Easter Sunday: They definitely celebrate Easter weekend over here and celebrate it the right way. Pretty much the whole country shuts down on Good Friday and then everyone and everything is closed on the Monday after Easter. A four day holiday…everyone. So, Easter Sunday was fun because we went over to the Gregerson’s (another missionary couple) late afternoon and had an Easter party. Last year, they had an easter egg dying contest between the group and David G. stood out above the crowd. He stood above and beyond also this year, but I believe that everyone else did pretty well to compete with him. Ba Linda made an easter bunny cake and let Jason and Bernard decorate it with jelly beans and icing.(I think Louisa also had fun decorating with jelly bellys) Ja-Ja was actually up for some fun with decorating, but Bernard (of course) was moody and pretty much just held his jelly beans in his hand. He didn’t have a problem helping David finish off the extra chocolate icing. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to attach pictures of this fun day, but no promises. After decorating, we moved the party outdoors to dye the local chicken eggs. As mentioned earlier, David pretty much showed off his skills of dying eggs and put the rest of us to shame. We had a wonderful dinner made by Linda consisting of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, bread and salad. It was so good and I pretty much stuffed myself and felt miserable afterwards, but also satisfied.


Monday: “WORLD TB DAY” was today! You are wondering what in the world is this holiday….Well, all over the world it is World Tuberculosis Day and I will describe how we celebrated this wonderful holiday. I know that you are wondering also why we do not get to celebrate this momentous occasion over in America and get a holiday. The reason is that pretty much not everyone in America has TB like over here or has the great potential to get it. First, we went to the clinic where the clinic staff received green shirts with the slogan “I can stop TB. You can stop TB. Help us.” (A great slogan (chuckle)) and some ladies were green chitenges (cloths used for skirts here in Zambia). Here is how the day began….We walked up to the fork in the road and then with a great crowd, we marched back to the clinic while we sang the official TB Day song. Yes, there is an actual song and I have pictures and video to prove it. When it seems that we can walk and sing no more because of the blazing heat, we finally get to the clinic and see that there are lots of chairs set up with the “big dogs” of the clinic and Namwianga sitting underneath a white tent. As Meagan, Louisa, and I start for the chairs that have been set up, from out of nowhere, one hundred Zambians storm past us and we don’t get chairs! We all start immediately laughing because we can’t even believe what has just happened. It was unbelievable. We sit on the ground and by the first hour, Meagan and I have been surrounded by children wanting to hang all over us. The purpose of TB Day is to educate the public in mostly skits and songs. The greatest thing is that really this day is one of the funnest (I know that isn’t a word Mom) days for the people that come to Namwianga clinic. They get educated and have a great time! For approximately 3 hours, we listened to skits and people tell about how their lives are so much better after finding treatment for their TB. The best part was having music and boody shakin’. Over here, they will give any excuse to have some shakin’ of the tailbone in the name of fun. There was a group of people that would play the drums and at random times people would just pop out of the audience to dance along to the music. Of course, you didn’t have to coerce us much to get us white people up to dance. I will say that when we stood up at the beginning of the program to go have a good time, that we definitely got a roar from the crowd. The rest of the day was a holiday so I can’t even remember what we did…

Tuesday: Louisa’s HIV outreach…This was the first time I have been privileged to go with Louisa on her outreach. Last summer, with the ACU mission team, they tested people on the outskirts of Kalomo for HIV (I can’t remember all the villages that they tested people). A couple of doctors from that mission team, including Jeff Mckinzie (Vandy ER doctor), wanted to somehow get a mobile HIV team going. After many months of hard work and trying to get funding, Louisa and her team of people have been traveling to these villages to give them transport money to get ARV’s (b/c all the medicine in Zambia is free!), to do teaching about HIV, and to bring them food. The team: Louisa-the clinical officer that assesses the people and prescribes whatever they may need; Mary- her assistant and translator, she’s hilarious; Rogers- an elder and leader in the community that counsels the HIV patients after and before Louisa sees them, he’s needed just as much or more as the medicine; Ba Zimba- the trusty driver. Just to give you a glimpse of this day…It usually takes at least an hour to get to any of these destinations. Once we get there, there is usually a group people waiting to see the team. Louisa sets up her little area (also known as her black trunk with medical supplies and a log to sit on) to assess the patients while Mary translates. My participation was very little. I mainly observed and helped Louisa with whatever she needed. I tried to give an injection to this little baby and medicine was way too thick for the size needle I had. So, the baby got poked for no reason, but we tried to help. It was kind of humorous, but I also felt a little bad. After Louisa is done with them, Rogers talks with each of them if he hasn’t already done so, and then we give them food /formula to take with them. Louisa’s sister and brother-in-law have started a website to raise money to feed these people. All around Zambia the crops were ruined this year because this last dry season was literally a drought and then there was too much rain this past rainy season and ruined all the maize. It’s amazing to drive to these places and see how many acres and acres of planted maize and it is all dried up and ruined or it never grew in the first place. Louisa started taking food to these people a couple of months ago because the ARV’s (anti-retrovirals) are so tough on their digestive systems. So, later I will put a plug in for her website if you would like to donate some money. Every family gets a bag of milly meal, oil, kapenta (dried little fish-they look nasty, but they love them), and a bag of beans. If they have infants, they provide them with enough formula till the next time they come so the mothers will not breast feed. Louisa is very close to the one family we helped that day. The wife of this family was very sick and her husband came to see Louisa to get his assessment and then get us to take his wife to the hospital in Kalomo. It was sad to see in his face how worried he was about his wife. As we were driving to her hut, it seemed as though this should be on another episode of ER. We are driving over walking paths as though they were paved roads to get to this hut. When we arrived, it was just so pitiful. She had felt bad for many days with coughing, diarrhea, and vomiting. She was barely able to walk she was so weak. She looked so tired and would have gone anywhere to get help. We drove her with her family in the back of our truck to Kalomo hospital to get her admitted. I had no idea how needed this mobile HIV team was until I actually saw it with my own eyes. They are doing so much good for people who need it and don’t have the resources to get help.

