Our Photo Album
Letter # 1 - 12/24/10
Letter # 2 - 1/16/11
Letter # 3 -
2/7/11
Letter # 4 -
2/13/11
Letter # 5 - 2/13/11
Letter # 6 - 3/10/11
Letter # 7 - 4/15/11
Letter # 8 - 4/26/11
Letter # 1
- 12/24/10
Hello everyone~
Merry Christmas Eve from Macha. So far it's a sunny Christmas Eve with a
light breeze swaying the papaya ("paw-paw") trees. Lately we've been
getting late afternoon tropical storms that whip up the sand and grit in
an instant. Our family had taken a bikeride to a nearby village the other
evening to visit a friend. John rode wrapped on my back (I managed not to
crash, despite his 39 lbs and my cumbersome skirt on a gully-was!!) We saw
a cloud forming as night fell, so began home quickly. Before we knew it
the storm was directly behind us. It was unbelievably gorgeous--to our
left was a yellow sunset set in a turquoise sky, with green lush palms
quivering and the soil beneath us a vibrant red. To our right and behind
us was a massive grey cloud, swimming across the sky pulsing with
lightening bolts, urging us along. John thought this was great because I
had never ridden so fast with him on my back. We dodged cattle herds and
guineas, "Moo, moo!!" called John, squealing with great delight each time
we flew past a cow.
Our trip to South Africa went well, a nice time to connect with other MCC
volunteers. We visited a Lion Park during our retreat. As we drove our
borrowed vehicle through the park, we passed a massive pride of lions.
They watched us for a while, then one lioness came up and brushed her
strong body against the driver side of the truck, watching us closely
through our rolled-up windows. We saw meerkats, cheetahs, zebras, giraffes
and hyenas. Our colleagues who visited the park the following day had more
excitement; they got their spare tire chewed off by one frisky lioness who
then tried to climb the back of their land rover! Flying back into
Livingstone in Zambia the pilot took us over Victoria Falls, a
breathtaking view from the air of the mile-long gorge, now beginning to
flow heavily since the rainy season has picked up. Everett especially
loved it since he had the windowseat.
The boys slept on the long hot bus ride home to Choma, then on to Macha by
Dr Spurrier who picked us up (no public transport to Macha on Saturday
evenings), where we were greeted by sullen, cocky baboons cutting their
eyes at us as they crossed the road. We stopped at another game farm near
Macha on the way home, and met a kind man who is a fourth-generation white
Zambian farmer, the descendent of medical missionaries from the late
1800's. He had great stories about lion encounters and hunting
expeditions, and sent us home with a wild pig leg to roast. The boys
enjoyed his dogs and wild grapes, and the vast collection of buffalo
skulls and antelope horns lining the veranda.
Today the hospital is having a staff Christmas party. We are expecting
some African dancing, lots of singing, and some food. Our work at the
hospital continues to go well, though we are balancing time at home with
the boys since our hired child care provider has been sick for a few
weeks. She is receiving treatment and is improving, so we hope she may be
back next week to watch the boys and do some light housekeeping (she is
even willing to wash John's diapers!!) Phil is having fun in the
maintenance department. He says there are piles of requisition slips from
the hospital and hospital compound (other homes like ours, that surround
the hospital and comprise Macha village, many of them hospital staff).
Some homes have more than one maintenance request, such as: 1st request:
to fix someone's flush toilet. Some time later, a second request reading
"REQUEST: to dig a pit latrine because you FAILED to fix the one [toilet]
inside!" Yesterday they went out to try to do some repairs on the water
tower, then the battery died on their truck before coming back home, so
his co-workers decided they should all sit down for a while and eat
mangoes from a nearby tree.
The maternity ward was a happier place this week than it was last week;
I'm still adjusting to having no high-tech interventions at my disposal.
I'm also learning what gets re-used here instead of thrown away--nasogastric
tubes are washed and used again, even surgical sponges are re-used. The
wrapping paper from sterile gloves is saved to use as clean scale liners
to weigh newborns. Clean gloves are a hot commodity, and I keep a wad in
my pocket when I go to work in the morning. The other day I put a feeding
tube in a premie and the mother expressed milk to feed it. I went home
sad, thinking the baby would not live. The next morning I came back into
the ward and found the baby doing well. He was lying next to his mother,
warmly bundled in a room with a small space heater (our substitute for
isolettes is to keep premies with mom in a hot room). A nurse was playing
music next door as the mom unwrapped the baby for me to examine him. The
lyrics floated through as I looked upon the sweet, tiny, breathing boy "I
am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow, a wave tossed in
the ocean, a vapour in the wind. Still you hear me when I'm calling, Lord
you catch me when I'm falling and you've told me who I am. I am yours..."
