Let there be light...

This week (in my words), Jeremiah has made light, water, and fan!!!  (And also really impressed me with his electrical wiring skills.)  He rewired our bathroom and installed a new light fixture.  Then he put in a new pedestal sink which is now working (with no leaks!!) and he installed a vent fan in our 1950's bathroom!!  We are about finished with the bathroom remake.  We ordered a mirror for over the sink and it arrived today.  We'll put it up this weekend along with a little carpentry work on the built-in shelves/hamper by Jeremiah and we will be finished, yay!

In other news, we went to the "Hope for Africa" concert on Tuesday night.  It is a group 

of 23 Ugandan orphans who tour in America singing and dancing.  It was very fun to see them and it reminded us of Sierra Leone.  They were asking people there to sponsor orphans at the school/orphanage in Uganda for $1500 per child per year!  Quite a lot of money!  We decided we have a much better deal supporting Ngeimah in Sierra Leone where it costs about $150 to pay for school/board/food/etc for the whole year!

In honor of the children of Africa, here are some photos from Sierra Leone!

Above is some children that were selling fruit on the side of the road.  All of the children loved to be photographed or "snapped" as they call it.  Notice, several of them are carrying things on their heads...  We were amazed by how they are able to carry huge loads on top of their heads.  Most impressive to us was the ladies who were carrying dozens and dozens of eggs and walking along so gracefully!

In Sierra Leone, all of the women carry the children on their back like this with the cloth wrapped around them.  They even carry the very young ones like this and I often wanted to go hold their little heads up for them, but I 

think they must learn fast there to hold up their own heads!  Most women with a baby on their back like this would also be carrying something on their head and in their hands.  The women are unbelievably strong there!!  On the right above is some children in Baiima village who were waiting to be seen at mobile clinic.  As you can see, underwear count for clothing there!  Bras also do...many of the women seemed to wear bras just like they were shirts.  I don't blame them though--it's so hot there with no air conditioning to cool that that it makes sense!

Here is me "doctoring" at Baiima village.  One of the nursing students insisted on taking this picture because she wanted my father and husband to be able to see what I was doing there.

The little girl to the left is Mammy.  She was in Baiima 

village when we went there for mobile clinic.  That day, Dr. Missa was called back to the hospital to do an operation for a "chronic ectopic pregnancy"....and yes, I said chronic...never quite figured that one out.  Anyhow, I was left in the village that day to see about 25 people on my own.  It was quite an experience!  This little girl happened to be very sick.  Her temperature was about 104F and she was tachycardic, tachypneic, and VERY listless.  We gave her Tylenol for the fever and an oral rehydration solution.  Her family had no way to transport her to the hospital, so she had to wait until we left to go back to the hospital.  She was then treated for malaria, amebiasis, and received two units of blood.  This is a picture of her five days later when she was ready to go back home!  She is my one child in Africa I know I saved....I hope she goes on to have a wonderful life! :)

My aunt Sarah (who works for UTHSC in Developmental Pediatrics)

sent lots of children's books with us to hand out in SL.  My mom joined us for mobile clinic one day at Jao Village and she brought along books to take to their school.  First let me tell you about their school....it was

 a tiny hut smaller than most of our living rooms sectioned off into four

four rooms.  In each room, there were probably 30-40 children scrunched together on benches, not even proper desks for them.  When mom took them the books, they were so excited!  They screamed and followed her through the village out of excitement!  The teacher told her that no one had ever brought them books before and they were touched by the gesture.  Thank you to Sarah and the publishers for helping provide these children with new books which will hopefully broaden their horizons and help encourage their education!!

While I am talking about Sierra Leone, I also have to mention the Tetteys.  They are a family from the UK (she is originally from Jamaica and him from Ghana) who have dedicated the next two years to working at missionaries at Nixon Memorial Methodist Hospital in Segbwema.  They are doing wonderful work there at the hospital.  We enjoyed getting to know them while we were there and will enjoy hearing what more they do during their stay there!  We also could not have made it through the trip without all of their help!  Here I am with their family...

None of the above photos had my mom in them, so here is one of her!  She was a really great sport to travel with me to the other side of the world and live with no running water, electricity, and very bad food for four weeks!!  Here is her enjoying a beautiful day at Number 2 River Beach...we made a quick trip to the most gorgeous beach ever before we flew out of Freetown.  It was a well deserved day of relaxation after our time in Segbwema.

If you want to see more photos from our trip, here is a link to Picasa (sorry the photos don't all have captions yet, one of these days I'll get to it....):  

http://picasaweb.google.com/karengeckhart/SierraLeonePictures