Tuesday Update

Africa. It's incredible in every way: the friendly children, the people, the culture, the generous hospitality, the deep faith of the people, the clothes they wear, the land, even the birds.

We have set up an internet cafe and have boys and men here constantly to learn to use the four used Apple laptops that we brought. Unbeknownst to me, the clinic has Wifi (intermittent) so we can enable the community leaders as well as the students to have access. It's a brisk business and so important to literacy in the 21st century. I have not been able to post to the blog as frequently because I am teaching keyboarding skills and helping them to set up Yahoo accounts (Yahoo has better service in African than Gmail).

We also brought a portable ultrasound monitor which is an extraordinarily valuable tool for the clinic staff. Not only will it help with the steady stream of pregnant women but can be used for many other exams, such as of the young boy yesterday with a painful and distended abdomen which was possibly an enlarged spleen (AIDS), an amoebic infection or worms.

The clinic has had 14 proven cases of meningitis as well as a lot of malaria since we are now in the rainy season (many of the symptoms are similar). Dr. Clarke says it is too early to say whether the epidemic will be full-blown. That said, we have a one-week-old baby with meningitis and throughout every night she cries in pain. When she came in she was listless and would not nurse and had to have a feeding tube, but this morning the tube was removed because she has gained strength and is nursing. We are awaiting the arrival of her father to do a lumbar puncture to further diagnose her condition.

The meningicochal vaccine (this is the correct term, as opposed to meningitis vaccine) is a longlasting vaccine for either 10 years or for a lifetime (there is still discussion about this) and it will be a wonderful protection for the people of this region. An astonishing sum has been donated by anonomyous donors through the Diocese of Virginia and St. James's Church for the purchase of this vaccine.

US-based Mustard Seed International has worked hard to get the vaccine delivered in time for our team to administer it. The good news is that they have located multi-dose vials which are much more economical. Now we can purchase a 10-dose vial. There are 100 vials available in Nairobi and they are being flown to Akot in the coming days. We cleared the airstrip of all branches yesterday. 400 more vials are on order to total 5000 vaccinations. It is probable, however, that the shipment will not arrive before the Virginia team departs. With two full time doctors, two nurse practitioners with excellent experience and the clinic staff, they will have no problem administering these vaccines.

In the past few days, there has been considerable unrest locally between two Dinka clans. We are not unsafe, but the people are nervous. There was an incident in Atiaba two days ago. A beaten man was dropped off at the clinic and is in recovery. The clans are fighting over cattle, which is how Sudanese store their wealth. There is other fighting between the north and south as you can see in the news feeds on this blog. We are far from those cities, however and are not in any danger.

A baby was born last night. We saw the mother at the Episcopal Church of Sudan cathedral on the front row on Sunday. She is from Peloch (far away) but had some prenatal checkups which caused concerns about the attachment of the placenta, so she was encouraged to stay in the area and come to the clinic to deliver. It's a good thing. She lost a lot of blood and would have certainly died if she had delivered at home. She is on an IV now, the baby is nursing and they will remain for about a week.

There are millions more of these stories. The work of these dedicated Christians is so important. We are honored to have had this experience.

Disclosure: I take copious notes but am not a medical professional. There could be some errors.