aromatherapy

I got some aromatherapy candles in the mail today (thank you, Stacy!)
and am currently imbibing the manufactured smell of Vitality, which I
figured I needed after a 2 hour walk back from where my bike got a flat
tire on the way to meet the man who could sell me a door to build the
backboard for the basketball court, turning a 10 minute project into an
afternoon affair. Africa does provide its own aromatherapy much of the
time, from the smell of human sweat (maybe not your idea of
aromatherapy), the smell of burning rubber that we get in the dry season
from the hospital trash pit, or the smell of automobile exhaust that
seems to pervade third world cities. On the other hand, there's the
smell of frangipani (reminds me of the smell of a newly opened pack of
SweetTarts), or maybe fresh basil in my garden, or the smell of overripe
mangoes sitting underneath the trees. I was reading an article about
'smellscapes', where you hire someone to come decorate your home and
suggest smell 'palettes' for each room, or for special occasions, and so
forth. I can't help but think that we've divorced ourselves a little
bit too much from reality at that point. But I'll enjoy the extra dose
of Vitality here while I can.

strings and paper cups

That's about the level of communications these days at Mukinge,
Hopefully our phone system will be up and running soon, the internet
guys coming tomorrow will be able to solve our internet problems, and
the lightning will lay off for a day or two to allow the electrical
system to stabilize.

the keeper of the balls

No, not another off-color reference to the cat neutering....

John Griffiths (and family) left yesterday, appointing me the de facto
sports czar for Mukinge. While we are still working on getting the
tennis court surface finished -- a difficult task given the amount of
rain we've had -- I'm now the proud owner of more sports equipment than
I've probably ever had in my life: basketball, soccerball, rugby ball
(!), volleyball, and several frisbees, not to mention the volleyball and
tennis court net. I say owner, although I'm merely the regulator of all
things sports now, since I have no intention of ever keeping any of
these things. Anyway, I got a little bit of insight into the shifting
world of playground politics as I lent the soccerball to some kids,
expecting to have it returned. No such thing happened, and the next day
some more kids came asking for another ball. I, with visions of an
incipient runaway ball orgy centered around my garden shed, asked for
the first ball to be returned before further balls would be lent out.
This led to a 30 minute discussion with the various tribes of kids on my
doorstep as they accused each other of various things like selling off
the balls, hiding them in their gardens, promises from the departed
Griffiths family to bequeath various balls to different kids, and so
forth. I felt especially bad for some kid named Mpungo, who was
actually the lucky recipient of a soccerball, but who was now disowned
by all of the kids as being no-one's friend, therefore meaning that
no-one could play with his ball, so they needed another one. I'm sure
that just one day ago poor Mpungo had a few friends, but now I'm
picturing him in some lonely front yard kicking his ball to himself.

Well, if the first day is any indication, it will be a short-lived
tenure as the sports czar, except for maybe the basketball and tennis
net. We'll see....

chicken wars

chicken wars, originally uploaded by mattcotham.

Small business enterprise is very common among most people that live in
the area. It's easy to see why a program like the World Bank's
microlending program could reap a lot of benefits around, especially
when local bank interest rates are in the 20% range and to just own a
bank account will cost something like $100/ year for a country that has
an average annual income of around double that. Anyway, one of the
most common things to do is to raise chickens. This started with just
one family a few years ago, but now there are around 5 staff members who
have a little business raising chickens to sell to people around the
area. That's all great, but when the hospital starts buying chickens
for the hospital to feed patients, it can become very dicey quickly
about who you're going to buy from, how many you will buy, and so on.
We've had to establish a 'chicken rotation' to make sure we keep the
peace, and everyone gets a chance to sell off their chickens. Of
course, chickens running wild are free game....

man in chains

I was rounding in the female ward this week when a man wandered in and
began singing a few hymns on the ward. It not being the usual visiting
hours, I was curious as to what he was doing there, but as the hymns
weren't particularly boisterous (no Onward, Christian Soldiers here) and
he left after just one song, I didn't really follow it up. Talking with
some of the other staff later in the day, I learned that he was one of
the locally known mentally disturbed patients that lives in the nearby
community. What's more, I was surprised to learn that he lives his life
with a manacle around his left leg. John, one of our docs here at the
hospital, assumed this was some sort of dramatic oversight and sent him
to the workshop to have it removed, but as it turns out, like Jacob
Marley he's condemned to live his life with a shackle around his leg
because the family refuses to have it taken off. They say that when he
gets more unbalanced, they need to be able to chain him up to one of the
trees in their front yard, where he is left for a few days until he
comes back to his senses. This rather byzantine arrangement is by no
means uncommon in the area, where people who are delusional or mentally
ill are routinely labeled as possessed by demons and locked away until
they 'get over it', at least for a little while.

fixing the cat

fixing the cat, originally uploaded by mattcotham.

I decided that it was time to change the cat's name back to Charlie from
Randy, so we decided to neuter him last week. David and I watched a 5
minute DVD of a vet in California castrating about 10 cats in under 5
minutes, and then I gave him an injection in his back, threw him in the
closet, and when he was out of it we strapped him down with a towel to
my ironing board and did the deed. It's about the simplest operation
you can imagine; it's easy to understand how those vets do 200 in a day
at the local animal shelters. Anyway, he recovered out back in the
shed, and the next day he's back purring and hanging around my door, so
I guess there's no hard feelings.

winds of change

It's been a pretty encouraging time here at Mukinge over the past few
weeks as we continue to improve the hospital and make some changes
here. Thanks to many donations from overseas, we've been able to finish
the expansion and rehab of one of our staff houses here and are starting
on two more in the next month. We're in the middle of building a new
dormitory for the nursing training college with funds from the Zambian
government. We have secured funds from the Churches Association of
Zambia and are building a gift shop to help bring in income for the
hospital and hopefully for local villagers as well. We have also
managed to find funds from the Biet Trust to build a new four-plex
apartment complex here at the hospital to improve our staff housing.
We've also been blessed to buy a new water pump thanks in part to
donations from home and finally install it after 9 months of struggling
so that around 20 of our staff members can have water and electricity
where they have been without for 9 months. I have managed to almost
finish the rehabilitation of the tennis court, which is looking
Wimbelton-worthy. We have purchased and installed a new internal
wireless phone which allows us to roam around the hospital and mission
station when on call, which is incredibly freeing and makes you feel
like you can get out and around without too much pain. We have also
managed to secure funding from Catholic Relief Services to finalize the
internet project here so that all of the staff homes at Mukinge will
have wireless access -- around 200 Zambians and ex-pats alike. Soon we
will embark on a rehabilitation of the administration block funded by
some donors of Lynn, our anesthetist nurse.
It's fun to be a part of things when they are moving forward. It feels
like we're able to make some headway on some projects that have been
maybe sitting dormant for too long. Thanks again for your support.