Butter

It is wonderful to be back home, and at the same time, very difficult to be away from our friends in Impfondo. It is such a gift to have wonderful friends on all parts of the world. The world is so big, and at the same time so so so small... (very profound... I know). But truly... this experience has shown us how God loves through his children. Thank you to those of you who have loved us so well through thoughts, prayers, and action! Our journey home was a bittersweet one, but it made it even sweeter to walk into our apartment with balloons coming out of every corner of our home, and groceries so we didn't have to shop right away! We even had balloons in the fridge, washer, dryer, oven, in between clothes in the closet, and in the toilet! Thank you Thank you Thank you!

Fun Fact #12: In the groceries that were purchased for us was butter... and I couldn't belive it when we saw that it was the exact same type of butter we ate in Impfondo! We couldn't get butter in Impfondo, so whenver someone was traveling from Brazaville back to Impfondo, we would ask for Butter and Cheese... and the butter we had was from France.... Good ol' Trader Joe's carries the exact same kind! When my Dad picked out that butter, he had no idea, but God did! It was a nice little gift...

Weather... 35 degrees, rain

Obviously not Impfondo! We are now back in Indiana. Our travels went well. The flight to Paris was pretty uneventful. We had a 6 hr layover in Paris, just enough time to take a train into the city. We went to Notre Dame which was beautiful and walked around the city. We got into Paris at 6am, so it was still pretty early when we got off the train. It was nice because there were not a lot of people around and it was a very peaceful morning. But, cold! We both just had a long sleeve shirt on and really could have used a winter jacket! Since our camera is kind of broken, we found a place to buy a disposable camera and took lots of pictures. Before getting back on the plane, we stopped at a little cafe, and got coffee and croissants, and warmed up a little! We loved our little stopover in Paris and hope to spend a little more time there someday.

Our flight back to Chicago was good. We were both very tired, but did not have much success sleeping on the planes, so we watched several movies (Slumdog Millionaire, the Dark Knight, Four Christmases) to pass the time. In Chicago, we made it through customs fine and all of our luggage was there! Candice's parents and brothers were there to warmly welcome us back. After many hours of travelling and not sleeping, we made it back to Indianapolis late Saturday night and we were greeted by Ginger, Lilly, and Buddy! Buddy was very excited to see us and welcomed us with lots of tail wagging and kisses.

So, we are back to Indy. We slept for a while last night and are feeling a little more rested today. Thank you to everyone who was thinking about us during our travels. We miss Impfondo and send warm greetings (even though it's a little colder here) to all our friends there! You are continually in our thoughts and prayers and look forward till when we get to see you again. As we transition back, we'll put up some more posts, so check back!

Kenda Malamu!

Go Well!  That is what we are hearing from all of our friends here in Impfondo! We are preparing to leave this morning (Wednesday) and head to Brazzaville.  Our plan is to be in Brazzaville for Wednesday and Thursday night and then Friday evening our Air France flight departs. 

We have had an amazing time here, and it is very difficult to leave.  The friendships we have forged here are such a gift.  Because it is difficult to leave, we recognize the value of being here!  I am so thankful for the opportunity, and someday hope to come back!  

Don't be alarmed if you don't hear from us on the blog until we return home, because of the traveling it will be difficult to find Internet access. We would appreciate your prayers for travel safety, getting through customs smoothly and that we would stay at peace and alert with what is going on around us!  (Traveling here can be a little crazy!) But we made it here fine, we will make it back fine!  

We appreacite you all and look forward to sharing more with you! 

Ojali Malamu?

Candice and Olivia on the Forest Walk
standing in front of a pond where crocodiles live!
(We didn't get to see any)

Mbote! Ojali Malamu? Na jali malamu!

Hello! Are you good? I am good!

Hope you are doing well wherever you are, with what you are doing! We are doing well here. It is a bittersweet time... last full week, last weekend... we have been welcomed, loved and invested in so much here. We have learned so much about ourselves, life, medicine, therapy, God, Love... and have made some great friendships here too. We couldn't ask for anything better out of this experience!

We have had a fantastic weekend... Sean was 'off call' Saturday and we went on a forest walk in the rain forest... it was AMAZING! So neat how the people utilize their resources for so many things... I am working on uploading some pictures right now. Some forest walk highlights:

- Our guides name... Alber (Al-bear), he has a fantastic laugh

- We drank water from a vine that stores water inside of it... super refreshing and COLD!

- Alber found honey in a fallen down tree... it was delicious!

- We walked through a "dry" river bed... still very muddy though!

- The forest was so thick we were fairly cool the whole walk

- We saw forest rat holes... Forest rats can be around a foot long!

- We saw crocodile holes... they dig them at the base of trees near water

- We learned how to call crocodiles... sounds kind of like a seal/bird call

- We saw some plant that heals stomach aches

- We saw a tree bark the "bleeds" and can be used as a red dye

- We saw a tree bark that can dye purple

- We saw a rubber tree and our guide made a little rubber ball out of the sap by rolling the sap on his stomach!