We drove back to the Namwianga clinic after dropping this family at Kalomo hospital to find that the Haven truck was at the clinic. We go in to find two more babies, Clifton and Patricia, on IV fluids because of dehydration related to diarrhea. Diarrhea is dangerous in little babies because how fast they can become dehydrated. Both of the babies were advised to stay overnight and so we picked up Meagan and we all go home to fix and eat dinner around 2130. Not an unusual occurrence to eat that late on days like that. Meagan had been at the clinic most of the day with the babies and also had not eaten and was just purely exhausted


Wednesday: I honestly don’t remember how we got to the clinic or if we had been to the orphanage first or not, but we were at the clinic to see Patricia and Clifton. Patricia was doing much better, but as we thought before, this was Clifton’s time to go. Meagan and I were there by ourselves in the room for a little while and then Kathy and her son Sterling came to see how everyone was doing. As we were looking at the babies, Clifton took his last breath. I listened to him and couldn’t hear a thing. I knew he had passed, but I needed someone else to listen so I got Louisa to come pronounce him.

I’m pretty sure the next couple of paragraphs will relate to my co-workers in the PCCU at Vandy. Some of the stories I may tell maybe sad in the scheme of life, but humorous overall because they actually happened. After you read them, I know some of you will understand. Sometimes you have to look at them in a different light or you would just cry all the time…. Meagan, Kathy and I all had to go work out arrangements to get Clifton to the morgue. As I found out this day, any baby they comes up dead here in Zambia has to go to the police department before you can take them to get pronounced at the hospital to be placed in the morgue. As I’m telling you about the happenings of this day, just think how unbelievable this is…We drive to the police department and have this baby wrapped up in a blanket. There are approximately 10 people in this building also there for different reasons. No other dead babies around. We had a couple of people ask if the baby was sick and all we could tell them was no and he wasn’t going to get better. It was a little frustrating because no one really knew what form to fill out or how to help us at first. Then a man from out of nowhere starting bossing people around came to help us. He pulls out this form and no lie…it says at the top “Brought in Dead”. They literally have a BID form. Can you imagine if we had to take every dead child or person first to the police office first to fill out a form, then to the hospital for them to pronounce him in front of a bunch of people and then they could be placed in the morgue. Well we did. After leaving the police station, we go to Kalomo hospital. Meagan knows a bunch of the clinical officers there because she has to take the HIV babies for review, so we get to bypass a very long line.help. To get the clinical officer, we have walk at least 4-5 times with Clifton by all these people waiting to see the doctor. We can barely pass them it is so crowded. After we get to his office, he assess Clifton and then uses his cell phone light as his pen light. No lie. He then leads Meagan to an office where she has to fill out more paperwork while I am left with Clifton in his office while this other lady is seeing this lady and she is complaining about her bladder problem. Directly in front of me while I am holding this baby. There was no shame and no recognition that I was holding Clifton. I waited for about ten minutes when this man comes to me and just waves for me to follow him. Again, I get to shuffle by this massive crowd of people. This man is walking so fast that I almost can’t keep up with him because walking in my skirt will not allow it. Remember, I’m still holding Clifton while following him at a slow jog. We walked up this path to this building with a lock on it. Little do I know that he is leading me to the morgue! He unlocks the door, opens the double door and immediately I am hit with this stinch that is vaguely familiar. I see a cooler and before I can react, he apologizes for the smell. The cooler is opened and I just hope that I will not faint.(For all of you that know my Baja Burrito fainting story…I didn’t come close to fainting like that) There was a rotting corpse on one of the bottom shelves and the man just points to the shelf where I have to leave Clifton. I gently placed him on the shelf and then am startled because I just placed my hand in some unknown fluid. I really don’t know what it was and nor do I care to know, but I just got out of there as soon as possible. I walk away just dumbfounded at what I had to do. I still chuckle to myself because I can’t believe this day.

Thursday – Sunday: We traveled once again to Lusaka, but this time for a missionary retreat. Missionaries from Namwianga went to Mi Peppe bible school where the French family hosted multiple missionary couples and families from Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania. It was an amazing experience to get to hear from missionaries such as the Alison’s that have worked in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda for over 30 years; to hear from Sondra and Brian Davis who are working in northern Zambia; and from the French’s who have been helping the bible college get off the ground. Louisa and I traveled downtown on Friday to get approved by the nursing board of Zambia and to also order meds for Northreach. This pretty much took most of the day and also just took too much time as usual. I have more stories from all of this because I have too tired to write.