Lots to share

So, I'll start at the very beginning, turns out it's a very good place to start.

Almost two weeks ago now, (it was a Sunday) Kylie complained of a sore foot.  I didn't think much of it because she had just played a big game of "water soccer" (we've invented a new pool game here) that afternoon, so may be she twisted it or hurt it somehow.

By Monday morning, she refused to walk normal on it, so I took a good look.  It wasn't red or swollen at all.  Later in the day, it seemed to be worse, so we took her to the Mango hospital.  The medical guy (I don't think he was a doctor.  you'll understand why in a moment.) took a look, wrapped it in a tensor bandage, prescribed ibuprofen, tylenol and vitamin C, and told us to go home. Oh, and this is where it got weird.  Before we left, he poured rubbing alcohol all over the tensor bandage on her foot and told me I needed to do that twice a day.  (I'm telling you, I cannot make this stuff up...)

OKay, before I go on, I also need to explain that there are MANY miracles that took place through out this whole thing.  so many.  If I try to type them all out, you'll be reading for hours.  But know that I will try to explain each one as it happened, because God was at work through this whole thing on our behalf.

Nate's friend, Francisco, works at the hospital and came with us, out of sheer kindness, to help out with any explanations etc.  Between my French and his English, I understood what was going on.  If there was no improvement on the ankle, we were to return for an x-ray Tuesday morning.  Which is what we did.  No break.  So he told us to continue with the meds, the pouring of the rubbing alcohol, and the vitamin C.  (I have to admit that when he showed me again how to pour the alcohol over the bandage, it took everything in me not to start laughing.)

So Tuesday night, her fever started.  She was up in the night in pain.  I knew something wasn't right so I contacted my doc friend in London and amazingly, she answered the phone and we had good chat about what to look for in the coming hours.  I was away all day Wednesday, so Nate stayed home with the kids and Kylie continued to get worse.  The thing is, her ankle was still looking normal.  Just pain and fever.  Wednesday night I called Dr. Kelly here in Tsiko (the mission hospital that our new mission hospital is associated with and modeled after).  Kelly gave me some more info and told me to keep her posted if anything got worse.  We put her on some antibiotics and thought that would do it.

By Thursday at noon, things weren't improving, so we called back to Tsiko and talked to Todd.  Todd was very serious from the get go.  He's worked with crazy infections in africa long enough to know that you don't mess around. Her put her on multiple meds, including malaria drugs, and told us that if there was not a noticeable improvement by Friday morning, we were to make the 9 hour trip to Tsiko.  So Emily and I packed, just in case.  I knew by midnight that we'd be going.  Kylie's fever had spike to 102.6 degree a couple of times, so that just confirmed it.

We left by 6:30 am (Emily, me and Kylie) and made the trip in excellent time.  Kylie traveled like a trooper despite the terribly bumpy roads.  With the exception of the last half hour.  It was awful. All of a sudden, she was in terrible pain so I climbed into the back seat with her. She was crying and writhing in pain and saying, "Oh Mommy, make it stop.  Mommy, help me.  It hurts so much, Momma."  Even typing that out brings me to tears as I remember it.  It was awful.

We pulled into the hospital, after arriving safely on wings of angels (I'm not even being silly with that statement) and both Kelly and Todd were available.  They took one look at her ankle and knew it was serious.  It has begun to swell on Thursday and was swollen to her knee by the time we arrived.  Todd put a little freezing in, then stuck a big needle right into the joint and began removing nasty pus.  A lot of it. Poor Kylie.  It was terrible.

But God is good.  And we made it there.  And we were in the right place with the right people. 

I'll continue the story later....but right now I need to go check on Kylie.  I'll post the rest as soon as I can.

A Hospital Docu-Drama

This blog post has a two-fold purpose.  First, it's to share with you some of the exciting events that have occurred over the last few days.  Second, it's to show you the great need for a new hospital in Mango.

Last Thursday, Anna felt that she was coming down with malaria.  So she started some malaria drugs and rested at home.  By Friday night she was very sick.  Vomiting, high fever, increased heart rate, general nastiness.  Emily and I decided that desperate times called for desperate measures, which meant an excursion to the Mango "hospital" on Friday night.