- We tasted "sugar cane" but it was quite sour!

We had an awesome time... It is amazing how Alber always knew where we were...

Well Sean, Noah, and Suzy are playing a Sunday afternoon game of monopoly and I have been recruited to participate... so we'll hope to update again soon! Tekay la malamu! May you stay well!

Bokei wapi?

Bokei wapi = where are we going? 

Like many other medical students today, we found out where we matched! It's hard to believe that this day has come already. After all the applying and interviewing, it's good to know where we'll be for the next step of training. 

You might be able to tell by the picture, but we matched at....

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Indiana University, Indianapolis for Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics! It was a good day and a fun night. We were actually in the OR when the match results were released. A guy came in after being shot in the hand and actually had to have a lot of it amputated. I have definitely seen a lot of trauma here which has been good preparation as a future EM doctor, and this case was interesting for Candice as an Occupational Therapist with an interest in hands! We feel bad for this man though and hope he is able to adapt well after the surgery... So, it wasn't until about 8:30 Congo time that we found out the results. There was a party that our housemates had for us to celebrate matching, but they did a lot of celebrating without us since we were in the OR! But, it was great to come back and find out the results with everyone here and eat some good food and have fun. Everyone here has been so supportive and we are so thankful for them. Thank you to everyone at home who is so supportive as well. We really appreciate each of you! 

Rehab; Impfondo-style

Things continue to trek along here in Impfondo!  Not many huge cases have come in the past few days, so that is nice.  However some who are here I continue to work with on a daily basis. 

I still see Mama Virginia, the woman with the leg burns.  Her autograft is now healed, however her burn was too large to cover the entire burn with autograft, so I tease with her saying that her leg looks like  a map of islands.  So since the autograft didn't cover the entire wound the rest of the burn continues to SLOWLY heal around the edges of the "islands" of skin Dr. Fuka transplanted.

Yesterday she FINALLY did some active movement for me (before she had been refusing and wanted me to do it... it is difficult to coax, barter, and educate someone when you don't speak their language, but I'm starting to get the hang of it more.  She cracks me up, she is very dramatic, and sometimes refuses to listen to me unless I speak Lingala, so I either ask Oliva if she is with me, or I consult my little moleskin book that doesn't leave my pocket with my self made Lingala dictionary.  So we are making progress... we walked about 40 feet as well.  (Cassie, if you are reading this you would be happy to know that I prompt her to not use a walker, and I strongly encouraged a normal heel strike! :) ) 

I am also seeing a little 2 and 1/2 year old  girl named Alexandrine, she came in around 3 weeks ago unconscious and seizing, with meningitis. She is now awake, and somewhat responsive to sounds, and touch, but has minimal active movement, no speech, (but plenty of crying), and increased tone in her arms and legs, and on her left side especially. I worked with her on strengthening her neck, sitting up, feeding, managing her hyper-responsiveness to touch, and engagement.  Her parents are wonderful... whatever I suggest, they are right on it. Because her tone was so great in her arms and legs, early on I did range of motion and positioning with her a few times a day.  I taught her dad how to do it, and I don't know if he has missed a time yet.  These parents are a rarity... they understand, they want the best, and they accept that there may be permanent changes with their sweet little daughter, but they love her and each other just the same. It took them 24 hours including crossing the river to reach the hospital here.  They have been married for 14 years and have 5 children, Alexandrine is the youngest.  They want to do what is right, and they seek out help, but it is hard when they know nothing other than traditional medicine, which may have contributed to their daughters lasting deficits. However, I am very thankful that they made it here, that Sean was able to treat this little one, and now they are being educated in more effective ways to help their daughter.  I pray they can pass it on to those around them when they return home!

Koumou (3 year old boy) is another little guy that is very near and dear to us... we haven't mentioned him much on the blog, maybe because it hurts sometimes to think about his story, but he continues to progress. He is Peya's twin brother (Peya is the little guy who rode on Mary Rose's bike - see the picture on a previous post)   Suzy wrote out part of his story which I hope to post soon... but I saw the sweetest thing a few days ago:  Koumou is weak, and we believe is seeing double, and therefore has some difficulty walking (especially on all the uneven ground here!).  His twin brother is fairly healthy, and stronger than Koumou. Typically their mother just gets up and leaves them when she needs to go get food, or do laundry or something like that, so then the boys get up and follow her at a distance since she doesn't really attend to their presence all too often.  A few days ago I looked ahead of me as I was crossing the hospital grounds and saw Peya holding Koumou's hand as they walked along the dirt path following their mother at a great distance.  It was so neat to see a little 3 year old help his brother in a practical and necessary way.  I love these two boys, and if they fit in my carry on bag... they would come home with us!