My eyes began to sting as I was reminded of the fragility of life here,
whether young or old. HIV, TB and malaria go hand-in-hand here and the
life expectancy for the average Zambian is somewhere in the 30's, by the
last statistic I read. Have any of you seen the movie "Yesterday", set in
South Africa? It is the stunning and award-winning portrayal of a woman
from Johannesburg and her walk with HIV. It is available on Netflix in the
US. I recommend it to anyone interested in learning a bit more about the
impact of HIV on women and families in Africa.
Today we will be doing Christmas baking while the electricity is
(hopefully!) on. The boys are hoping Santa comes to Africa tonight to fill
their stockings, and we are all happy to be healthy and well today. We
miss all of you this Christmas season, and send our love. Thank you for
all your prayers, emails and snail mails and even some promises of
packages! We have some MCC photo cards that can be mailed to any of you
who want one on real card stock. Just let me know if you want one. An
e-version is attached to this email as well. When the internet connection
is stronger we will send out some more pictures.
Merry Christmas,
Anje, Phil, Everett and John
Hello everyone,
Greetings from Macha! So I thought rainy season was in full swing last
month, but then January arrived and with it the real rains. This has been
good for our garden and the many maize farmers in this community, but not
so good for clumsy moms like me who carry giant babies on their back then
slip in the mud (John thought it was funny when we wiped out, but I assure
you my kneecap was not laughing!) My back is doing a bit better and I can
carry John well if someone else lifts him up for me.
The heavy rains also made our weekend trip to Victoria Falls beautiful,
since the Zambezi River was swollen with water. We stayed in safari tents
at a riverside lodge and could hear hippos and fruit bats at night. We
spotted a sneaky crocodile surfacing, but the closest we actually got to
one was the croc tail we ate for supper at the restaurant. A huge nosy
baboon also lurked around the lodge hoping for generous tourists, but we
followed the rules and didn't feed it. Even the baboons at the falls were
reasonably well-behaved (we know folks who have been swatted by the giant
monkeys for not sharing their picnic goodies), and we got to watch mama
baboons collecting baobab tree pods for the babies that clung to their
backs and underbellies like fluffy remoras. An elderly American missionary
woman told us about the time an "old grandaddy baboon" stole her Almond
Joy bar, then she beat it on the nose with her water bottle, no no avail
(it even peeled the wrapper before eating the chocolate, she said).
One of the pediatric patients this week was a young girls whose home had
collapsed on her during a particularly heavy rainstorm. There is no
orthopedic unit at Macha hospital, but people make do. I learned how you
can fill an oil jug with water to hang over a bedrail as traction for a
fractured femur. The kids in peds are brave, and so are their mothers who
hold bedside vigils. Last week we had a cholera scare and the "isolation
huts" were used to quarantine the suspected cholera patients. I was
relieved this week to learn that it was a false alarm (especially since
our house is downstream in the hospital compound!!). Running water has
been a problem though, which is ironic since there is so much rain. We use
our rain barrel as backup when the boreholes aren't working properly. Last
week I was filling water bottles from our rain barrel for thirsty moms in
the postpartum unit (how can you refuse to share water with breastfeeding
moms who have just given birth???)
John had a fun time turning two on January 7th. I made a decorated
chocolate cake for him using a few special treats we brought from South
Africa last month. We had a party for him and I let him play in the mud to
his heart's content. Our neighbor made him an African suit and he wore it
with pride to church on Sunday. We have been visiting a small village
church that is about three years old. Most of the service is in Tonga
language, so it's another incentive to keep learning how to speak it. Most
of the Tonga phrases I've been learning relate to the human body and
pregnancy, and Phil's Tonga mostly pertains to boreholes and water
towers--so we need to expand our vocabulary a bit. Everett is exploding
with Tonga phrases that he learns from his friends (he claims that soon HE
will be teaching his parents how to speak Tonga). Even John has been
picking up on Tonga words as fast as he is learning new English words--his
new favorite word is baboon (and he has motions to go with it!).
A couple pictures of our family at Victoria Falls are attached. thanks to
all of you for remembering us in your thoughts and prayers! Especially
remember Everett this week as he starts kindergarten at a local school.
