primitive is relative.

I have probably started blog posts on five different topics over the last couple weeks, but I haven't felt like I could finish them - either the words just weren't coming, or I wanted to give some more time for my thoughts to marinate a little. So, instead, for today, I'll just share a quick thought.

I'm guessing that when most American doctors first visit the Bongolo Hospital, they consider it somewhat primitive. No large air-conditioned buildings, no widespread food or laundry service, no motorized beds and call buttons for in-patients. And though I believe it's absolutely amazing what God has built here and the wide scope of services provided, they're probably right - by American standards, it is primitive.

But today I attended the graduation ceremony and reception of Jean Claude Bataneni, who just completed his surgical residency at Bongolo. He was here with the PAACS (Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons) program. Tomorrow, he and his wife (also a doctor) and his two children are traveling back to his home country, Democratic Republic of Congo (also called Congo-Kinshasa, formerly Zaire), to work at the Nebobongo Evangelical Hospital. Outside of the operating room, there is no electricity and no running water. Compared to Bongolo, Nebobongo is primitive:

The area served is among the poorest in the DRC. The hospital has existed for the last 45-50 years as an orphan ministry with only intermittent outside support. The fees the patients pay do not cover the basic needs of the hospital. So more often than not, the staff does not receive a full salary. Yet the indigenous Christian community remains dedicated to the mission of keeping the hospital open. The pharmacy is never fully stocked and many repairs are deferred for lack of funds. The lab lacks most basic testing equipment.

The hospital is off the national power grid. So aside from the operating room which has a solar electric unit on the roof, the rest of the hospital has no electricity. They cannot afford the repairs or the cost of the diesel fuel to run the generator they have.

There is no running water outside the operating room. The steam to sterilize instruments is generated by wood fires. There is no sewage disposal system, so the hospital uses outdoor pit latrines.
(Source)

I think primitive, like a lot of other things, is relative.

life in africa (part 3).

My friend Melissa asked a great question about the food that I eat here in Africa. And I've also gotten a lot of experience with getting around the city over the last couple weeks, so I thought I'd share about both of those.

(Want to know more about day-to-day life here in Gabon? Read part 1 and part 2.)

Food


I live with Americans, so most of the time we eat a lot of the same food I would eat in the US. It's difficult to find prepared foods (though we do have some things from the last container order) but most everything else is available, at least for a price. The only things I really miss are berries (of any kind, but especially strawberries) and tortillas.

When I'm out during the day, I'll either eat something simple like fruit (bought from one of the roadside stands) or bean sandwiches (red beans, sauce, onions, and sometimes tomatoes or avocado on french bread). When we get together with our friends from OSPAC (the medical clinic), they make dinner - rice with a tomato sauce, chicken, and this fantastic peanut sauce are my favorites. They also usually served boiled plantains (which aren't bad) and manioc (a root vegetable, kind of like a potato).

Sometimes we get street food - chicken pieces, patates (fried sweet potatoes), and banans (fried bananas or plantains), all of which are so good!


Transportation


For the first month that I was here, we hired a driver to pick me up each morning and take me to Hope House, and then to pick me up at Hope House and bring me home. Unfortunately, though, he wanted too much money, so for the last several weeks I've been using taxis and taxi buses to get where I need to go (now that I know my way around at least a little, and I can speak and understand enough French to get by...most of the time).

My roommate Hannah told me that every time she rides in a taxi bus, she thinks of Shakira's song Hips Don't Lie - and it's very accurate! Taxi buses are bigger than a minivan, but smaller than a typical 15-passenger van. Nineteen people fit in each one - the driver and two passengers in the front, and four people across the four rows in the back (including the person responsible for opening the sliding door). Each morning that I go to Hope House, I walk down the street to the taxi bus stop and take a bus to Rio, then cross the street (not easy!) and look for a bus going to PK12 (after which I can walk to Hope House). It's not always easy - sometimes there are more people than taxis, so it's a bit of a shoving match to get a place on one. Plus you have to be careful of pickpockets, especially in busy places like Rio.

Sometimes, when I need to take a few kids to a medical clinic, we'll take a small taxi. They're a little trickier, because you need to negotiate with the driver on how far he'll go and how much you'll pay. It's also not really safe for me to take one by myself, so I usually only do when I'm with one of my translators.

when it's not my story to tell.

