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| Frank & Lou Ann Black |
CHIMALA, TANZANIA:
Report from 8 time zones away.
Chimala remains
pretty much unchanged since we left here in 1997. There is one glaring exception, however -- CELL
PHONES! It seems that every person who
comes in from the bush has a cell phone around their neck. And you think the “ring tones” are raucous in
the USA, you should check out some of these.
And cell phone etiquette; it hasn’t hit Tanzania yet. In fact, during my prayer at the hospital
devotional last week, two noxious cell phones erupted.
Lou Ann and I are
privileged to be here with Janice Bingham and Patty Wilson - nurses we first
worked with in Nigeria in 1981. They are
both nurse instructors in Searcy, AR.
Janice has seven senior nursing students with her from Harding University
- [an excellent group]. We are also especially privileged to be with two young
doctors: Most of you know Kent Brantly,
who is here with his wife, Amber, and their two kiddos – Ruby and Stephen. Our second doctor is Stephen Snell, who is
here with his wife, Amy. Stephen is Jim
and Jan’s and Bob and Joan’s nephew. --
Oh, by the way; we’re eating excellently.
Thanks to the chef with us by the name of Lou Ann.
How can I begin to
tell you the drastic difference between our world in Chimala and your world in
Indianapolis? It would take a book to do
this topic justice. I’ll stick with the
medical part. Very simply I’ll just say
that we do the very best we can with the supplies and staff we have here. I’ll give a couple of examples of the
drastic differences between these two worlds.
We lost four children in our first two days [this is unimaginable in any
American facility]. I won’t dwell on the
fact that our pediatric, male, and female wards have about 20 beds – all in ONE
large rectangular room. Nor that our
women in labor and delivery receive no anesthesia or medicines [all
natural!]. Oh, and by the way, there
are four beds in that one labor room.
And of course there are no monitors and only oxygen for only one patient
per ward. Since I brought up the subject
of pain management, I’ll elucidate. We
have four broken femurs in the hospital [large upper leg bone]; three bad burn
patients; post-operative patients; and others in severe pain. There is basically no pain medicine given to
any of these patients. Can you possibly
imagine this in the USA? Of course you
are asking WHY? The simple answer is
that this is their cultural way. They
expect pain; they’ve seen and experienced pain; pain is not feared and it’s not
their enemy. In short they are extremely stoic and tough people. By our standards the amount of suffering and
pain endured here is unimaginable.
I mentioned the
fractured femurs. Three are young boys
between 7 and 15. The other is an older
lady. They are all being treated by
various types of traction devices – kind of like American orthopedics in the
1950’s. Surgical orthopedics is just not
an option for them. They lie in bed
constantly in traction for six weeks or so.
Can you just imagine this!? Just
let me finish. They have no TV, no radio, no Ipod, no electronic games, no
books, etc. I don’t know about you, but
I’d last only a few hours before going bonkers.
[We did take them some magazines with pictures and in addition some
balloons and coloring books for the younger boy.]. I sum these situations up by saying that, “WE
HAVE THE BLESSING OF LOCATION, AND THEY ARE THE VICTIMS OF LOCATION.”
We’re needed here in many ways – the medical side is
obvious. But we’re also needed
spiritually just as much. Despite the stark medical differences, there are no
differences in our need for Jesus. We
not only are trying to do our very best medically; we’re trying to model the
Great Physician in all ways that we can.
[Physical needs versus spiritual needs: the greatest of these needs are the
spiritual.]
Jesu Kristo ni Mganga Mkuu = Jesus Christ is the Great Physician
F. Black
June 3, 2012
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