The Peoples of the ROC

The two main original people groups are the Bantu, a tall long, dark skinned people, and the 

Aka who are short and squat and have very broad noses. Here' are two of the hospital's carpenters that are pretty good representatives of the two groups.

This Aka lady is one of our chronic-wound patients and is a good example of the Aka-look. She just received a skin-graft which, Lord willing, will enable her to go home healed!

But the population of Impfondo is not limited to the Bantu and the Aka. There are the Rawandans who tend the most wonderful gardens; there are Muslims from countries like Chad, and  refugees from the DRC and CAR. In Impfondo you can find just about every shape, shade, and feature of face imaginable: some people look like they belong in the jungle, others like they rode in from Kenya, and some look positively Arabian.

Below is a Bantu-looking woman.

I'm on my way home right now, by the way, sitting in the Charles DeGaulle Airport. See you alll soon!

Congolese Style

You've probably been wondering what people are wearing in the Congo these days. Well, wonder no more!

Trying to describe the trends of Congolese style is like trying to paint a still-life of a toddler. The Congolese are in the midst of modernization. With the advent of cell phones, motorcycles, Hollywood, Bollywood, and the fasions that comes with them, life for the people of the Northern Congo is changing. In addition to the influx of new stuff, Impfondo and other cities in the Republic of Congo have been flooded by refugees fleeing from the civil wars in their own countries. These peoples bring with them their own set of cultural standards and ways of life.

With this melding of cultures and the influence of western entertainment there is a wide variation of dress, from the Muslim burka to the booty-jeans plus halter-top.

Overall, though, I have noticed these three trends: the kids wear whatever they can get ahold of, the women wear colorfully patterned blouses and skirts, and the men wear whatever they want.

Typical Congolese women.

Lots of babies. Having a baby is stylish also.

Below is a picture of our wonderful cook, Mama Lyddi. she's whipping us up a batch of peanutbutter.

Elegant.

Keeping it classy. Also "Flippin' Sweet."

And when in doubt, a picture of the president is always a safe bet. That's Dr. Wegner on the right. His shirt, if you look closely, encourages timeliness. 

This Aka woman was more than willing to pose in her jungle habitat. These Muslim ladies were a little less excited about being photographed. 

Like I said before, the men wear whatever they want. 

Here are few examples of English t-shirts that may or may not be understood by the wearers.

And he probably did. 

All said and done, dress in the Congo is certainly colorful, albeit a little distracting. But I like it.

I miss you all.

Danny

Mr. G and his Chronic Wound

One of our patients is a 76-year-old man named Mr. G.  A tall Congolese with wide eyes, Mr. G had a shallow wound on his thigh shaped like Lake Michigan that extended from his knee nearly to his buttock. The sight of it was overwhelming, a pool of red flesh with no hope of being covered again by skin. Weeping blood and fluid, the wound had plagued Mr. G for over two years. 

Although you'd never guess it from this photo, when Mr. G first arrived he was emaciated and barely able to move because of the pain in his leg. He had to be carefully carried in a stretcher and was basicallly paralyzed from the waist down. Though his familly cared for him faithfully, you could tell his spirits were crushed from having this wound for so long.

Above is a photo Mr. G's lovely wife, Mrs. G.  She and other members of Mr. G's family transported him over a hundred kilometers to our hospital because they had heard of Dr. Tenpenny's surgeries.

Dr. Tenpenny says hello.

Dr. Elliot Tenpenny is a Mayo-trained ER doc who has almost entirely taken over surgery here at Pioneer Christian Hospital. Dr. Tenpenny came here after many months of jungle-surg training with veteran Dr. Warren Cooper of the DRC. Dr. Cooper's blog can be found here: http://warrenandlindseycooper.blogspot.com

When Dr. Tenpenny came to the hospital, he brought a set of skin-graft tools which he promptly put to use.

Hard at work, here is Dr. Tenpenny doing his first skin graph at Pioneer Christian Hospital.

After a few successful skin graphs, word got out and the hospital experienced a steady stream of men and women with enormous, chronic wounds.  And when I say "chronic," I mean it; many of these patients had been afflicted and crippled for years. Many of these lacerations make you shiver to look at them: shins with exposed and rotting bone, foot-wounds cut down to the tendons, and always, always plenty of the pus from infection.

When he came to us, Mr. G was malnourished to the point of skin and bones. His body had consumed itself trying to heal a wound that had acted a black hole for energy and nutrition. Dr. Tenpenny put Mr. G on a stict diet of densely nutritional food called plumpinut, a sticky combination of vitamins and peanutbutter. After a few weeks of nutrion and dressing changes, Mr. G. looked healthier and his wound was ready for an operation.

As far as photos go, I will skip over his grusome original condition. You can get an idea of its original size from this picture taken a week after the operation.

The pinkish, mesh-like parts of the wound are patches of skin that have been grafted from the right thigh which is covered by white gauze. The procedure is simple: Dr. Tenpenny uses a noisy peeling-machine to take a layer of healthy skin from someplace on the body, often from the thigh. He then puts this skin through a mesher which punctures the skin and allows it to be stretched out like a chain-link fence. Dr. Tenpenny then spreads the meshed skin over the raw flesh and we all pray for the skin to stick and grow. 

Above is a picture I took a few hours ago. Notice how the previously fleshy gaps have been filled in with healthy skin. The pink wound on his right thigh will soon regain its pigment. 

