seed distribution continued

seed distribution continued, originally uploaded by mattcotham.

One of our hospital chaplains, Daisy Munguya, sharing with the crowd
about Joseph and the famine in Egypt.

seed distribution continued

seed distribution continued, originally uploaded by mattcotham.

Some of our ward attendants teaching everyone how to cook porridge with
peanuts mixed in....

more pictures

more pictures, originally uploaded by mattcotham.

seed distribution

seed distribution, originally uploaded by mattcotham.

These past two weeks have seen the distribution of all those seeds I
posted on the blog last week. It's been a great opportunity to spend
time with the communities, get other glimpses into local village life
(entertaining the local headmen, etc), and spread the love of God in the
places that we've been. I'm gonna post a few pictures so you get the
flavor....

The Glostavent

The Glostavent, originally uploaded by mattcotham.

The Glostavent -- perhaps the sequel to The Groundnuts Project -- is the
name for our new anesthesia machine. It arrived about a week ago and we
had a visiting anesthesiologist come out to show us the ropes the first
part of this week. It's been great -- although a little bit expensive
it's perfect for our environment and will be fantastic for what we're
doing here. It should help us to give safer anesthesia and smoother
anesthesia as well, especially for some patients who are more ill and
can't withstand the usual drugs that we give. What a great gift to the
hospital -- thanks to all of you who helped contribute to make this happen!

out with a bang

Haven't been writing all that much for a while -- perhaps it's best to
be winding down a little bit with the blogging and honestly after two
years I'm not sure that I have much more to say. The last few weeks
will be a tough transition for me -- transitions are always tough, I
think -- and I'm going 'flat out' as David likes to say trying to spend
time learning about our new anesthesia machine, get the restaurant
finally open, get all these seeds packed, transported, and distributed,
cover the 4 wards in the hospital that I'm responsible for, get the HIV
study off the ground, and manage to get my stuff distributed, packed and
on it's way. This week and next will be especially busy as the
groundnuts project finally draws close to the end, meaning that I will
just be remaining with a few things left on my list. I wouldn't have it
any other way, however.

The groundnuts project

The groundnuts project, originally uploaded by mattcotham.

The Groundnuts Project -- sounds like a 60's band. I spent last Friday
traveling with the hospital truck to a nearby district to pick up around
4,000kg of seeds for peanuts and soybeans to bring back for seed
distribution this week. It's been kind of a madhouse with staying up
late to pack up seeds, leaving early in the morning the next day to
travel out to the villages and do the distribution ceremony, and cover
my inpatient duties at the hospital. We ended up moving around a total
of around 8,000kg of seeds, which has been developing my back and
stomach muscles -- Zambians have such good core strength, I think it
comes from hoeing and hauling around 50kg sacks of maize! You could
continue to pray that people feel the love of God through the work at
the hospital and through these gifts of seeds, and that there will be a
good harvest for the families that plant them.