Chad #12 2019
Today was Saturday, the day I choose to go to church and worship God. I woke up with the sun today as I have been for a while now. I’ve been listening to The Jesus Dialogue by Herb Montgomery from Renewed Heart Ministries while I’ve been here. It has really blessed me and given me a renewed view of Gods love for all humanity, including me. So I listened to another part this morning. I ate some ripe mangos- which are awesome this time of year! Then I went in to see some patients that I was worried about. Both guys with perforated appendicitis and pus everywhere are doing well. The man with an ostomy and stool everywhere inside, from a sigmoid perforation, his ostomy is coming off and he has stool all over his dressing. Lovely for the incision… I found a couple more ostomy bags and gave them to the nurse so that he could change it. The ER nurse asked me to see someone with typhoid, I immediately thought of perforation, but the was walking around and was an outpatient. So I prescribed him treatment.
I then made it back to where Jonathan was meeting a few of us to go to a bush church. They’re all bush churches, but this one is further away from Bere. I take Olen’s moto so that if I get called to the hospital, then I can leave and come back separately. I prefer to ride the motorcycle anyway. I enjoy the breeze in my face and the view. They indicate the directions of how to start to get there, so I head off ahead, so I don’t have to eat the vehicles dust the whole way.
I head out of Bere towards Lai. It’s market day in Bere, so many people are walking along the road with things to sell or trade. Two wheeled carts with car tires are pulled along by either a small horse or a pair of cows. They’re often hauling mud bricks, roofing reeds, or sacks of grain to sell. Basically whatever is to heavy to carry on one’s head. A few people are riding donkeys. I drove ahead till I reached a town near by where they were going to turn off the main road. I waited about 15 min till they caught up with me. As I waited, I watched the variety of people going by towards Bere. After Jonathan caught up with me, I followed him at a distance. We took a winding path through the village that was really to small for his truck, as he often had dragging branches on both sides of his vehicle. When there was a breezed from the side, I’d ride closer to him as the breeze took the dust away. There were kids playing with sticks and rocks under the trees in little groups. Women were out with wood mortar and pestle pounding rice and then pouring it in the breeze to get the chaff off. Others were at their open wells, drawing water for the family or for animals. After we left the village, we went through fields that were not yet planted. There are many types of palm trees around this area. There are a few coconut trees, and many of a smaller round looking fruit that’s hard too. Apparently it takes about 20 years for these to grow big enough to produce the hard, small fruit. There are little paths leading off everywhere and we pass other small villages. A few times we take a wrong turn and backtrack a little. It has been two years since Jonathan has visited this church. Eventually we pulled into the village of Kalme.
We went through Kalme and had to get directions and redirections to make it to the church. After we pulled up to the church, a horde of children crowded around us. Olen and Denae ushered the kids into the children’s Sabbath school and we could hear the singing during the adult Sabbath school. I went to the adult class. It was in Nangere and wasn’t being translated, so I heard they were discussing Samuel and the way God called him, so I read that story in my bible again. After Sabbath school, the kids joined us in the church and they lay a tarp on the ground for the kids to crowd on, the tarp covered the dirt floor and diminished the dust inside. You know how kids fidget, and there was a constant cloud of dust as soon as they were in there.
I always find it amusing and sad, the way people have been taught the western traditions of church. The people that were participating up front, all went outside, and then at a certain song, walked single file, in and up to the front. They prayed then sat down. [In our church in Cameroon, everyone up front wore a tie, so they would go behind the pulpit and get a tie, then tie it on whatever they were wearing, and then file in with their ties in place. I think a sad thing to have to do in this heat] They sand some songs with clapping and homemade metal drum. Jonathan gave a sermon in French that was translated into Nangere. We had a visitor Charles from Orlando Hospital, here to look at the OR design. I translated from French to English for him.
After the church service the head elder invited all of us from Bere, to his house for lunch. They put benches under the mango tree, shewed away the dogs and chickens and put a bowl of rice bule and a bowl of sauce to eat. One of his teen sons, brought around a bucket of water to pour over our hands and wash them. Then we dug in. Take a small piece of bule in your hand, smash it into a spoon shape, dip it onto the green leaf sauce and put the whole thing in your mouth…repeat till your full. Then we washed our hands again to get the bule and sauce off. Charles and a couple others were worried about dysentery, so they didn’t partake. The rest of us, polished it off. After we ate, the elder wanted to show land that was given for a school, so Gabriel, Sarah and some others went to see it. About 4 teen boys gathered around, so I asked them questions.
When do you start planting the fields? They said when the rain has saturated at least 20cm down into the ground, then if you plant, things will grow. So they are waiting for more rain.
What things will you plant? Around Kalme- rice is the primary crop. Though in places not far away they grow, peanuts, millet, watermelons, black eyed peas.
How long does it take for a planted mango tree to bear fruit? About 4-5 years to bear it’s first fruit, and the one we were sitting under was likely 20-30 years old.
Do you till the field by hand or with cows? Two cows are used with a plow for the initial turning.
We talked for a while and the ones that went to see the school property returned. As we said our thank yous and good bys to the elder and his family, a guy wanted a ride back to Bere. So he got on the moto with me. He led us back a different way that was more direct. A lot of it followed a very deep sandy path. In some places I wondered if it was a dry stream bed. It was a bit challenging driving on the sand with his added weight, as he was heavier than I. We almost went over once. Also the road was even tighter for the truck. It was a fun ride anyway, and it was good to be out of the hospital compound.
Later on all the missionaries got together for a potluck lunch. I brought koolaid drink. They are a bunch of good cooks, so we all ate well. It was umbearably hot, and when they asked what Charles and I wanted to do next, we decided a cooler river would be nice. So we went for dip in the hippo river, in a shallow area that the hippos don’t go to. It was so nice to just lounge in the water and be cool. It’s also the area of the river that people bring their sheep and cows to cross to the other side. So as we were there a few herds went through the water. What a peaceful evening!