One of the things I struggle with as I'm learning these kids' stories, is whether I have the right to share them. Some (many) of them are quite tragic, and there's a part of me that honestly wants to put them out here - to pull on your heart strings as they have pulled on mine, and to remind us all of the hard things that people all over the world face.

Yet, these aren't my stories, and so maybe they're not my stories to tell. After all, I would find it very odd if a friend were to write about the hard things of my life, even if I was willing to share it myself. It seems odd, doesn't it?

But here's the more important thing - while each of these children has a story of heartbreak, they also have a story that He has written, and that He is writing. It's a story of freedom, of redemption, and of hope. And maybe in the interest of trying to move people, to motivate them to give or even just realize how blessed they are, we neglect to tell that story.

I'm still wrestling through this one, and I'd love to hear feedback. What do you think? 

life in africa (part 2).

Here is more information about life here in Libreville (see part 1).

Climate

Right now Gabon is in the dry season. It is almost always cloudy, but rarely rains. The average temperature in Libreville for June - August is between 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit, so it's really not that hot. The rainy season starts in September. I haven't been here during that time (yet).

Libreville is a city of around 800,000 to 900,000 people, and it comes with all of things you'd expect in an urban setting - traffic, crazy taxi drivers, and pollution. In addition, there's little to no regulation or monitoring of diesel or car emissions. And, sometimes, people clear out fields by burning them. So, sometimes it kind of stinks outside.

Bugs

Before we came to Africa last year, I got several immunizations - Yellow Fever (required for entry into Gabon), Hepatitis A (first of two in the series), Meningococal, and Typhoid - and an updated Tetanus shot. Luckily, most of those vaccines are good for a few years, so I didn't need to complete any more (I had already taken care of the second Hep-A shot earlier in the year. I also take anti-malaria medication (Doxycycline) daily.

The biggest threat, of course, are mosquitoes. We have mosquito screens on all the windows at the house. I have bug spray for my clothing and lotion for my skin that I use most days. Mosquitoes are more of an issue during the wet season and at night. There are also bufudus - tiny bugs that you can't see, but that leave little bites on your skin that itch long after they've gone - but these are more of an issue in the jungle or at Bongolo.

Worms are also a common problem here. As a matter of fact, every patient who comes to the medical clinics at OSPAC gets worm medication, no matter what complaint brings them to the clinic in the first place. So we carefully wash produce, use filtered water, and wash our hands thoroughly before handling food. I also don't walk on the ground outside without shoes (to avoid worms that live just under your skin).

The estimated HIV infection rate in Gabon is between five and ten percent (ranked 14th in the world, according to the CIA World Factbook), so to be safe I also make sure any open cuts are covered with a bandage, especially when I'm going to be spending time at Hope House (at least until we've been able to get HIV tests for all of them).

It all sounds like a lot of extra work and precautions, but it's really not, I promise.

What other things would you like to know?

life in africa (part 1).

When I started making plans to come to Africa, I called Verizon to find out if my cell phone would work here. A representative told me that they had no cell towers in Africa. He said, "Think about it - who would want to build a cell tower with a lion chasing you?"

I think (and hope) that he was joking, but it is true that there are a lot of assumptions and misconceptions about life in Africa. Before coming last year, I expected everything to look like the scenery in the Lion King. But Africa is a big continent, full of cities and villages, jungles and deserts, humid and dry places. I thought I would take a few posts to write about the reality of life here in Libreville, and also to answer a few of the more common questions I've heard.

The House

I currently live in the Envision mission house in Owendo, a suburb (-ish) of Libreville. It's a big house, meant to house quite a few people (one night this summer, we had 42 people sleeping here, but that is an extreme example). Upstairs there is a big living/dining room, kitchen, office, laundry room, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms. I either have a room to myself or share it with one other person, depending on who is living here at any given time. Leanne and Hannah use the other two bedrooms.

Downstairs has pretty much the same set-up, with a (very long) dining room that we use when there are teams here, and a bunkhouse and extra bathroom for the guys (girls stay in the bedrooms that mirror the three bedrooms we have upstairs).

There is no air-conditioning, so we use fans to stay cool. It's not too much of an issue now, since this is the dry season (more about that another day). And over time, your body really does become more accustomed to the temperature, I think. I hope.

