Made it home safely, despite missing my flight in Zurich and having to spend the night in Boston. Being home is really good—spending time with family and friends. It is definitely different than Doro, and it will take some time to acclimate back to normal life here in the US, but I am looking forward to what God has for me here. Sorry this is a short blog—we don’t have internet at our apartment yet. But looking forward to seeing you all and sharing more in-depth about Doro. God bless!
This is it—Tonight I leave Nairobi and head back to the States. I won’t actually be in Portland for a few more days, as I have a stop in NC that I need to make for debriefing. I cannot believe that the 6 months is over, it has gone so quickly. But I am excited to see family and friends.
In case any of you live in the Sutherlin area, I am going to be sharing a bit more about Doro on Tuesday night, July 9th at the Family Church in Sutherlin.
Sorry this is a short one—Rushing around getting ready to go. Hope to see you guys soon!
Hello all!
This past week, I had to say goodbye to Doro. It was harder than I had expected. I will miss the people that I met, the work that I was doing, and the simple joy of living outdoors.
Some funny stories from my last few days in Doro:
I killed a chicken. After church, I went to the market and bought a chicken and named it Flick. I brought it home and promptly killed it. Diana coached me all the way through the process, and it takes a lot longer than I had expected. Between killing it, plucking all the feathers off, then taking out the intestines, and then finally cooking it. But I was triumphant, and I did manage to have Flick for dinner that night. Does that sound terribly heartless? I hope not. It was quite an educational experience—there is quite the process before meat looks like it does in the store. And it is a good skill to have in case I am in a similar situation—where if I want to have chicken for dinner, I need to literally start from ‘scratch’.
Last week, after a particularly heavy rain, there was a frog infestation. These frogs are the tiniest I have ever seen—probably only 1-2cm long. They are ridiculously cute, but when you walk along the path, hundreds of them scatter to get out of your way to avoid being stepped on. And the sound of the frogs in the lakes at night is phenomenal—So incredibly loud that I would never have associated the sound with frogs. Maybe a tiny taste of what pharoh and the Egyptians felt like! 😛
This past week, there was a little girl brought in by her mom to the clinic. She looked to be about a year old. The unusual thing about this little girl was that she had no kneecaps, and could not bend her legs. She also had a large lower spinal surgical site, and a cerebral shunt visible behind her ear. We guessed that the girl had been born with Spina Bifida, though the mother had no idea what diagnosis her girl had before surgery.
A few days before I left Doro, a landmine went off. At least, we think it was a landmine. No one went running and screaming away, so we are assuming that it was intentionally set off (There are sometimes teams of people that come in to safely set off the landmines to avoid people getting hurt) . We hear gunfire at times, and if you have a keen sense of hearing, then you can sometimes hear bombs going off by the border, but I had never heard a landmine before.
Some more things that I will need to adjust to back in the states—
It will be interesting to count the distance between things in miles instead of how many minutes it takes to walk somewhere. The locals just talk about different villages by either how many hours or how many days it takes to get there by foot. I am also going to have to get used to using streets as landmarks again. Here, your only landmarks are “That big tree behind the termite mound that is shaped like a snake” or something similar.
Getting used to driving again will also be interesting—I haven’t driven in 6 months. And the times that I have been a passenger in a car have been here in Nairobi, where the traffic rules are basically “If you make it where you are going without hitting anyone or being hit, the trip was a success”. Absolutely no traffic laws are followed. No stop signs, no idea how many lanes of traffic a road is, you can pass another car whenever it looks like you won’t die in the attempt, etc.
Sleeping in will be odd—haven’t been able to do that in Africa—usually up with the sun around 630.
It will be nice to be able to sit by the windows when it rains. In Doro, when it rains, you need to be at least 5 feet away from the windows, or you will get wet. When the tukul is only 12 feet across, this makes it an adventure. 😛
Hygiene will also be a bit different. In Doro, most people don’t know what a germ is. And supplies are very limited. So when you have guests over, you just hand them a cup, and they all share. And the kids all come up and drink out of it. And strangers that stop by to say hello drink out of it. Sure saves on soap. 🙂
So now I am here in Nairobi, and I fly back to the States on July 1. I am very much enjoying my time here. I have been catching up on m to-do list and spending time with friends.
Please pray for:
There have been many more break-ins in Doro—we have had solar panels stolen (very expensive to replace) and plastic tables and chairs and bikes stolen. Please pray for protection for the people still in Doro and for our guard to be on alert.
Safety here in Nairobi—one of our SIM staff members had her purse stolen at gunpoint during daylight hours here in Nairobi. Good reminder for me to be watchful.
