Woke up around 7am today and checked in with Dr. Keong, who's on call. They rotate call on the weekends, and they don't round the same way as they do in the week. He said nothing really interesting was going on, and we should get acclimated and check in with Sarah to see if any community work was going on. Enter the mudding. But first I'll mention that Olivia, a girl from the other family here, made some pancakes this morning for us, so that was a good start to the day. Then Kara and Stephanie came by and asked if we wanted to go mud houses with them and Sarah. Ummmm yes? Sounds awesome. I miss good hard labor actually, does the body some good.
They warned me I would get muddy, but I was pretty prepared. I brought some nice hiking boots down with me and also some gaiters, so I was prepped and ready for the mud. We had to fill 75L worth of containers with water and I pushed the wheelbarrow a ways to a giant pit of mud, where we dumped it and started making some good ol' wet mud. Then we scooped it up with our hands and started basically forming bricks on the walls of the stick house. They had started the house and were mostly done, but we had a good 4-5 hours of work that we did. It was fun because all the village kids came out and started helping us and wanted to take pictures with us, and they started a mud fight with Jason and Noah. Definitely hot, messy work -- but It's what they do to live so it's a great public health experience as well for me to start getting a grip on what I'm dealing with in these communities. It's definitely why all these people are so fit. Their daily lives involve hard labor as just the normal. I was like, yes a workout for the day! And they're like, this is why we don't need to workout! Really glad I got this Olympus Tough camera before I left (thanks mom and dad) because it's indestructible, mud proof, and water proof. So I didn't have to worry about pulling it out and taking pictures even though it was wet and muddy by the end. I got some good videos too of how it works, so I'll be excited to share those with you in the future too.
We got back and took much needed showers. Those boots and gaiters worked super well because I was clean underneath at all (though drenched from sweat, so clean is a relative term here). We then headed to the Samatou's for lunch. Joyce and Henri - she's a family practice doc from Hong Kong and he's a surgeon from Gabon, and together they run an eye surgery clinic. They have 3 totally awesome little kids (I am going to butcher spelling here, sorry), Cherissa (9), Ezra (6 I think), and Karis (4 I believe). They're actually looking for a teacher for a year to come down and live and teach, and are offering a stipend, so if you know of anyone looking to do some international volunteering who has teaching skills, you should let me know. These kids are awesome.....and they have sweet accents (they lived in England too for a while). Joyce made us chocolate chip pancakes and french toast, and we had fresh pineapple (OMG, I'm never going to want to eat other fruit in the states). We started to get to know everybody and Joyce and I talked a bit about the plans for the church. They really want me to help train the musicians for the worship service, mostly with some basics like starting in on the song together, playing the same thing, etc. Also with stuff like improving off of just chord sheets, and teaching them some new songs as well. Not sure quite yet what the hospital work will look like starting on Monday, but as much free time as I have, the idea of teaching music stuff is right up my alley and better than sitting around. Sounds like we will be busy with the hospital because one of the doctors is leaving on Monday and another one was recently airlifted out because his wife went into preterm labor. So, there's a definite need for Jason and I here.
We gave the girls a tour of the hospital complex after lunch and Ezra and Cherissa came with us to help show us around. We borrowed a laptop from Joyce to try to get access to some of the girls e-mails, but it was actually infested with ants and spiders......yep, inside the computer. They poured out of the headphone jack by the thousands. Welcome to the Congo I guess.
Nothing medical today. Doesn't sound like there were any emergencies or much going on with the patients, which isn't a bad thing. Tomorrow they have the church service, and we'll see if anything comes up. Monday we do rounds and the regular hospital work, and I know we'll be quite busy. Looking forward to doing as much as we can while we are here. So far already in the couple days I'm in Africa, I really really love it. The whole atmosphere here is just amazing, the people are wonderful, and the community the Harvey's have built is just tremendous. It's really great to see the kids who have grown up here, like Noah Harvey, and the amazing things they get to grow up doing without all the US distractions. The other Harvey kids are all back in the states now in College or beyond. Noah is fluent in Lingala and I think French too, which is also a definite plus. Speaking of which, Lingala is hard. That's all. I'm gonna try, but so far I've got Mbote = hello, malamu = good, azali malamu = I'm good, combo neyi nani (I think) = what is your name. None of that is probably spelled right either, but I'm working on it.
Anyway, aside from the mudding, a pretty uneventful day for me to share with you. The mudding really did take a long time, and the pictures will be fun for you to see once I'm back. Oh, I did just find the guitar, so I got it tuned and started playing around with it. It needs a bit of work that I can't do, and the action is a little rough, but it'll be enough to show them some worship songs, so I'm not complaining. They have a keyboard in the church it sounds like too. We'll see what the service is like tomorrow and I think they do some type of worship at night as well.
More than anything I'm just really glad to be getting to know everyone here. All of the doctors are so well versed in different things and practice outside of their residency training to fill the voids that exist. Like I said, Dr. Wegner is an ER/peds doc who is the main surgeon now. Dr. Harvey is a family med doc who also does surgeries. They've had training I think in the DRC from a surgeon, but still it's pretty cool and inspiring because I can see myself learning and doing similar. Sounds like they are going to teach me a lot too while I'm here and I'll get some great experience practicing some procedural stuff that I need to amp up (like spinals). We are just chillin' now for the rest of the night unless an emergency case comes in, otherwise I'll look forward to updating you tomorrow with the church stuff.
I'll just close with the bot fly. They are these flies that lay eggs in your clothes if you leave them out to dry at night, and then they burrow under your skin and grow inside of your skin. They look like an abscess or a boil.....until a bot fly hatches out of your skin. So basically, the moral of the story is don't leave wet clothes out at night, or you'll be hatching a visitor. I prefer to have things hatch outside of my skin, so I'll be grabbing clothes quickly :)
Thanks again for reading. The exciting things will start to happen again on Monday, but hopefully the cultural stuff is of interest to you and maybe if you are public health minded like me, it spins some wheels in your head.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, in general yes it's quite hot! Rainy, muggy, hot with mosquitos.
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