I had never been to the Mango hospital and from the very outset,  one gets the feeling that this place is pretty sketchy.  The only way to find the "road" into the hospital is to follow a dark and creepy path, past some rusty old gates that make you feel like you are entering an old asylum.  This is no exaggeration, my friends.

And so we helped Anna into the hospital.  We sat in "triage" which actually means a creepy little office where she layed on black plastic mattress while someone seemingly qualified took her temperature. (But you have to bring your own thermometer...thankfully Emily knew that!)  

After they concluded that she was indeed sick and dehydrated, we helped her into a private room. We were so thankful for that room.  The other room is a ward room and it was already full.  

Emily and I aren't the strongest in French, so when we were signing her in, Emily pronounced a few letters wrong in Anna's name.  Nothing major.  But from now on she'll be known as Ana Chebb.  

(Her real name is Anna Chubb.)

The medical staff gave Emily and I a list of meds that Anna needed and we walked outside the hospital, around the side to a "drive through" window where you purchase your meds.  Once we had filled the order, we went back into the hospital and gave the meds to the staff.  The medical staff very competently put the IV into Anna's hand and left us to sit with her.

And here she is.  Poor Anna.  She was very ill.  

You can see that Anna knew enough to bring her own pillow and sheets.  Otherwise she'd be lying on a cracked black plastic mattress.  

And here's her IV pole, ready to go with all the necessary meds to help her get better.  By the way, Anna gave me permission, in fact she encouraged me to post pics of her in this state.  She wants you to know that building this new hospital is important.

 And here's Anna and Emily.  The whole night was somewhat funny, except for Anna being sick.  There were no chairs in the room so Emily and I just stood there.  We kept asking Anna to move over in bed, but she refused.  She's not very good at sharing.

 And so we sat on her bed (she finally relented).  And waited.  And sat and waited.  The IV continued to drip and I began to notice what this hospital really had to offer.

Here's the bottom of Anna's IV pole.  It could use a little scrub.

 And here's the door to the creepy bathroom...(I didn't even want to open it but Emily is braver than me.)

And here's inside the creepy bathroom...

And if you want to have a shower, you can enjoy it with a few little friends in the bottom.

This is the shower head and tap.  You can kinda see an old wash cloth hanging there.  It's complimentary.

I don't know how you turn the shower on with this little tap contraption.

Once Anna was settled in her room and ready to fall asleep, Em and I sat on very hard and uneven wooden bench in the hall way pictured below.  We sat there til about 3:00 am.  And not once did we see a single solitary hospital staff person.  We heard and saw sick people.  But no staff.  We did however, see a lot of bats flying up and down this hallway.  The hospital is kind of "open air", with lizards and bugs and bats free to roam the hall ways.

At around 3:30, Em and I went home and left Anna there. We truly didn't want to but we just couldn't stay any longer.  Her IV was going well and she was resting comfortably.  

Anna finished up about 10 in the morning and Emily took her home, but she had to return Saturday afternoon for round two of IV fluids.  She got there around 4 pm and I showed up around 6 pm.  This time we were better prepared!!

We brought chairs, snacks, blankets, a fan, toilet paper, water, and my real camera, rather than just the camera on my phone.  I even brought the game Uno.  But we kept the lights off because then the bugs and bats wouldn't enter our room.

So here's Anna on day two.  Her colour is much better and the IV was dripping faster.  I brought her a burger and some chips and she had an appetite to eat it.  This second evening in the hospital was much more jovial.

I made the mistake of looking under the bed.  Thankfully, there was a broom in the corner and we decided I should sweep to see what was there.  

It was pretty old and pretty nasty.  Bandages, papers, wrappers, a yogurt cup....

 Here are the three of us.  All for one and one for all.  

(Okay, that's not exactly true.  A bat flew into the room and as dedicated and loyal friends that Em and I are, we dashed out of the room, heads covered, and left poor Anna there.  She was trying to drag her heavy IV pole and follow us.  I went back for her (kind of) but just told her to cover her head and get out of there.  Finally the bat exited the room and we kept the door closed from then on.)

