Best week yet

Hello Everyone,

How are you all? I wonder what you are up to at the minute.

Wow, what a week. It is always slightly difficult to know what to right, but as usual I will give it a go. Firstly health wise I have managed a full week in hospital yahoo!!

This week I have tried to be much more productive with my time. I have been doing Obstetrics and Gynaecology which I am really enjoying. Every morning I have been going into clinic and I have been learning and practicing skills, this should be really useful for when I get back to England. I love watching babies being born and listening to their hearts beating inside their Mums tummies. Unfortunately children here are often just commodities and products of sex and are often not loved.

On Monday afternoon Kat and I spent the afternoon playing Cards with the girl with Chaggas Disease. The nurses didn´t quite know what to make of it, it was obviously quite counter cultural. I learnt some new games and it was good fun. I had to keep reminding myself what I was doing was important even though it wasn´t medicine.

Spent alot of time in the community this week and I love it. I would be there all day every day if I could. I love loving the kids and checking their health is ok. It is really sad to see such ill kids especially when they scream when they see you. A frequent punishment for kids is being threatened to being taken to the doctor and having a shot.

Yesterday, we went to the community to teach the villagers how to make donuts. It was so much fun watching everyone making them and joining them. I wasn´t doing medicine as you know it but it was medicine of a different kind. It was about building community and showing that white people muck in and are not superior. It was funny because Kat noticed an Operation Christmas Child box on the floor. Everytime I go out I try to look for a skill that I can learn from the people. The women are amazing seamstresses (excuse the spelling), their fingers move so fast that you can´t see them.

After teaching the women how to makes donuts we had a community team social. We understood that we were going to play either squash or tennis but we were a bit confused about the location. The word for market is the same place for court except we didn´t know this! We thought we were going to attempt to play squash in the food market but it was alright as we went to the suash courts! I managed to be part of the winning team in two games but that was probably due to the other player. I was great fun and good bonding especially as I developed a habit of running into the walls.

On Tuesday when we did do medicine and the women were being taught how to make furniture out of paste and cardboard. One of the women had a pet monkey and the monkey decided to eat the glue which caused much amusement. Unfortunately it is quite possible that alot of illness is due to pets. The mobile unit had no running water and so we introduced the Dr to the concept of alcohol gel spray. We gave him the bottle and he just didn´t know what to do. It was very amusing. The outreach Dr is much more like UK doctors and we have great chats about medicine and evidence and trials etc. He did a trial in 2005/2006 of 9000 women to see how many of them suffered from genitourinary infections, only 9/9000 were infection free!!

Did a night shift last night and have another one on Sunday. Saw two beautiful girls being born last night and saw some stab wounds. It was quite a quiet night but Sunday night here is getting drunk night so I wonder what that will hold.

Last week in hospital this week and then travelling. What an opportunity I have had, I am very grateful for it.

God Stuff:
Praise God for good health and a better week. Learning to be faithful is a continuing challenge, but I have seen seeds of it entering my way of thinking this week. It is great to have something to work to, but then I have to be careful not to make it a success story in its own right.

At the girls home there is a 10 year old who is mentally disabled. Her speech is very tricky to understand and her level of comprehension and therefore her behaviour is poor. Sometimes she can be sweet but most of the time she is really tricky to deal with. I have been praying and asking God to help me and I was reminded of this verse

⁴⁵"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' Mathew 25

It has given me strength and a challenge to continue. IT is amazing when she prays, her prayers are beautiful, not that anyone understands them. When people are praying she can tell and she lays her hand on them. When she worships it makes me want to cry and it makes me want to worship. It is amazing how God can relate to everyone and anyone and show them love. It reminds me that God uses the foolish things to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27).

I am really enjoying reading the Bible and spending time with God, I could write for hours about what he is talking to me about but will leave it there. You are in my prayers.

Lots of love

Zara xxx