Also, continue to remember Phil and me as we try to work effectively at
the hospital.
love,
Anje and family
Hello friends and family,
I tried attaching some photos but the internet won't allow me to send that
big of a file... So here are some pictures in words instead.
We are all doing well. Everett is loving his new school. He has already
learned the Zambian national anthem which they sing each morning before
lining up and marching into their classrooms ("...Zambia proud and
free!..."). When we rode our bikes to school in the morning the schoolyard
was filled with children playing soccer using a ball fashioned from
plastic bags. Everett was about to join in the game but they started
ringing the bell and he had to get in line instead. The kids here in Macha
village have been teaching him how to play soccer ("football" it's called
here) which he loves. John is learning to ride a bike now too, so he can
proudly follow Everett in the lane outside our house and through the
village neighborhood. We have to watch that he doesn't wander off, though
if he did I'm sure everyone would know which house to return him to since
he is the only white toddler in Macha.
I spent a long day in a mobile ART (anti-retroviral therapy) clinic
yesterday. We drove about 50 km to a rural village and saw HIV patients
all day long--distributing medicines, checking labwork, checking
adherence, etc. The highlight of the day for me was when we closed the
file of a 2 1/2 year old girl who had been born to an HIV+mother... The
girls' final HIV test was negative, after the clinic's hard work to
prevent mother-to-child transmission throughout pregnancy and
breastfeeding! It was nice to have a reason to celebrate.
Philip continues his work in the maintenance department troubleshooting
some of the areas for improvement. He spends a lot of time handling the
repair orders that come in, recording the jobs, and then delegating the
work. He is called the "supervisor's vice" which I think is hilarious.
(Zambian English provides us with constant sources of humor.)
The sky was unusually clear tonight; uncommon during rainy season. The
stars were so bright I could see the Milky Way rising from the horizon.
Some familiar constellations were out, but Orion was sort of sideways... I
am still adjusting to seeing the night sky from the southern hemisphere
instead of Virginia. When dry season comes I look forward to doing some
real star-gazing.
The army ants were out this week, marching 8 rows wide across the lane we
take to school. I blasted through them on the bike and cautioned Everett
to never let his feet near them. The week before there had been a black
snake on the same path--I didn't get close enough to see if it was the
harmless or poisonous variety; it slithered off into the tall grass and I
didn't follow it to find out. We are getting used to the wildlife, even
the owl that screeches all night long on the flamboyant tree and sounds
like someone slamming brakes on a car (John still insists upon calling it
"hooting"). A fight broke out last night between some wild dogs, right
outside the bedroom. They snarled behind my head where I was standing by
the window; Phil thought it was funny to see me jump, but I reminded him
that when somethings snarls behind you in Africa you need to take it
seriously, even when there is a window between you and the snarling thing.
On a prettier note, we've seen many of the Lilac-Breasted Rollers, a
gorgeous colorful bird that hangs around the backyard and eats ants (It's
also the national bird of Botswana). You birdwatchers should google it to
find a picture. Its colors are breathtaking.
Thanks for the wonderful mail we have received recently--Christmas cards
and January birthday mail still trickling in, extending the holidays and
birthday festivities for us--hospital admin even brought us some parcel
slips to sign to retrieve some packages at the Choma post office for us
next week--yippee!
love to all,
Anje, (and Phil, Ev and John)
We saw a family of baboons yesterday, so
John's latest favorite thing thing to do is to re-inact a mean baboon. Our
colleague was driving the MCC van, when she had to chase a nosy baboon
away from the window (it was snooping around trying to get into her bag).
She thought she could just chase it off with her arm, but the baboon
punched her in the face. Our family has fortunately not been on the
receiving end of any baboon violence!
Prayer request: a good child care provider for John. Our last situation
ended up not working out (John went missing one too many times, and we
ended up having to sadly fire the woman who had been watching him.) I'll
be staying home from the hospital with him for a few days while we try to
arrange a new situation for him.
thanks,
Anje
Hello,
Here is a picture of Everett drinking Fanta with his friend Ivy last
month, on our porch during John's birthday party. Everett has been sick
with a high fever for a couple of days. I like seeing this picture of him,
reminding me of when he is healthy and happy. Please say a prayer for him
to get well soon, and for John also to stay healthy.
