I am back home in Moshi!
Honesty is back at home doing well. Joelle, Honesty and I went on Thursday morning and got him admitted to the hospital. I the doctor was not very detailed in his anticipated outcome from surgery, “If God wills it to happen then it will work” was said several times. Not exactly what I wanted to hear from his surgeon. The surgeon was being followed by two medical students from the UK, so I got to hear the entire explanation of the procedure and was told that I could be in the operating theater during his surgery. So Friday I went to the hospital excited and nervous to watch an orthopedic surgery in a country where things are always more of a production than anticipated. When I arrived I was told that he was already done with surgery because the room had been double booked, I was disappointed but happy that we had finally accomplished getting him surgery.
In hospitals in TZ there is one nurse for an entire ward of 5 to 15 patients. I quickly learned that it is expected that the family bring food, feed, bath and do every other activity that the patient needs, including asking the nurse to give them their medicine when needed. I was not prepared to stay the night at the hospital which is what was expected of me because I was standing in for his family. His wife needed to stay at home with their children. This took me a while for me to figure out because Honesty was just coming out of anesthesia and his Swahili was even more difficult for me to understand. I called Joelle who brought a local female friend that is looking for work, a 2.5 hour process from Moshi. When they arrived the girl quickly knew that she was not able to stay, because women can’t stay in the men’s ward. Who would have known really…? Turns out we were fresh out of men in Machame Village whom had nothing to do and was willing given 15 minutes notice to feed and bath a complete stranger. We were stuck. When an Angel appeared, his name oddly enough is Gifty. He was at the hospital taking care of his nephew, Goodluck who was finishing up his treatment for Malaria. He said he would gladly take care of him. Out of options, we trusted him. Turns out that Gifty is truly a gift. He is 19 and is finished with school and is looking for work. He did not want any money for his efforts just wanted to help as he could.
His surgery is good so far, I was concerned for a few days that he would not regain movement in his fingers but each day he has improved. He will need another surgery at the end of Aug. to remove the pins that were placed to stabilize his arm. I have not seen him since he went home from the hospital because of my travels. I will go to his home on Saturday because we are holding a Nutrition Seminar up in the village.
I have heard however that he is doing well. The fund raising walk that took place in Shimbwe that I briefly wrote about in my last long blog ended with a gathering at which Honesty gave a speech about the work that our group has done for him and the village. I wish I could have heard what he said but I was traveling.
So my traveling went really well no major mishaps but a course hundreds of small ones….Laura and I arrived in Kigali, Rwanda on Friday. Ready for a big day of exploring the capital city we got up early Saturday morning and soon discovered that all of Rwanda has a national day of cleaning the last Saturday of every month. Which means the entire city was deserted. I really enjoyed the chance to walk around uninterrupted and see the views of the city. Kigali is very hilly area with modern buildings on high hills overlooking iron sheet roofed homes with dirt roads. Motorcycle taxies are all the rage in Rwanda and Uganda. Laura and I used them often; they are a great way to see the city while on our way to some arbitrary destination. On Saturday we were able to go to one of the Genocide memorials. The entire museum was very well created and provided me with much needed information about the events of 1994. It was difficult to see the pictures of the victims wearing clothing that is so familiar to me (tennis shoes, jeans, baseball caps), seeing that made it more real to me because it happened so recently. We spent some time on Lake Kivu and the western boarder of the country where we came upon another memorial at a currently active church where 11, 700 people were murdered in one day as they were seeking refuge. The window of the church was filled with the skulls of the victims. A disturbing fact for me to learn is that there are currently very few dogs remaining in Rwanda because they were also killed during the genocide because there were eating the bodies of the victims.
On a more positive note, we hiked a volcano in Volcano National Park, one of a few places on earth to see mountain gorillas in the wild. Permits to spend one hour observing them close up costs $500, and are difficult to acquire. While in the park, we were told that there was a possibly that we would pass one of the groups of research gorillas on our hike. We were told that if we did see them on our hike up the mountain that we would not be allowed to stop to observe them or take any pictures because they are not suppose to be habitulized to contact with humans. Well we did see them on our way back down the mountain! I saw two large males, one of which is the silverback of the group. He was only about 30 feet away from me, so cool! We were allowed to stay by our guide for about 5 minutes. Overall Rwanda is a beautiful, small country, currently living in peace filled with hillside farms and wonderful paved roads and transportation system which was a very welcomed convenience.
I will be returning to the states….at least for a while. I bought my plane ticket for Sept 17th!