For me to be wise with how I spend the rest of my time here in Africa, and for the transition to living in the States again.
Just brought Flick home
Plucking the feathers
Feather-free Flick
Diana coaching me through how to clean him out
Final stage. Yum.
My last day in Doro was the National Refugee Day celebration, with all the refugee tribes coming together and celebrating with dancing and singing
So this is my last post from Doro. It has flown by so quickly!
Going through this last week, I am realizing that I will have some things to get used to back in the States—
*It will be odd to not have to shake out my shoes and all clothing articles before putting them on.
*Get used to sitting down on a toilet seat. And to get used to not having sweep away the fly larvae before getting down to business.
*Sweeping the floor and not have half of my pile crawl away as I reach for the dust pan
*Not having to keep shoes on at all times (way too many scorpions, snakes, and spiders), even in the tukul
*Having carpet and couches and comfortable chairs
*Sleeping with covers on
*That knees are not something that need to be kept always covered
*I need to get used to looking in a mirror. This is a once-every-couple-of-weeks occasion here for me. And I will need to get used to remembering to have clothes “match”. “Matching” in Doro consists of finding a top and a skirt that are relatively clean.
*I am looking forward to not sticking out so drastically everywhere I go.
*It will be odd to not have to drink 4-5 liters of water every day.
*Getting out of the habit of taking my torch with me when I go out at in the later afternoon, as it will probably get dark while I am gone.
*Watching movies on Friday nights, and not having grasshoppers and various flying bugs all over the ‘screen’ (large white sheet that we project movies onto)
*Being a nurse in the States again. Where the standards and protocols are so very very different.
*The mentality to never throw anything away.
*It is going to be interesting to adjust to normal small talk conversations. With the adults I meet on the road, my greetings are a mash of Mabaan, Uduk, and Arabic. With the children, they all yell the few English phrases they know as I pass by. If they are wanting to practice their English, I will say “Hello!” and they will respond back “I am fine!”. What am I supposed to say in response to that? I cannot ask them how they are doing, as they have just answered that question. It is also common for them to come up to us, shake our hands, and promptly ask, “What is my name?” To which we of course have to reply that we don’t know. 😛
*In this culture, you must go up and shake everyone’s hand whenever you approach a group of people or enter a tukul. And when you leave, you must do the same. I have gotten so used to shaking everyone’s hands several times a day—and I realize that this is going to make me stick out quite a bit back home. 😛
*I am going to have to get used to things starting when they say they are going to start. To get used to punctuality being the norm, and often being important.
*Marriage proposals are not a weekly thing in the US.
*To have men treat women preferentially, instead of vice versa. Here, if the chairs are all full, women give up their chairs to the men instead of the men for the women.
*Washing machines. Running water. Answering machines. All non-existant here.
Not sure what else will be odd for me to adjust to. But looking forward to being back, even if it takes some getting used to. 🙂
Some random stories from the past week:
One of the ladies on our compound got larvae of some sort (fly?) lodged into the skin on her shoulder. She applied vaseline to the area (lack of oxygen causes them to start to wiggle out), and then Dr. Rob got them the rest of the way out with a needle, some squeezing, and some lidocaine gel.
Had a party last night to celebrate Diana and Karen’s birthdays and to say goodbye to all of the people that are leaving on Friday’s flight. We bought a (massive) goat from the local market, and the guys killed and roasted it for us. Such an awesome time of laughter and praying together for the people heading out.
Please pray for those of us that are flying out in 5 days. So much to do, so many details to wrap up, so many people to say goodbye to.
Our compound has had several holes cut in the fence over the last few days, and things have been stolen. Please pray for safety and protection of us and our stuff.
<—preparing for goat roast
<—preparing for cooking
<—Kisera (sorgum-based flour that is fermented) being made for wedding last weekend.
<–getting the larvae out
<–Me with the neighbors. The daughter stole my phone and snapped a pic.
We are in the middle of an intense rain and thunder storm. InTeNSe. Granted, I am not from somewhere with major storms like this, but WOW. So powerful. What a reminder of how great and mighty our God is! Great to have rain, too, as this rainy season has been really dry thus far, and the farmers are really worrying about the survival of the crop with the rainy season starting so late.
This week has been awesome, but really busy. A couple of weddings (often all day events), meetings, working at the clinic, orienting new people to the area and to how life works here. One of the highlights was last Sunday, when Diana, Andrew, and I went out to the Ingessenah (tribe) area of the refugee camp. We got into a conversation with , and had an awesome time—we got into a conversation with a man named Notadeen. He was so hungry to know more of who Jesus was, and to hear more of the Bible explained. Diana did an amazing job of teaching, and Andrew offered to translate into Arabic. Such a privilege to be there for. The Ingessenah tribe is a group of refugees from N. Sudan, and have never heard the gospel before they fled to S. Sudan.