Anje and family
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Hello friends and family,
We hope this email finds you all doing well, and enjoying springtime's
arrival. We are tapering off the rainy season here in Zambia, and
preparing for a cooler season as April approaches. Zambia's "winter" is
May-July. The maize growing season is also coming to an end, with a
disappointment to many farmers here in the Southern Province. The rainy
season had an unexpected dry spell for several weeks, spoiling many maize
crops. This means that many local families might have just enough maize to
eat, but probably not enough to sell. These repercussions could make for a
difficult upcoming year for some families. Today as I was riding in the
hospital truck through the Macha region for mobile clinic, we passed field
after field of dry, withered maize, interspersed with a few fields that
were green and prosperous.
We get a lot of people coming to our door to ask for things--even just a
drink of water, or food from our garden, or sometimes money. Most often
people come to sell things, like chickens, eggs, mushrooms, etc. Women
will come asking for "piece work", meaning a job just for the day, to earn
some money. These women usually are from the hospital, where they are
staying with a loved one or waiting to go into labor. There is a place
behind the hospital called "The Fires", open brick structures where women
and families come to stay while caring for a sick family member. Also,
pregnant women from the surrounding villages come to stay at The Fires
during the last month of their pregnancy so they can be close to the
hospital when they go into labor. Usually these women opt for hospital
deliveries instead of village deliveries so they can be near the Operating
Theatre if something goes wrong. The role of the TBA's (Traditional Birth
Attendants) in the villages is changing. They do fewer deliveries, but
play a vital role in health education, HIV counseling and prenatal care,
partnering with those of us who work in Maternal and Child Health at the
hospital. Today a laboring woman was brought a long way from her village
in the back of a pickup truck; a blanket was used to lift her onto a
hospital stretcher, then across the bumpy ground into maternity ward. I
was stricken with the memory of my pampered experiences at Augusta
Health's Birthing Suite back in Virginia, and how different it is from
what these strong village women experience.
We are happy with the woman who is caring for John these days while Phil
and I are working. Her name is Maggie, and she is from a village about 5
km away. She teaches the boys Tonga (Everett comes home from school around
1:30 pm), and she keeps a close eye on John (closer than the last woman we
had hired, who kept losing him!). She even has colored with him (something
I doubt she ever did with her own children), and I overheard her reading
him a board book the other day, haltingly, in her Zambian English, while
John sat quietly listening. She is making a real effort to take good care
of the kids for us, and always cooks a big pot of nsima (the staple maize
mush) for us to eat together at lunch. We are all eating well, and I think
every member of our family has added a nice layer of nsima fat to our
bodies. I'm working on developing the traditional African build (if you
aren't familiar with the "traditional African build", check out the book
series of "The Number One Ladies Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall
Smith) and am also trying to fatten Phil up so people will think that I'm
a good wife.
Everett and John have been riding their bikes all over Macha, and are
getting used to attending a village church in Tonga. Last Sunday, John sat
enraptured by the preacher who was stomping down the aisle with fire and
brimstone. When the preacher (our friend Abraham, who John knows well)
turned to return silently to the podium, the voice of 2-yr-old John piped
up from my lap, "more? more?", disappointed that the preaching tirade had
ended. Everett and John have been sick again, so please keep them in your
prayers. Phil and I are doing reasonably well. We miss you all and hope
that you are doing well.
love,
Anje (and Phil, Everett and John)
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Letter # 7 - 4/15/11 |
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Hello everyone,
We hope this email finds you all well. Our family been through another
bout of illnesses, though I (Anje) have managed to remain well. Of course
it's always good when the mother is the one who isn't sick... John got a
nasty spider bite and was sick for a week, Everett had another bout of
tonsillitis (we are hoping NOT to have a tonsillectomy at Macha Mission
Hospital!!), then he and Phil got another nasty respiratory infection
accompanied by pinkeye! A Zambian friend visited and saw Phil's red crusty
eyes the other morning, and soon the rumor began spreading that "Ba Cassel"
had the measles. I have successfully extinguished the rumor, though
haven't yet managed to extinguish the illness! We are blessed to have had
Drs Phil Thuma and John Spurrier around for medical consultations, so we
hope to all be on the path to recovery soon.