 By 11 pm, the IV was finished and we were ready to roll.  Now...to find a staff person to remove the IV.  After a few minutes we located a woman sleeping under a mosquito net in another room.  She woke up, removed the IV, and sent us home.  What did this cost Anna?  Well, all the meds came to about $13.00 US and the actual stay in the hospital which I'm assuming includes the staff wages was 600 francs. That's about a dollar and twenty cents. No wonder this place could use some improvement!

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. 

I think.

Surprise!

Last night was Friday night -- which is usually a pretty low-key kinda night at our place after a busy work week.  Last night we planned to have pizza (homemade, of course, no Pizza Hut here!) and chill out.  But just before dinner, we received a CARE PACKAGE from some very sweet friends at home!!

So here we are eating our pizza.  Nate and I told the kids we could open the box after supper, so although you can't tell from the photo, the kids are scarfing down their dinner.

The big moment arrives!!  Ethan is opening the box!

See?  It really is for us!

First peek inside!  Look at Jack's face.

We see a soccer ball and a football!

And then we started diggin' in...

Plastic containers FULL of chocolate chips!  Woohoooo!

Nate and Ethan were thrilled with new hunting magazines (in fact, I think they kissed them)!

Teddy is looking at a book on African elephants -- and he's not letting go of those Pringles!

The guys are settling in with their reading material.

And here's a photo of the loot.  We received balls, snacks, books, magazines, Jello, movies, chocolate chips, corn syrup, Nutella, peanut butter (which we ran out of just that day!), nail polish, jube-jubes and lots of other great treats.  It was so fun to open and enjoy!  

We want to say a HUGE thanks to the friends who sent this -- it made our Friday night much more special and made us feel very loved.  It is always so sweet to see stuff from home.

Shopping

 I thought I'd do a little post on shopping here.  I think you just need to know how/where/when I shop for a few reasons.

Reason #1.  So when I come home and you see me in a grocery store or mall you'll understand why tears of joy are running down my cheeks.

Reason #2.  So that when I show you photos of what we eat, you'll understand why our food looks the way it does.

Reason #3.  So that even when you go to No Frills, you won't ever complain again about the produce for sale.  The fact that the carrots at No Frills are more orange than mold is something to be thankful for.

This is the Mango market.  On Market day.  Which is Sunday. 

This is just outside the actual market where people set up their stalls.  You can't see what's for sale in this shot but it does show that market day is busy.

This is the Kara market, the one that has really nice produce that we have to drive two hours to get to. We love the Kara market.  It has full sized green peppers that are fresh and crisp rather than the wrinkly tiny ones we get in Mango.  You can even get potatoes here!

Back to Mango. This is the outside of one of the stores we shop in weekly.  We call it the Fulani store because a Fulani family owns it.  You can get tomato paste, toilet paper, Coke, a mayonnaise type product, powdered milk, and lots of other stuff here.  

The fun part comes when it's time to pay.  Solomon, the owner, has a calculator and hands another one to you.  He says the prices of each product and you both enter them at the same time.  If at the end, you come to the same number, it's deal.  If not, you start all over again and see if you can come to the same price.  This could take a few tries.

This, my friends, is Mono Prix.  The Home Depot of Mango.  I love this little store.  This is where we buy bleach (often) and batteries, may be oatmeal, envelopes, whatever.  This store has a lot of stuff tucked inside.  The other day I asked for cooking oil.  The owner didn't have any but he sent one of his staff as a runner for it.  A few minutes later, the guy came back with cooking oil.  I love the customer service here.  Next time I'm going to ask for a burger and fries.

Emily and I went to market the other day to the Mango version of Baby Gap.  We bought a few little items for Odile's new baby, Ixosir.  We also met this adorable man who was dancing down the streets to some music that was blasting.  He saw us and wanted to greet us.  So I gave him a few francs and got my photo taken with him.  Notice his t-shirt.  This guy knows how to have a good time.

Look, Mango has a Shell station.  Except that it doesn't.  We have a Shell sign and an abandoned Shell pump, but no station.  

Last Saturday, a few of us went to Kara for a little shopping trip.  From left to right is Jody, Christine, me, Victoria and Janice.  We had a great time going from boutique to boutique finding all sorts of fun stuff like cookies, Doritos (the real kind!), and more.  