I cannot believe that I have only a couple of weeks left in Doro! I will miss it. I will miss the sounds—Every night as I go to bed, I fall asleep to the crickets outside, donkeys braying, and the joy cry of the women in the nearby villages. In the morning, I wake up to the ‘waterbottle bird’ and bright sunshine. During the day, the cicadas make quite a racket with the dogs and children running around yelling “Kawaaja!”.
I will miss the friends that I have made in the community—the Mabaan are such generous and hospitable people. They love to laugh—often at me and my attempts to speak Mabaan. 😛 They are such a joy to be around. I will miss the people on the compound that I live with, and the people I work in the clinic with. But I am looking forward to being home and seeing everyone that I left behind in the States. I do not know where God will call me from here—whether I will be back in Africa at some point, or if he is calling me to stay in Portland for a while. But wherever I end up, I am so glad I got the chance to come here.
amazing clouds; view from our compound
Diana and I went crawling through the plane that crashed a few months back
One of the (very loud) cicadas
Me on my bike heading to work
Hello again,
Life here in Doro is going well. This week at the clinic has been a bit slower than normal, which is really a blessing, because we are short on translators.
Random stories of what has been going on lately:
Last night, Diana (who was on call) got called up to the clinic. We had a 40-something year old woman brought in by her family who had fallen into the fire when she passed out while cooking. She had b2nd degree burns on 27% of her body. We started IV fluids on her, and took care of her burns, and kept her overnight. Now we are trying to figure out why she has been passing out (it has been happening about once a month)–whether it is a cardiac condition, uncontrolled diabetes, seizures, etc. Not a lot of in-depth testing we can do, but hopefully we will figure it out.
Our internet provider has been changed, so our internet access is much better, and we are able to get online during the daytime! However, we only have solar power, and as it is rainy season, it is very often overcast if it isn’t outright raining. So the evenings and early mornings are the times when the solar powered battery cells are lowest, yet that is when I am most able to skype with people due to the large time difference. So hopefully we will have some good sun this weekend! 😛
I found a lizard—which is very common—I see probably 30-40 per day. However, this lizard was IN MY BED. This did not make me a happy camper! I don’t care much about lizards one way or the other, but to know that if something the size of a lizard could sneak into my mosquito netting, it means that our very large spiders can, also. Not a happy thought. Re-emphasized to me that I should not leave the netting untucked from the bed for even a single moment!
I went visiting some of my Mabaan friends this past week, and had a wonderful time! I had brought back some pictures I had had developed in Nairobi of my previous visits with them, and they loved it. I also brought back a book on how-to-draw the basic animals. You should have seen their faces! When I pointed to the picture of the pig and told them what it was, they were in complete shock. Pigs here are hairy and black. The picture of our pigs were light pink and hairless. I can just imagine what is going on in their thoughts, “Wow! Even their animals are white and odd looking!”
I have loved my time here in Doro, but one thing I regret—I wish that I had spent more intensive time learning the language. Without language, it is very possible to make friends, but nearly impossible to have a deep and meaningful conversation. And their language is so different than anything I have learned. For instance—there are over 15 words for ‘mushroom’, but when we read the verse in Mabaan about the fruit of the spirit—almost all of the words are translated as “goodness”. They simply don’t have words for all of the separate ideas in that verse.
I miss answering machines. Our cell phones here don’t have answering machines. Also, the network comes in and out frequently. It could be down for days, and you are unable to call out until it randomly comes back on. It is the only network available, so there isn’t much competition. 🙂
I am just a ‘girl’, not a ‘woman’, because I am unmarried and don’t have any kids. I am pretty sure they think I am 15 or 16, because why else would a woman my age be unmarried? 😛
Before I left for R&R, when I was seeing patients, I met a woman. I don’t even remember what physical complaints brought her in, but she made a huge impact on me. Because we were short on translators, our clinic pastor translated for me. And he was able to begin talking to her about what was going on in her life. She was a …30 year old ish woman who had 2 living children (4 had died). The children that were still living were very young—preschool aged. Her husband had abandoned her, and she felt so overwhelmed with trying to keep her children fed, working all day everyday in order to get enough food to keep them all alive and a tukul over their heads. (She was Mabaan, so wasn’t eligible for any of the aid from the NGOs in the area) It broke my heart to see a normal woman come in, and how much pain came out of her when she opened up. No bitterness, but a huge amount of hopelessness. As I prayed with her, it hit home to me how much suffering is going on around me. I so wanted to fix it, but I am powerless to do so.
