Hi!!

Bon soir ma famille et mes amis!

I’m sorry that I haven’t written in several days! Life has been busy and the internet connection has been bad…Typical week in Africa! I hope you all enjoyed the pictures Josh put up for me (Thanks Josh!!!) Now you can kind of get an idea for what this place looks like!

Now I have to try to remember the events from this week…Wednesday I helped give vaccinations. We didn’t have many women and children come this week so it didn’t take long! One of the nurses was sick Wednesday so I chauffeured her to the hospital lab to get results from a test and then took her home. I was at the clinic a lot this week so I liked little outings like that! Wednesday night after eating at Dr Martin’s, I drove the motor bike back to the catholic center (usually I take the car at night) and I followed Dr Martin because he wanted to bring medicine that he bought to the clinic after I made it back safely to the catholic center. I was on a main road near the catholic center when all of a sudden my motor bike started slowly down and then stopped. I tried to accelerate but I wasn’t able to move! My motorbike had run out of gas in the middle of the road! Thankfully we were past the main busy road in town where there are a ton of huge trucks and motorbikes! I was also thankful that Dr Martin was right in front of me and all I had to do was yell his name and he stopped and ran out and helped me! God is good and He is definitely watching out for me! That could have ended up way different if I was alone! Praise God!

Thursday was an intense day…Dr Martin had a meeting with all the staff because several of them weren’t working like they were supposed to. He told three of them to go home and not work for one week. He wants them to think about whether or not they still want to work here. Everyone was in a weird mood all morning and it wasn’t the best day to work. I did get to help deliver a baby boy yesterday morning which was good! He was strong, cried a lot and wasn’t underweight! The past few deliveries have been scary- lots of small babies and lots of babies needing resuscitations. I also got to work more since several of the staff weren’t there. I bandaged wounds by myself and just ran around more doing random things for the nurses which I liked! Thursday afternoon and evening I worked on my brochure for the pregnant women. I stayed with Dr Martin until almost 9pm at the clinic! It was a long, late night last night! I am just about finished with it and I was hoping to give the brochures out today for the prenatal consultations but unfortunately it’s not quite ready! Next week I can, though! It has been raining a ton over the past few days so when it let up last night, these huge flying ant-like bugs came out in the thousands! I have never seen so many bugs like I did last night! Each room in the clinic was filled with them last night since we were a big light source for the bugs! It was SO nasty and I got a video of the bugs swarming around Dr Martin! Eww!

Today has been a pretty busy day as well. I helped take vital signs of all the women waiting for prenatal consultations, gave shots to some sick people, and helped monitor a woman in labor who had a baby with a slower than normal heartbeat. I listened to the baby’s heartbeat through a big ear cone thingy…It worked but it was hard to use! We ended up sending the mother to the hospital for a C-section because her baby was suffering. This past week at the catholic center my lunches have been pretty bad…usually rice, spaghetti noodles or cous cous with nasty fish on top! Gross! I asked that they would stop giving me fish because I just can’t eat it anymore. I have had it almost every day since June! I’m done! I have been so hungry every afternoon because the meals are small and pretty bad. I went over to Dr Martin’s this afternoon to get a snack and his wife ended up making me fish and yams! Ah! At least her fish is cooked well and seasoned! I just can’t get away from fish yet I guess…

I’m not sure what my plans are for this weekend…I will probably go running tomorrow morning with the nurse Sonsona and then who knows what for the rest of the day! I have left my braids in all week but I think I will take them out tomorrow- my head itches like crazy every day!

I think that’s all for now! I’ll write again when I can!!