one giant bee against two frightened girls(the bee won)

Hello from Zambia today is a beautiful day, like everyday. I am starting to feel the heat; it is starting to get warmer and warmer everyday. This blog I promise won’t be as long. Now that I have gotten into a routine not many new things happen.

Robert playing ball

At the hospital this morning I got a chance to hangout with Robert, the little boy that had surgery on his arm. Canada Rebecca thought it would be a good idea if I played ball with him. We found a tennis ball and Frisbee and played catch. It was so great to see him laugh and smile again, it is so contagious. First I made it fun by throwing it back and forth; I started making him throw between things and was not letting him use his other hand. What has happened is that he has kept his arm a certain way again and now it is starting to become contractured again. For all those who don’t know what that is, it is when you don’t use a muscle and the muscle memory starts staying like that, so if we do nothing, his arm will permanently stay in that position. That would not be good for a little boy, it will be hard for him to work when he gets older that is why these games we so important. He needs to try and start moving his arm a little bit everyday. We played for about 35 minutes, we had quite a crowd watching us, all laughing and cheering when he did good and bad. I taught him to play baseball, bowling, Frisbee and I even put a pop bottle on a swing and made him try to hit it and knock it off (he liked that one.) By the end of the 30 minutes he was moving his arm a lot better; that means there is hope for his arm. I told him he needed to exercise his arm everyday for 30 min. I gave him the ball to play with; hopefully he does it when I am not there this weekend. I might have to do a sneak attack on him tomorrow to make sure he is doing it (or no more sweets for him.) Harry and I might try and organize a game tomorrow with the kids in the hospital, they never play any games, and they don’t get the chance to be kids, we will see how it goes, with little words we do know in Lunda/Luvale.

a little boy on traction, has to stay like that for a month

After tea, I followed Martin around again. I learned how to put on casts. His first patient was a 17 year old boy; he broke his tibia in his leg, very painful. I administered Ketamine to the boy (the sedative they use); I finally got a chance to really see how this medicine works. This guy had me cracking up, what happens with the medication is it knocks you out in 15-30 sec, but you are still awake (this was so weird for me, we don’t use stuff like this in the US.) So his eyes are open but he is not responding, so Martin starts to dress his leg. The boy starts to mumble and then starts to talk; it was like he was day dreaming. He started talking in his own language saying his heart was beating fast (martin had to tell me that ha-ha still not to good), then he started talking in English; that took me by surprise. He started saying “sister, why are you laughing at me.” I told him “I am not laughing at you,” “yes you are” he said. His eyes were wide open; but aren’t looking at you. Then the kid started spitting, apparently they spit when given this drug and vomit and sometimes sweat as a side effect (very interesting.) about 30 minutes later Martin and I were finished and we got his friends to wheel him back to his room, spitting all the way back.

                                                        This is my dearest friend, robert
His other patient was a much younger boy, just crying his eyes out when he saw the needle I brought in. This young kid broke his arm and was needed a cast too. He was crying and I was holding his hand singing to him, trying to get him to look at me and not at the needle. It worked and within a few sec he stopped crying and was out, eyes wide open and everything (still freaks me out.) This cast took no time at all, it wrapped it up, waited for it to dry and he was done. It was very cool seeing how the cast was made; you just don’t get to see these things in America. After, I put a lollipop in his pocket because he was still knocked out. I got a marker out and started drawling and writing on his cast to make it prettier. I figured out how to spell “Jesus Loves you” in Lunda to write on his cast, I wrote when he needed to come back to get the cast removed. It was quite fun just doodling away, he will have something to read when he wakes up. It is so nice being able to openly talk about Jesus and His love here, well it is a mission hospital, but still, they are so open to it!

the boys cast

After work Harry and I had a delicious meal at Joy Beers’s house and a wonderful cake after. We ended up finding put there was an old pool behind there house, so after lunch we brought our books and towels and went to soak up the sun again. I could not relax because this was this rascal bee that kept flying around us. If some one could of videoed us, they would have had a laugh. Here we are screaming because this bee keeps looking like it is kamacazing us and buzzing around our heads. I know what you’re thinking it is just a bee, but this bee was huge and black and loud, and we had no idea if it was poisonous or not, we had a good reason, we were acting like girls. Harriett and I then went to a prayer meeting and now are at a girl’s night tonight. We are going to have dinner, popcorn and a movie, I love Fridays, especially since tomorrow is Saturday and I don’t have to get up early. Well, I better go, hoping to get up pictures tonight, using a different computer tonight to see if I can figure it out since I have so many I want to post!!!

                                                                 Our new lay-out spot :)
-by the way I added some pictures on the last 2 posts