Congo Blog VI

Friday July 27

Rain, thunder and lightening during the night (it is the rainy season here—dry season in the South) so our departure for Tandala was delayed to give the road a chance to dry out some. There is no pavement in the Ubangi except for the runway at the airport. The roads are clay and can get pretty messy. Fortunately they have been working on the road between Gemena and Tandala so it was in decent shape. In fact, at one point, the driver got up to 100 km/hr. We crossed several streams where people were washing clothes, bikes, themselves and then getting drinking water. Not the healthiest of situations.

After driving the 130 km (about 2 ½ hours) we received a big welcome with palm branches making arches, a children’s choir singing a song of welcome and a reception line. We went up to the hospital for a tour, and passed by a chimp on a chain. Apparently some soldiers caught it and kept it for some time, then tired of it and gave it to someone here. It has a chain around its neck and lives under a tree. A sad life that, in some ways, could serve as a metaphor for the situation in the DRC.

The hospital is fairly large with about 180 beds and various wards (maternity, pediatrics, post-op, surgery, etc…). But like everything else here it is in need of some serious maintenance work (50 gallons of paint and an airless sprayer would do wonders). The good thing is that during the war the hospital was left untouched. After the tour it left us amazed at what the doctors and nurses are able to do with so little. They are pretty much out of bandages and so have to wash, sterilize and reuse what they have. The same goes for latex gloves. Even so the doctors do amazing things. For example a teenager broke his femur and they were able to insert a rod and set the bone. He appears to be doing quite well.

Another thing they struggle with at the hospital is simple ignorance. People will go to the “village doctor” instead of the hospital and it can have serious results, or they simply won’t come in. One young boy was brought in by his father with an open fracture of the humerus. As the doctors inspected the wound and the protruding bone they found out that the break had occurred about a year ago. Why had the father waited so long to bring him in? He refused to say.

Then there is simple poverty. The cost of a live birth at the hospital runs 600 Congolese Francs, which is about $1.25. Even at that many women don’t come because of the expense. One funny event occurred when Calvin (the pediatrician on the trip) told the doctors that he gets paid $200 for a circumcision, Doctor Mifila exclaimed, “O, la, la! I get a chicken for a circumcision!”

I asked Dr. Zach how he kept his spirits up in such in place and he told me his time with the Lord each morning and jogging three times a week. It makes sense—spiritual and physical self-care. Even so, I don't think I could do it.