 One of our last stops on the trip was a really cool boutique called Codhani.  Codhani has all kinds of items made from fabric that is made right on the grounds by people with disabilities.  They make the fabric, dye it with batik patterns, then make great stuff.  You can get shirts, dresses, skirts, quilts, boxer shorts, towels, aprons, purses, and so much more.  If you ever come to Mango, I will bring you to Codhani.

 Everything is hand-made by the people and it gives them a decent income when otherwise they would have nothing at all.  Nothing in Togo is "accessible" so if you have a special need, you're pretty much an outcast.   

This is a cute baby quilt I got there.  (Shh...don't tell anyone who has a baby back in Canada that this is what they'll be getting.)  This was $6.00 Cdn.  That's cheap for a handmade quilt.  I am even thinking of getting one made for our bed.

It's a really cool store with purpose.

There ya go.  Our little shopping excursions are pretty simple but there are some neat surprises every once in a while.  Like in Kara, I found PEPSI.  The real stuff.  That made me very happy.

Just Stuff...

 It's December.  I can't even believe it.  It so does NOT feel like December.  The weather here has gotten hotter and hotter.  Last week we reached 40 degrees celsius and thought we might actually cook inside our own flesh.  Thankfully, the weather has come down a bit in temperature and it's a nice cool 32 deg outside today.  In the shade.

Life here is good, thanks for asking.  We have been really busy. I'm not sure what has kept us so busy but it's been busy nonetheless.

So here are some photos of life here, just so you feel like you know what we're up to....

Here's Teddy enjoying the dogs. Teddy gets peanut butter on his face EVERY SINGLE MORNING.  So the dogs enjoy it when he gets down and lets them wash him.  He giggles and giggles.  I love this shot.

Last Sunday was Ethan's fourteenth birthday.  FOURTEEN!!  As if!  I can't believe that either.  When I think that time here in Africa is going slow I just think about how fast the last fourteen years have gone and I know we will be home in a blink of an eye.

Ethan hates cake.  So every year we have to come up with a non-cake birthday dessert.  This year he wanted doughnuts and without a Tim Hortons in the neighbourhood, we decided to try making our own.  They are ugly little things but they tasted great!

Here he is blowing out the candles on his doughnuts.  Fourteen candles wouldn't fit, so we put six.  

He asked for crazy African pants.  So we found some fabric with fish (turns out he's quite the angler out here.  The men have taken him fishing twice and both times he was the ONLY one who caught anything!)  and got some crazy pants made.

The only thing he really wanted for his birthday was a coup-coup, which is the french/togo term for a machete.  So, we gave in and bought the boy a machete.  He already has a big scar on his shin from a little machete mishap, so I can only imagine what a new, sharp, African coup-coup will leave on his body.  But he does look genuinely happy.

And for the boy blog readers, this is the Transalp.  I think that Nate looks like one of the guys from Chips when he rides it BUT, I do have to admit that it's fun to ride on.  He and I whip around town on this big green machine.  The other day a woman in our neighbourhood came home from her fields very very sick.  They came and got us to take her to the hospital.  Nate drove and they put the sick woman on the back, and then behind her (to hold her on) was another woman, so the three of them drove off to the hospital.  Turns out she had a nasty case of malaria and passed out on the way there.  Nate carried her into the hospital "fireman style", not understanding a word of what they were telling him to do.  But thankfully, they treated her and she is home and fine.  Three people on a moto is not uncommon here.  Five is even pretty common and looks pretty funny.  We saw a guy carrying a cow on his moto the other day.  

And then today we had a guy take our gate to be fixed...on his moto.  Check this out.

Our "garage door" broke off the hinge, so we called this welder.  He came on his moto, put the door on and then sat on it.  About 30 minutes later he was back with it fixed and ready to install.  Talk about customer service!!

So while the door was off, Nate decided the Transalp needed a bath.  That attracted a few hundred African children.

So we bathed the Transalp and half the neighbourhood kids.  All in all, a productive afternoon.  It took us about 10 minutes to round up all the kids and get them out of our yard so we could have lunch.  In fact, one of the mothers in the neighbourhood had to come and help us.  

So that's us over the last little bit, just the stuff of daily life.