Village Life

After a year of wanting to visit a friend's house in a nearby village, the pieces finally fell into place. Our friend is an excellent craftsman & carpenter who has made much of our furniture. When he learned that his dad would be visiting from western Uganda, he invited us and another New Hope staff member, plus his family members to spend an afternoon at his place DEEP in the bush. We drove for more than 30 minutes on washed out dirt roads and the occasional foot path to reach his house. He took us to his workshop where we laid our eyes on exquisite hand carved furniture. He even has a "wood refrigerator" which would bring a flood of memories back to those of you who had "ice boxes" when you were kids. The outside is beautifully finished hardwood and inside has a jug of water buried in charcoal. It is cool enough to keep milk, butter, eggs and jam, and large enough to keep much more. At the end of our visit we took this group photo. As we were saying goodbye we were given a large rooster (quite an honored gift.) WE have great memories of the day, but the rooster doesn't as he became dinner when we made a tasty chicken soup the next day. Yum. Yum.

And in other village news . . . I (Mary) helped deliver a baby today!!!!! Actually, lately I've been quite the village nurse. Last week was spent caring for the kids' teacher from England. She contracted malaria and by the time we caught it she was literally hours away from organ failure. So, I got to give injections, hang IV's, monitor progress. She is still recovering, but safely on the mend. TODAY, I was visiting with her and mentioned that our compound worker's (Medie) wife (Joyce) was due any day. Almost as soon as I finished the sentence he was at her door saying, "Auntie Mary, IT'S TIME!" I called Geoff who was in Kiwoko at the vocational school and he and the van flew down the road to get us and then onto Medie's home. It was obvious delivery wasn't far off when she fell to her knees twice on the walk to the van. Thankfully, we made it to the hospital (with more stopping to hug the ground on the way to the maternity ward) and met our friend and neighbor, Florence, who is a midwife there. Joyce asked me to stay and Florence asked me to assist. What fun! For all my nurse friends, let me just say . . . it's DIFFERENT here!! Blunt scissors for episiotomy, minimal pain med for suturing, the patient walks (carrying all her own supplies)to the postpartum area about 2 hours after delivery, and the baby is not given a bath until the second day. And for all you moms . . . how about delivery on a flat bed covered with a large green garbage bag, no stirrups, no pain meds, no IV, and after the baby is delivered, it is wrapped in whatever cloths you packed as the hospital cannot provide these items. Meanwhile, your family members leave for the nearby shops to buy tea and sweet bread as the hospital is also not able to provide food for you. A real joy for me was to help Joyce put the new baby girl to the breast and watch as both took the new experience as pros.

After Joyce was settled into her new bed with the baby at her side, I went home, but returned a few hours later with water, medications and snacks for her overnight stay. She will come home tomorrow and I plan to have the camera with me. Check back for pictures in the upcoming days!!!! Please pray for the health, peace and well being of Joyce, Medie and this precious little one. This is their second child. Their son, Michael died of malaria this past January at less than 13 months of age.

That is the reality of village life: the joy of birth in tandem with untimely, tragic death. After living here almost 17 months I am still greatly affected by the frequency of the death of children. In the past year we have seen death by malaria, tetanus, birth defects, poisoning and motor vehicle accidents. These are not deaths we read about in the newspaper. These are the deaths of the loved ones we know and interact with on a weekly basis. Thank you for your prayers for us and for those we live near us.