Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A few pictures from the trip north...

Too long between posts again but I've been in the village so what can you do? Anyway, around the 20th I'd heard rumor that CLIDE was headed out to Nakyot again so I went over to the office and asked if I could go too. Mam nache, they said. No problem.  So I got ready to go know knowing they wanted to send the "advance team" early and that was my best bet for a ride. They didn't tell me several things, which in hindsight was good because I would have retracted my request but now that it's done I'm glad I didn't jump ship. I quickly saw that their planning was more disjointed than ever before so even though they had planned to head up on the 22nd and we finally got there on the 24th. Also, they hadn't mentioned until the 23rd that the reason for the trip was that 18 Americans were coming.  Yikes! Don't get me wrong, I like Americans, but 18 short term workers for a week in Nakoyot isn't a walk in the park. But by that point I'd cleared my schedule and had 40 pounds of medical supplies packed so was committed.
After a few morning hours of packing we are almost ready to go.  
They were a great group willing to work hard and live rough and do what needed to be done. I'm really glad I had a chance to work with them. They fall under the umbrella of I AM SECOND and their purpose was to jump start the church in Nakyot.
Three days we hiked the roughly 8 km (round trip) to Alakas where many wanted to hear about Jesus.
We had to take a military escort with us from Nakayot out to Alakas and I didn't envy this guy's load.  

This is Dina. She is one of the women who translates for me.  Those are pumpkin drying in the sun to be food as the dry season continues and no plants will be able to produce anything eatable in the not so distant future.

Some village women who were asking for medicine and immunizations for their kids and HIV tests for themselves.
Young men in the village wiling away the heat of the day with a game in the shade.
 
After long, hot, full days these guys were willing to help me treat some of the medical cases in the village. Lots of infected leg wounds, and bug infestations of the feet. I was quite happy to delegate those cases. On top of that they counted hundreds of pills, tested for malaria and did all sorts of other things.  THANKS GUYS!!!
No major medical issues this time, a 3 week old with pneumonia had us scrambling for a bit to figure out what antibiotic we could use and how to dose it.  But after consultation with the vet on the team and the pediatrics nurse doing the med calculations the baby will do fine I think. A few ear infections and some abscesses, arthritis and parasites.  Mostly I was free to spend the day with the team doing discipleship. Overall it was a good trip and I think I'll be headed back the end of next week. Thanks to those of you who were praying!


Meggan- this one is for you!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the picture Jennifer! I'm so glad you didn't know 18 Muzungoes were coming along. We would have not been the same without you there! Love you and miss you! Also keep me posted on the triathalon! I would love to hear about it!