I attached a link to an article about the work Dr Thuma (Mission
Man) has done here in Macha. It contains photos of Macha and the
research facility that I thought you would find interesting, to give you
an idea of what the area looks like. The article focuses on the work of
the Malaria Institute which is connected to the hospital here. MIAM
(Malaria Institute at Macha), also called MRT (Macha Research Trust) is a
partner I work with in my HIV work. They have been so successful in their
malaria eradication in this region that some researchers are branching
into other areas now such as HIV/AIDS. Dr Janneke is a woman from Holland
whom I am working with to provide HIV services to pregnant women in the
rural health centers of Macha's catchment. We are organizing a mobile
PMTCT (prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV) ART
(Anti-Retroviral Therapy) clinic to try to provide services to these 13
centers. Currently the pregnant women are able to be tested for HIV at
these rural health centers, but then they generally do not come to Macha
Hospital for follow-up care. We are bringing the service to them via
four-wheel-drive, in an effort to prevent their babies from contracting
the virus during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding.
In addition to these mobile PMTCT clinics, I also am continuing my work in
data/statistics collection for Maternal/Child Health and ART (HIV) clinic,
as well as working directly with HIV+ families through the public health
office, maternity ward, and HIV clinic. I enjoy the work, but the biggest
challenge is balancing work and family. I need to clone myself three times
so that I can have more time with my family while still working at the
hospital. I miss Phil and the boys so much when I'm away for long mobile
clinics, and when they are sick I worry about them, having to decide
whether to stay or go. When I am out, I console myself by taking in the
beautiful views of sunsets over the maize fields while evening falls and
we are packing up the truck. As the maize withers now, there are yellow
and orange wildflowers springing up tall to choke out the stalks. With the
red skyline as a backdrop, it is a calm yet breathtaking scene. The smell
of charcoal smoke as women begin their evening cooking, the slight chill
to the air as night falls, sleeping babies bundled snugly on their
mother's backs--it is the essence of Africa.
Please keep us in your prayers, especially for Everett to be back to his
usual energetic self. I want to see him out on his bike again, and to hear
the shrieks of "Alfred! Evelyn!" as kids botch his name, trying to catch
him as he rides by.
love,
Anje and family
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Letter # 8 - 4/26/11 |
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Hello everyone,Happy Easter from
Macha! We hope this email finds you all doing well. We spent Easter in
Choma, the nearest town, visiting some BIC missionaries and a couple of
MCC SALT volunteers. It was nice to be together for a sort of traditional
Easter dinner with other North Americans on a holiday. Illnesses have
continued to plague us; we missed our regional retreat this month due to
Phil and Everett being sick... So it was nice to be away from Macha for a
couple of days this weekend (doesn't compare to the retreat we missed at
the Kariba Bush Club--but it still felt like a break!) The Easter Bunny
even found our boys at the guesthouse, leaving baskets to greet them on
Sunday morning. Everett couldn't believe the Easter Bunny came all the way
to Choma. He wondered if Santa Claus gets Easter Baskets too?
Rainy season is over, and with the drier season comes more ants again.
they are searching for food, water, anything edible. A single crumb left
under the supper table results in a thick stream of greedy bugs to greet
us in the morning! We've had a couple of snake interactions these past few
weeks--luckily none in our home. A cobra visited Everett's school on the
day of his Easter program, a chicken died from a snakebite in our
backyard, and just this morning I was in the hospital lab with a snake. It
slithered out the door and into the grass before we could identify it.
I am continuing working at the hospital and with mobile clinics in the
villages. Enrolling pregnant women into HIV treatment at the rural health
centers, while being a serious job, also has its humorous moments. When we
write down women's addresses in the medical file, we put the name of their
village and their chief, then we ask for a landmark. The women come up
with answers such as "east of the borehole" or "near the stream". It's
almost like being a public health nurse in Buena Vista, Virginia again (no
offense to my BV friends :) The women who don't know their birthdays are
laughed at by the women who do know their birthdays. If a woman comes for
HIV testing without her husband, she will often bring an excuse such as
"husband was tending to the cattle".
Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we are continually seeking
to find ways to balance work and family here. With the stress of frequent
illnesses in a remote location, with both parents working many hours
outside of the home, it begs the question, "Is this really the right
volunteer assignment for a family??" Everett and John seem nearly as
stressed as their parents, so we are trying to find ways of making daily
life a bit more manageable. When John spiked a fever yesterday, then Phil
crashed this afternoon with every symptom imaginable (malaria smear
negative!) I was ready to take the first flight available from Lusaka to
London (with or without my family--just kidding). We were blessed by our
dear Zambian friends Vera and Abraham Mahongoh, who provided a meal,
listening ears, and bedside prayers for the sick.
Blessings to you all and Happy Easter~
love,
Anje and family
PS I tried attaching some photos but was unsuccessful this time. Will try
to send some out before too long. |
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