Nancy Congdon (one of our SIM missionaries on the compound) went to a Healing The Wounds of Trauma seminar in Malakal a couple of months ago. It was an awesome conference about why God allows pain, what it says about His character, and how to heal. She has brought this back to Doro, where there is so much pain, and has begun teaching the things she learned to the clinic staff, to the men in the secondary school, to the local churches, and to her fellow kawaajas on our compound. It is powerful, and I am excited to see how God uses it for his glory here!
Below are some pictures of the Nutrition Village—one of our ministries that reaches out the malnourished kids in our area and to their families.
–Child with Marasmus* being weighed
— One of the patients with Kwashiokor* being held by his mom
–Ruth, one of the nurses that works in the Nutrition Village, and one of the patients who is doing much better!
*There are two main types of malnutrition–Kwashiokor is a lack of protein, even though they are getting enough calories. This can cause edema, as seen above. Marasmus is the lack of all kinds of caloric/nutritional intake, and it leads to emaciated (really skinny) children. It is also possible to have a mix of the two.
Please be praying for:
Nancy and Pastor Bulis’ teachings about trauma to have a deep impact on the people here and that God would show himself all-powerful amidst the pain
That I would use my remaining time wisely, and give everything that I have got before I leave
For wisdom in hiring a new translator hopefully sometime in the next two weeks.
I have been back in Doro for almost a week. Didn’t really realize how much I missed it until I got back. The day after I got back, I spent the day unpacking, and showing one of our new nurses (Danielle) around the area, and getting caught up with everyone.
On Thursday, I started working in the clinic again. Unfortunately, I found that one of our four interpreters quit, so we are short on translators. So I am not able to see patients until we hire a new translator. So I have been stocking things and unloading / organizing boxes of donated supplies. Hopefully the new translator that we hire will speak Nuer. We are getting more and more patients from the Nuer tribe, and often they don’t speak any of the languages that we are able to translate/understand (our current translators only speak Arabic, Mabaan, Uduk, and English). So this leads to a lot of miming and gesturing to try to get our point across/ask questions. Trying to ask if a patient is dizzy or asking how frequently they are having bowel movements is interesting when I am only able to use gestures. Makes for some laughs, anyway, but it is really necessary to be able to communicate more efficiently with these patients.
The below pictures are of a patient Dickson treated this past week. This little girl got burned by some boiling water that was tipped over onto her on accident. The front and back of her thigh and a patch on her abdomen was burned pretty badly. Dickson is covering it with Silvadene, and she is coming back in for (unfortunately painful) daily dressing changes. With the onset of the rainy season, we expect to see the number of burn patients increase, as the rains cause people to crowd around fires, and the children often fall into them.
Below is pictures showing what the land looked like when I left Doro for R&R, and then what it looked like when I came back. Very different!
–Right before I left Doro (mid April)
—After I came back
Please pray for:
That the we at the clinic would have a deep love for the patients that come through and see them as individuals who are hurting and who need to know that Jesus loves them.
That we would bond as a team here in Doro—we had 5 people leave, and several new people come in. So prayer for the new peoples’ adjustment, but also for a deep sense of unity and just plain old enjoyment of each other.
PTL:
We are all safely back from Nairobi
Tensions in the community have lessened between the tribes that were fighting
Hello, all!
Just arrived safely back in Doro after a wonderful last couple of weeks in Nairobi. The trip in was uneventful—We left Nairobi at 7:15 am, and arrived at 3pm. We stopped over and got our passports stamped in a different port of entry instead of our normal stop, and they gave us three month visas for S. Sudan, which was a huge blessing. We usually have to get a new visa every month, but with us living out in the bush, this is no easy task. We had to send someone via plane to the nearest city with an immigration office—a couple hundred miles away. And each time we get a new visa, we each pay about $100 (plus having to split the cost of the plane to fly to get the new visas). So to have gotten a three month visa for $100 was a great deal–and it saved quite a lot of time and energy.
Being back in Doro is great. After having been gone for 5 weeks, there was a LOT of cleaning up to do. Everything was covered in a good centimeter of dust. And Amy and I (mostly Amy, I have to admit, as I was already in Nairobi) packed up the whole tukul into the sleeping area, so that we could put a padlock on the door. (There have been several robberies on our compound over the last few weeks). So coming back, we had to unpack our ‘household’ as well as unpack everything we had brought from Nairobi. But we are making progress! The floor is now mostly visible. 🙂 Getting settled in and excited to begin life here again.