Our house is surrounded by a wall and we have a guard here most of the day and night. This isn't really so much because it's unsafe, but because we're considered wealthy (and really, we are) so this is expected. Thought I have to be honest - I find it a relief, especially when I'm here on my own. Paul (the day/weekend guard) and Sam (the night guard) also take care of the cats, the puppy we're currently babysitting, and all of the gardening (we have bananas, plantains, mangoes, pineapple, sugar cane, and avocado).

Water

There are plenty of places in Africa without running water, and many more without any access to clean water. Thankfully, Libreville isn't one of them!

We do have city water for most of the day - it comes on around 6am and (usually) shuts off around 6pm. We have a water pump and two reservoirs that we turn on when/if the water shuts off (sometimes it doesn't). When there are teams here, we ask everyone to only shower before dinner to avoid using all of reserved water, and then around midnight the guard will turn off the pump for the night.

We do have both a washer and a dryer (two of each, actually) but because gas is really expensive, we line-dry our clothes, either outside or on a drying rack. If we dry them outside, we bring them inside and run in them dryer for 20 minutes, to get rid of any mango worms. It's a bit more work, but there is something about hanging my clothes outside to dry that I actually like.

The water isn't really safe to drink (though we do use it for brushing our teeth), so we have a filter and fill bottles of water from there for drinking. Bottled water is also readily available (if not very cheap).

I've got another post planned about climate and bugs, but are there other things you'd like to know? Anything I'm missing?

pk27.

One of the most exciting things going on with the Gabonese national church is a project called PK27. This is a 25-hectare (approximately 60 acres) campus located just outside of Libreville that will eventually be the center for all of the social ministries of the church: Hope House, OSPAC (the medical clinic), RBI (the eye clinic), and many, many others. This is the master plan:

Right now, though, it's a jungle:

One day last week, I walked around the property with Pastor Israel and some of the kids at Hope House (Steve Straw and his two interns walked with us part of the way, then stopped to clear out some of the jungle with machetes).

I can't describe how thrilling it was to walk around this space and dream about what it will eventually become. The leaders of the church really believe that God will use them to change their country, and they're not afraid to attempt big things in pursuit of that. It's humbling and inspiring.

for me.

Most Africans I've met love to sing and dance, and the kids at Hope House are no exception. Every day when I arrive, after greeting me, someone inevitably asks if I've brought my MP3 player (la musique, they say, while pointing to their ears to indicate the headphones). They pass it around and sometimes share it, with each one using one ear piece.

Thursday, during what was a more emotional day for me, I was listening to the music with one ear while Naomi (age 8) used the other ear piece. This song came on:

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are his
You're beautiful

I looked at her and wondered, does she know this is true? That she is beautiful and treasured in his sight? I even thought this would be a wonderful song to use in a video, with photos of the kids that I have come to love.

Then God tapped me on the shoulder. This isn't just a message for her, he said, it's a message for you. You are beautiful. You're my daughter and I love you. I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, and you are mine.

Sometimes I get so caught up in the ministry that I neglect the relationship. I'm so grateful that he is faithful to remind me.

hope house beach day.

For the last few weeks, several of the kids at Hope House have been asking me when I was going to take them to the beach. Even though Libreville is right on the Atlantic Ocean and there are several beaches that are readily accessible, this was not an easy question to answer.

For one thing, there are currently 24 kids living at Hope House (there are several more who are visiting their families during the break from school).

Some of these kids are younger (the youngest is 4 years old), and of course, if you're going to take them to the beach, it's very important to make sure that they don't drown.

Many are teenage boys, and though they all told me that they could swim, I didn't necessarily believe them - because teenage boys are known for overestimating their athletic abilities, no matter what continent they live on.

But several of the people living here at the Envision center were willing to help, so we decided to try.

Then it was on to the next problem - how to actually transport them to the beach.

So we hired a taxi bus.

One taxi bus. Because the other one we planned to hire had some mechanical problems.

A taxi bus is about the same size as a 15-passenger van. In Gabon, these hold 19 people - 17 passengers, the driver, and the guy who opens the door. We crammed 28 people in there.

But we did it, and the kids had a blast!

how to define family.

"They're orphans," she told me. "Their mother and father are dead. Their mother's family doesn't want them, and their father's family doesn't, either. They have no one."

"They have you," I said.

we must go.

We must go
Live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go

Stepping forward
Keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go