Hope.

We have had the busiest couple of days! I have learned so much and have so much to think about and process.

Yesterday (Thursday) we took a field trip to Twin Fountains Farm which is an agricultural farm/school run by Klaus Muller, a German man who’s lived in Africa for most of his life. He built this school to help Zambians learn how to make a living for their own. They pay for 2 years of college, they are given livestock and pieces of land, and they have to work it. They train the wild animals to become tame, they plant their land, and they come up with ways to make these things easier or more efficient. It’s a great program because it shows the Zambians that learning how to make a living will get them so much further than just accepting money or food from people. Food should be so abundant in Africa…the majority of their land is perfect for farming and growing…the soil is healthy and the weather is always able to produce something. However, in America, only 6-7% of the land is able to produce crops. Yet we have more food than we know what to do with. It’s crazy that Africans are starving and dying because of malnutrition. There are such easy solutions to the problems here, but these people don’t know how to do it or they don’t have the resources or they aren’t able to because of the government. What Mr. Muller is doing is teaching the people how. He’s teaching them to work hard and make something of themselves, that way they don’t have to rely on other people. They are becoming completely dependent on what they do, and because of what they’re learning, the things they do can give them great opportunities in the future.

Yesterday afternoon, I went into Kalomo which is the closest town to us. It’s 7km away and we go there often to eat or shop or buy groceries. Yesterday I went with 5 other students to visit the hospital. Ba Bingham and Ba O’Neal took us and we got to go with Ba Rogers to talk to patients and encourage them and pray with them. This hospital is the closest hospital around for many people, so I was expecting it to be a pretty good one. Obviously no hospital here is anything like we would see in America, but this one was just shocking. There were 5 small rooms: a labor ward, a children’s ward, a women’s ward, a men’s ward, and the isolation ward. These rooms were probably the size of my bedroom back home, but they had as many as 10 beds inside of them, the doors and windows were wide open because that was the only ventilation they got, and it was dirty dirty. In the children’s ward we saw a girl who was so malnourished that her hair was a white/red color and her arms were almost nothing. One little boy had an awful bruised and swollen face from being beaten by a “mad man.” There was a burned child that we never saw because he was kept under a sheet. These were just some of the patients. We were able to communicate with a few of the parents and some had been there up to 2 months. In the women’s ward I met a baama (elderly lady) who had somehow been hit by a cow. They thought she had a broken rib and her leg had just been torn apart. There was a huge gash that apparently was stitched up, but you couldn’t even tell. Ba Bingham said that the doctors obviously didn’t even know how to put stitches in. It was horrible. In the isolation ward were TB patients, but we just walked right in. I’m sure they were contagious, but no one was there stopping us or making us put on masks and gowns. We held hands and prayed with two girls who have TB. “Isolation” meant nothing to the hospital. These people come to a hospital because they are dying and need help, but they cant even get the help they need. Baama didn’t know if she had a broken rib because they don’t have x-ray machines.  One man had awful chest pains but he didn’t know what was wrong because the hospital doesn’t have any way to look at his lungs. These people are helpless. Sure they can go to another doctor, but its hours and hours walking distance away. After going through all the wards we went to another building called the Mother’s ward. This is where the families of patients stayed or the pregnant women stayed until they went into labor. There were tons of people and as we walked in the room they laid burlap plastic down for us to sit on. They were giving us the nicest things they had. We sat in a tiny room with probably 40 Zambians, at least 35 were women, and we sang with them and encouraged them. It was really striking that they were all women…women are the hard workers in Zambia. They work in the fields, they walk miles to get water, they cook, they take care of their family members. No dads were here with their wives or children. They were all mothers. It was an awesome experience. They loved that we could sing in Tonga so we sang them a bunch of Tonga songs, Jared gave them a lesson, and Ba Bingham encouraged them before we left. They were so happy to meet us afterwards. Every single person made sure that they shook each of our hands and talked to us. Our Tonga goes to about the extent of “Mwabuka buti.” “Kabotu. Mwabuka buti?” kabotu. Twaloomba.” Twaloomba.” It’s not a lot but we are proud of what we know and the Zambians love hearing us say it! A lot of times they laugh at us but it’s really neat to have a little bit of connection with them. If you say “Hi.” They might say hey back, but as soon as you say something in Tonga their faces just light up and they make an effort to make conversation. It shows them that we aren’t just American tourists. We’re here because we care about them and are truly interested in their culture. All the people were so happy and friendly, but it was just a shocking experience seeing the health care that these people have.

Today was a completely different experience. We went to Macha Hospital, which is about 3 hours away. It’s a hospital run by a white man who has lived in Zambia for most of his life. His parents built the hospital many many years ago and it has just grown into a great medical center. The wards are still rooms with multiple beds in them but they are clean. That was the first thing that struck me…we walked into the first building and it smelled like bleach. It smelled like a hospital should. It still wasn’t anything like an American hospital but it was a thousand steps up from the Kalomo hospital. They had real doctors and nurses, they had medicine and equipment that they needed, and they had labs so they could research and keep learning about the diseases in Zambia. That was the greatest thing about Macha Hospital. They have research labs where they are studying Malaria. They have a room full of malaria infected mosquitoes that they use for testing. They have microscopes and bacteria samples and equipment you might see in an American lab. One project they are working on is testing for malaria in saliva. This is a new project that was started here but is making a lot of progress and probably will eventually be used in other places. The research they are doing here is cutting edge. They have information that scientists from all over the world come and see. It’s amazing. We were in the middle of the African Bush at a hospital that is saving lives. Malaria was killing over 200 of their patients PER YEAR in the 1980’s, but because of the progress they’ve made in injections and medicines, they have only had 1 death in 2011. They are completing wiping out this disease from Macha, Zambia. It’s sad because the rest of Africa is still suffering, but this is just a glimpse of hope.

The last 2 days have been great experiences because it has shown me the good that is actually going on here. It’s easy to get discouraged because of places like Kalomo Hospital. It’s easy to feel like no matter how much you do, it’s not going to make a difference. We cant save the whole continent of Africa. In many ways that’s true, but if we can make a difference to one person or one village, then that’s enough. God is doing great things here. Sometimes we doubt that He's here with them...but they are HIS people. Of course He's not going to leave them. We're crazy for ever doubting Him. I dont always understand why He lets it get this bad. He has the power to heal every person right now. But He has a plan and we have to trust that He's working, even through all these struggles.