While we were gone for the conference, there was some tribal tension here in Doro between the Mabaan (host community) and Uduk (refugee). The details are really fuzzy, but I believe that several people ended up needing to be hospitalized after the shooting. Things are much more peaceful now, though still not completely back to normal. It is a tough situation–The Mabaan had been the only tribe in the area, and then to all of a sudden have thousands and thousands of refugees camped on your doorstep almost overnight. These refugees have nowhere else to go, and can’t go back home (there is still bombing going on there). But the Mabaan are faced with the fact that the limited resources of the area are now in very high demand. So the Mabaan are having to look far and long for their firewood, their food in the market is much more expensive, etc. Please continue to pray for peace between these groups.
The land itself was a huge shock coming back in—it is now so green here! When I left, it was dusty and dry and really really hot. Now it is much cooler–probably only about 90-95 degrees (a solid 10-15 degrees cooler). They have had their first several heavy rainstorms, and it has totally changed the landscape. There is standing water in many places and there is green grass everywhere. Reminds me of home–I love it!
Here are some pictures of my last few weeks of Nairobi.
–Somebody is in trouble 😛
–Beverly and I catching up in the sun, cheering on the soccer match
Hello, all!
Just got back from SLC (our annual Spiritual Life Conference) out at Brackenhurst. It was a wonderful week— Our speaker was a guy from India who teaches at All Nations College in England. Really wise man, and had some solid things to say and challenge us on. Myself and several other people shared their testimonies, we sang together, and we relaxed–game nights, bonfire (with smores!), ladies spa night, talent show/skit night, etc. Had some amazing worship time, and I felt like God really showed up. Overall, it was an amazing week. PLUS I didn’t have to cook at all, PLUS I had my very own room. Both were absolutely wonderful. 🙂
I was the NOD (nurse on duty) for the week, and I was a bit nervous for what that might look like, but most of the week I just handed out bandaids, ibuprofen, and benadryl. Then on Thursday, one of the guys on the team started having chest pain, dizziness, shortness of breath, etc. We had to rush him to the hospital in Nairobi (an hour away). Turns out he was in a-fib with a rate of 180, and had a blockage in one of the main cardiac vessels. Please pray for his full recovery and for his wife, as they aren’t letting her stay in the hospital with him.
Before leaving for SLC, I went on a hike with a couple of friends out into the Ngong Hills (about an hour from Nairobi). It was a whole lot more uphill than I had expected! We ended up hiking over 8 miles. Mostly uphill. For 5 hours. Yikes! 🙂 But absolutely gorgeous. We had to hire a guard for most of the hike, as it is a common place for muggings/robberies, but we were able to catch up to the Kenyan group ahead of us and split the price of their guards. Had a great time chatting with them, they were all younger (20s and 30s) people that worked together in a research firm out of Nairobi.
Now I am back in Nairobi for another week and a half. I have several things I need to catch up on and several places I want to see before going back in. I’ll try to do a better job of keeping you guys up to date. 🙂
–Diana and I in Ngong Hills
–Brackenhurst Conference Center
–Ruth and I out to eat dinner
I have greatly been enjoying my R&R thus far!
Diana (friend from Doro) and I just got back from an adventure out into the Kenyan countryside. We rode by matatu (Kenyan’s version of a taxi) from Nairobi up to near the Ugandan border to visit Gilbert (a Kenyan friend who works in Doro with us) and his family–about an 8-9 hour drive. We had a great time, spent the night there, and then headed by matatu again to Kisumu. This ride was only 2 hours, and I have to say that I don’t know if I have ever been so happy to get out of a car. As you can see from the below picture, there are just three seats. One this leg of the journey, there were considerably more than 3 passengers in the seats. In my row alone, we had 4 adults, 3 children, and a chicken. I had about 2 inches of seat to sit on. My muscles may never recover.
In Kisumu, we spent the day and night with friend’s of Diana’s, then headed to Naivasha, to spend some time with Rob and Nancy at their new house. So gorgeous and relaxing there!
Overall, it was great to get away from the busyness and noise of Nairobi and to see other parts of Kenya. We did have some interesting…adventures….on our trip, but I will have to save those for another posting. 🙂 Life is never boring!
Diana and I (and Gilbert in the corner) in one of the un-crowded matatu rides
At our Kisumu friend’s house, there was a dirt road. But since it is rainy season, that translates to several feet of mud. So we had to hike to the end of the 1 km driveway, and hope that our feet didn’t get sucked in too far.
Running the Race 