Tomorrow morning I am doing a little "inservice" on rehabilitation, to educate the staff and nurses here. It is difficult to know what would be the most effective things to mention, and to keep it clear and concise. I pray that I can present the right material, and that important facts will not be lost in translation! (I most certainly will not be presenting it in French or Lingala! Yikes... that would be scary!) Thank goodness for multi-lingual people!  We continue to take it one day at a time, and are trying to "finish the race" strong!

Fun Fact #11: We went out to dinner on Tuesday night this week to the "BiBi Star Restaurant" here in town. Suzy (pharmacist, house mate,USA), Sarah (nurse, housemate, USA), Ginny (English teacher, and pastors wife, Canada), Rachel (Hospital administrator, Canada), and Ciska (Blue house cook, Impfondo) all came!  It is about a 10 minute walk from the Hospital grounds.  It was delicious!  We had antelope, kwanga (which is that completely non-nutritional rubber stuff which is basically their bread), saki saki ( the leaves of a root they grow here called Maniok), and rice.  The kwanga really wasn't that bad if you ate it with everything else! It is kind of like dumplings... kind of...  But the funny thing is that we had leftovers, and they didn't have take home bags... so they just said..."oh yeah, just take the serving dishes and bring them back tomorrow."  Imagine St.Elmo's steak house saying that!  Sean and I got a kick out of walking out the door with the dishes...  

Njambe alingi bino

Mbote mingi!  (Big Hello!) 

We had a great weekend... it left us pretty pooped out, but we had fun!  On Saturday morning we went across the river on a pierog (carved out wooden boat) to the river market! It was fun to ride the boat... and see all the people swimming, loading and unloading the boats, washing clothes, and calling out to the "mondele's" to take their picture! We were a little nervous about this carved out boat flipping us into croc-infested waters, but these boats really are very sturdy (and I don't think the waters are all that croc-infested since people are swimming in it all the time). Sean was really hoping to see a hippopotamus, but we weren't so lucky (or unlucky I guess) :) 

There was another man in our boat who was Congolese, but spoke some English. He kept saying, "I have no monies in my pockets, there is no monies here..." and then he INSISTED on being our "guide" even though there wasn't much to guide us around on... thankfully after a while of meandering once we got out of the boats, we were no longer interesting to him, and he went along his way. 

We walked across the island (which during the rainy season is under water) and made it to the market.  It wasn't too much to speak of as far as the goods they had to sell, but we experienced some fun things: some very large fish, little children cooking fish over a fire, being taught how to make spices, cows grazing, and a woman who wanted to steal my husband away from me!  Yes, she was trying to kiss him, and show him her nice big booty (she kept it covered... thank goodness!) and these two other guys were trying to explain to Sean that white marrying black is only natural!  Once Sean caught onto the whole thing he was like..." Oh no, Oh no, this is my femme.... my femme..." as he hugged me. Sheesh! They were laughing and "kidding" but very enthusiastic... so we decided at that point we would stay married and continue on our journey...  

I should note as well that last Thursday I got the talk about  black and white... I went with Rachel to go get diesel fuel for the hospital.  At the gas station there was a man with broken English who told me ...

"Are you married?" yes I replied. "Is your husband black?" No. "Why do you marry white? It is only natural to marry Black!" I like my husband, not because what color he is, but because he is a great man, and he cares very much for me (I don't think he understood that). Anyway, he let it go and then asked me if Rachel was married...  poor Rachel... she has many "suitors" ... she does very well though... she is a strong woman who is wise.

So back to the river market... it was fun, hot, and a good experience! We bought some fabric for matchy matchy outfits! 

Sunday we went to church in Bakandi (a neighborhood of Impfondo). It was AWESOME! TONS of singing and the message was about sharing the news of Jesus. It was very neat to be in a different place in the world, encouraging each other to reach out to others and share how their lives have been changed by having God at the center.  The pastor spoke of one of the first missionaries who arrived in Impfondo in 1948, and how she was called here, and if she had not followed the call, they wouldn't have the hope that they have today, and used that fact to encourage the people to reach out to others.  Very neat. I loved the music... and love the way they dance... I can't help but dance a little, but if I got out there and danced with them... they all may stop all together if they saw a mondele dancing like an African! We were asked to stand up and say something since we were guests... so Sean said something nice in English... and I said Njambe alingi bino (God loves you)  to the people... and everyone laughed, but it was well worth the effort... Sarah told me they liked it.  Ha.. I wonder what it sounded like to them... it makes me think of when people come to the US and use their English with thick accents... 

So that is what I say to you today... Njambe alingi bino.... and he does... everyday... 

Fun Fact# 10: Common fashion here in Impfondo is to keep the prescription sticker on your reading glasses.  It was great when you see someone with reading glasses with a little purple sticker in the corner reading +1.50...very smart looking... such style...  :)