After his surgery and after the skin began covering the wound, it took some time for Mr. G to realize he was healed. He hadn't walked on his own in years, and at his age he probably didn't have much hope of walking in the future. I am glad to say that Mr. G is now walking around on his own and, Praise God, will be going home soon. 

My Friend Darien

Darien is a twelve-year-old boy in my English class, one of my best students, and an all-around good kid. I met his family at the hospital a few weeks back and they said I should visit their house sometime. I'd been wanting to get a closer look at life in Impfondo, so I told Darien to meet me on Sunday after church so he could give me a tour of his home.

Darien met me at the hospital and we walked to his neighborhood in Impfondo. As we walked up to the cluster of mud-brick buildings that belong to his family, people kept asking Darien about his "mundella" friend. "Mundella" means "white," and it's a word I hear about 100 times when I ride my bike down the street. 

Darien led me between a few short buildings to a clump of people sitting around a teeny-tiny courtyard. He introduced me to his uncle and his mother and some of his sisters. He had twin sisters named Peya and Comu. I knew of another set of twins at the hospital with the same names, and Darien explained to me that all the twins in the Congo have the same names, Peya and Comu. I'm probably spelling "Comu" wrong, by the way.

Here we are heading back to Darien's house.

Darien insisted that I pose for a picture with his mother. Can you see the resemblance? Between Darien and his mother, I mean.

Here is the inside of Darien's house. A nice place, clean and cool.

Notice the picture of the president above the refrigerator. His face is everywhere in town: tee-shirts, poster-boards, ladies' dresses with his photo as a pattern.

Darien is a very good student, and below is evidence of his study habits.

Every Sunday I see Darien in church, worshipping with the saints and listening to the sermon. I also see him in my English classes on Thursdays and Fridays. I feel like I have a better feeling for how Impfondo families live their everyday lives.

I miss you all. I am doing well and look forward to seeing you soon.

Jungle Walk

Went exploring the jungle after worshiping at the Aka (pygmy) church.

Impfondo: Down Town

I thought I'd upload a few more photos of the center of town.

In Impfondo there are a lot of abandoned building projects that give the town a kind of hollowness.

I suspect some of these "white elephants" (that's what I call them) were built by the government but their completion got snagged in the beuracracy. 

I wonder if they will ever be finished. My hope is that the government, as they did with the hospital's campus, will give these buildings to citizens who can put them to good use.

Below are some folks loading into what I think is a bus.

At the mouth of the maket.

Here's a storm rolling in over the city.

She Said Yes

When I came to the Congo in mid-January I left behind my girlfriend Amanda Perry. Last week I decided the distance didn't matter: I was in love and she needed to hear about it.  I had someone hide a ring under her bed, and early Sunday morning (Saturday evening in Idaho) I called and asked Amanda to be my bride. She said yes.

God is so good to me. I love you, Amanda, and I can't wait to begin our lives together.

Daily Life

I wake up early, the sunlight streaming through my mosquito netting. I sleep on a waterbed, which is strange, but the water displaces my body-heat and keeps me cool.

I make myself come coffee and then bike along the main road that runs north-south to the hospital. The Congolese are early risers. At 6 am I see men going to work and children walking to school. Every morning a motorcyle with a huge crate of fresh bread whizzes past me into town, leaving a wonderful smell in its wake. Most of the other smells here in Impfondo are less pleasant.

The hospital's first daily event is morning devotion. Hospital staff and volunteers meet at 7 am in the hospital chapel for a few songs and an scripture reading delivered in French. Sometimes Dr. Harvey translates, sometimes he's elsewhere and no one translates. I find that I enjoy these meetings without translation since I usually learn a few new words. 

Next comes morning report in the conference roomm of the admin building. Here we discuss new patients and developments in patients already at the  hospital.

After this the doctors go on rounds, visiting every patient in the hospital. 

Bugs are a very important part of life at the hospital. We share every room with ants, flies, and enormous, dangly-legged wasps that build their mud homes in the corners of the ceiling.

Here is a milipede I scooped onto my bible. 

Every day at 1 pm, the volunteers eat a big lunch at the Blue House, the central residence for volunteers and visitors on the hospital grounds. We usually have noodles or rice with some kind of meat (beef, chicken, wild boar, crocodile, catepillars), and on the side is a huge plate of papaya, pineapple, or fried plantain. 

In the afternoons I work with patients, help with a surgery, or teach my English class.

At first, teaching this class was not my idea. A few weeks ago some volunteer nurses from Mercy Ships offerred several classes for the hospital staff to practice their English. When these nurses left to go back to the ship, they volunteered me to carry on the class. I decided to teach a 1 hour class twice a week on Thursdays and Fridays.

The first day I had three students. The next day Dr. Harvey made an announcement over the hospital's radio broadcast and I found twenty-five students crammed into the conference room. The number of students continues to grow. I use teaching techniques I learned from my Latin teacher, Mr. Griffith, involving pictures and gestures to convey new words and stories. Yesterday I held my class in the chapel and told the story of Noah to over 70 students of all ages.

The second day of class.

And the next time. 

I usually back home before the sun sets at 6pm. The main danger is not crime but traffic. There are motorcycles everywhere and for many of the drivers, manuevering a two-wheeled vehicle is a newly acquired skill. 

Next week I'll do my best to describe the city of Impfondo.

Thanks for reading.