherness aspect usually works in my favor with medical issues. Like all of us, when a new idea is introduced, it often takes several times of hearing it for it to take root. So, when I am giving instructions on the porch, I have a captive audience of people hearing what I am saying (since they usually study me intensely, trying to see what I am doing). It hit me several months back that I have a GREAT opportunity to teach many people at one time. Here is an example…..

One thing that usually scares people to death here during an illness is that the sick person won’t eat. And here, by eat, they mean consume mass amounts of rice in a sitting – twice a day. So, when they bring me a sick kid, they will often say, He won’t eat anything. Usually, with questioning, I find out that the child is drinking water and eating bread or maybe crackers or porridge.

So, when I give them the medicine, I add the following teaching – you know, often people get scared when a sick person doesn’t eat a lot. But when you don’t feel well, you don’t usually like to eat a lot. So, even if this child is not willing to eat a lot of rice, if he is drinking well and eating porridge and bread and bananas and crackers, that is SO great. And as they start to feel better, they will want to eat. So I don’t want you to worry. If the medicine is done, and they are still not eating well, you bring them back. (This rarely happens).

Of course, as I am telling the parents this, I usually have 5 – 20 other sets of ears taking in the information as well. Also, when I go to visit new moms, I talk with them about breastfeeding, and since a new mom is never at home by herself, several other women are getting the same teaching!

SHARING/GIFTS – Our friends here seem to be very good at sharing. Even if they are short on food, if someone comes to visit, there is ALWAYS an invitation to come and eat. If you have company, they always get the best choices. If you have something that someone needs more than you do, you share. That is partially why you see half built houses all over the place. When people get enough money to start a house, they try to take it and start building right away because if you have money, and then someone comes along and asks for it, you really should give it to them. But if you quickly buy bricks and put them in the wall of a house, then the money is gone and you are on your way to getting a new place to live. This principle makes getting ahead very difficult in this culture.

We have friends here who want to get ahead, but this principle sometimes makes this hard. For example, we have a friend who borrowed some money to go a buy his wife a present. Later in the day, after the market has gone, I asked him about what he had bought. Well, he said, not as much as I wanted to. You see, my daughter had a fight with her husband and moved back home. They made up, but I had to buy a gift to give to them so that she could go back to her house again. WHAT? REALLY? I was so mad at him, thinking that he had shorted his wife in favor of his daughter, but apparently, culturally, he needed to do that.

Over and over, we see people teaching us the important of putting relationships over other things. The US has a long way to go in this aspect. Usually, we are all so independent that we don’t have a great need for each other. And that is a loss for us. That sometimes translates into our relationship with God. We like to say that we trust Him, but really, I think that sometimes we have more trust in our bank accounts and in the medical system to make things okay. It was a big lesson for me when we moved to Africa.

As a nurse, I had a lot of fears (still do sometimes) that something will happen to my family when we are so far from medical help. But as I thought about it, it made me realize that, in the US, I had a lot more trust in the fact that Lutheran Hospital was sitting 15 minutes away from me with great doctors and a great facility, than I had trust in God to care for us – in whatever way that transpired. Really, every day, no matter where we live, is an exercise in trust for all of us – because God is ultimately in control, not matter what continent we live on.

While I wouldn’t want to be forced to go backwards in time and technology to live like our national friends, there are certain aspects of their lives that they seem more advanced than we are. We have so many lessons to learn from them. What a privileged to have those lessons being lived out in front of us on a daily basis.