A Day in the Life

Today was an adventure! We were privileged to visit our cook’s grandmother in the bush. This morning at 7:30 headed out to start our 30 minute walk to her home. When we arrived Grandma came running out to meet us literally shouting and dancing with joy! I have never seen a 70 year old women move like that! She and her family greeted each one of us and welcomed us to her home. She pulled tarps into the shade for us to sit on and proceeded to thank God for brining us to visit her. In the Zambian culture it speaks volumes when someone comes to your home for a visit, so when a group of 20 came just to see her she was overjoyed.

We sat, chatted, played games with the children (Grandma’s great grandchildren) and sang songs. We also were able to help the family by brining buckets to the bore hole to draw water. We walked about 15 minutes each way and even attempted to balance the full buckets on our heads. Much harder than it looks. I don't get how these people make it look so easy!

Around 10:00 we saw the women had started a fire in the kitchen which was a hut just a few feet away from the home. Turns out that they were preparing lunch for us! A few of us helped prepare the food. We were served small fish that they cooked over the fire (bones, scales, eyeballs and all), rape (a vegetable similar to spinach - took a while for us to get used to the name), and nshima (this white puddy like food made out of corn). I have never met anyone more hospitable than this family.  

Grandma and her adorable great granddaughter Ruthie

At the bore hole getting water

Prepping our meal

 Fish, rape and nshima

Doing dishes

There were cows in their backyard...

Here are a few random photos too!

Zambian toilet paper

Our vicious guard dog at our Zimba house

Just kidding :)

Scrubs on scrubs on scrubs. It's like 16 nurses are living here...

Zimba market

Popsicles from the corner store

Today we also visited a community that has been funded my College Wesleyan Church - IWU's campus church. They have a school (Preschool through 7th grade) and a church. It was so cool to see what the church has been funding. So this is a Zambian speciality drink. It is made from corn and some root that we are not sure the name of. We weren't the biggest fans but the sweet people made enough to last our team for month at least  They sent us home with a whole bucket full!

That is all for now. Until next time!

Zimba!

Hi all! On Sunday we arrived at our new home in Zimba and so far we love it here! Our house in smack dab in the middle of everything. The hospital is across the street, the schools are down the road and it is only a three minute walk to the market. We have it made! 

The house is a mission house. It is run by Jesse and Selinda Van Horn of Global Parnters. They have been here for four years now. Here is a website where you can learn about the Van Horns and their mission.

www.twoservingandsharing.blogspot.com

The team is enjoying the simple pleasures too. We are able to drink the water right from the faucet at this house! And eat the ice! Cold drinks was something that we missed terribly in Choma.

We start clinical in the morning! Since we started clinical late because of the issue with indexing ourselves in Zambia, we are behind on clinical hours so we will be going to clinical 3-4 times a week. Prayers for stamina please!

Here are a few photos of Zimba!

Our family room. Nice, huh?!

We watched the sunset as a team tonight!

More to come!

On Tuesday we finally started clinical at Choma General Hospital! Because we are such a big group we divided off into pairs and were assigned a unit. Some girls went to the theater (Aka the operating room), women's clinic, men’s clinic, obstetrics, pediatrics, mental health and outpatient. My partner Lindsey and I were at the cervical cancer screening and male circumcision center. 

Here is a very blurry photo of Lindsey and me...

Since it was our first day at the hospital our professors wanted us to play more of an observer role. At the start of clinical were able to watch and learn the procedure of screening for cervical cancer. One of the nurses who was working was so sweet and talked to us for a long time about cervical cancer, and the prevalence of HIV and AIDS in Zambia.

Something really interesting that we learned was that any and all medications, tests, treatment and doctor visits pertaining to HIV are completely free for the public. This is because HIV is so prevent here in Zambia and this is one way to hopefully educate, prevent the spread and treat the symptoms of HIV.  

A first day of clinical photo was obviously a must!

On Wednesday our team visited Airport Community school.  This school was completely funded and run by the community. There are over 700 of the most amazing children at this school. The school principle gave us a tour and talked about the history of the school and then we were free to hang out with the kids. And let me tell you, it was a blast! The school choir sang us a few songs and then our team got up and sang them one too! 

I have tons of photos and videos from that day but unfortunately due to an issue with the camera’s memory stick, I am not able to upload them. The photos on here now are from some of the other girl's cameras. When I finally am able to I will post them and try to link this post to it so you remember what the photos were from.

Thursday was our second clinical day. I was in pediatrics along with Kristen. It was so hard to see the kids so sick in bed. Many of them were in for severe malnutrition and dehydration. We talked to the nurse and she said that this was mostly caused by lack of parental education. They do not know that giving their kids sweeties (candy) is not going to provide them with the proper nutrients that they need. It was heartbreaking seeing the mothers with their children, not understanding why they were so sick when they feed them what they think is good for them.

On a happier note, I have some great Valor news to share! When Valor was discharged from the NICU the doctor thought that maybe his fontanelles in his skull had closed already which shouldn’t of happened until he was 3 or 4 months. If true, this would negatively effect his brain’s ability to grow. Yesterday Kara and Nick took Valor to see a neuro specialist in downtown Chicago and by the grace of God, Valor’s results came back PERFECT! This has been a great reminder that God cares for and protects each one of his children. Thank you Jesus for being a truly amazing Father.

Praising God today for a beautiful, completely heathy and sweet baby boy. Not that I am wishing the rest of my trip away but I get to see this precious peanut in 53 days!

Well, off to class! Until next time :)

Choma, Zambia

Well, it has been a while since I posted an African blog and that is partially because it has been crazy here! We have gotten to do and experience so much since we got to Choma. 

On our 6 hour drive from Lusaka to Choma we stopped at a market on the side of the road. As soon as our bus pulled in there were dozens, and I mean DOZENS, of people crowded around the bus holding up their items to sell. Talk about overwhelming.

A few days in to our time here in Choma our whole team had to travel to Macha (a town about an hour away) to get ourself indexed into the school of nursing’s records. This needed to be done in order to start our clinicals. While in Macha we were able to go to yet another market (If you haven't noticed, we like markets). This one was not touristy at all so when the locals saw a herd of white people marching into the market, you better believe they gawked. I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I heard the word mizungu, the tonga word for white people. Somehow our shopping at the market turned a Zambian dance party! Don’t ask me how that happened! We laughed, sang songs and learned how to dance like a true Zambian!

Later we were able to visit the orphanage here in Choma. Again, the second our bus pulled in the kids started to run to the bus! We had a blast playing, talking and just loving on those sweet kids. 

Also, I took some photos of our Choma home for you all to see!

 

Here is a photo of me in one of my new chitenges. Ignore the ironic model-like wind blowing my chitenge…

The internet here is close to nonexistent so I will try my best to post often!

Oh! And for those wondering, my sister and baby Valor have both been discharged from the hospital and are doing well! Thanks for your prayers!

Here is another for good measure ;) He melts my heart.