Saturday, November 29, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
From the other A and J Melissen!
This blog entry is coming from Kabala, but from the senior A & J Melissens. We have been spending time with Joe and Adrienne, and it’s a wonderful experience. We have so enjoyed following them through their neighbourhood to the shouts of “Saio, Saio” (Adrienne’s Sierra Leonian name). It’s fun to see the relationships they have built in the community through the school, the clinic and the market. The people they are working with are appreciative of the skills they are bringing to the school and clinic and we have enjoyed shadowing them as they worked. Joe’s class is indeed rambunctious, but they are a great group and like being with Joe. Today I spent the day at the clinic with Adrienne and was impressed with her ability to get the information she needed and to work with the clients and the staff. The clinic is very basic, but I got a tour of the new clinic which should be open before Joe and Adrienne leave Sierra Leone.
The neighbours stop by the house by regularly – the children just to chat and hang out and the women to bring some plantains, papaya or other fruits or vegetables they have in their gardens, and then to chat. I don’t think that a day has gone by when there has not been a guest sitting on the porch visiting. They are all quite happy to meet the “mama and papa of Joe”, and are looking forward to meeting Adrienne’s parents.
Let us report that Joe and Adrienne are doing very well, looking healthy and happy, they are being blessed by the experience and are being a blessing to the folks in Kabala.
The neighbours stop by the house by regularly – the children just to chat and hang out and the women to bring some plantains, papaya or other fruits or vegetables they have in their gardens, and then to chat. I don’t think that a day has gone by when there has not been a guest sitting on the porch visiting. They are all quite happy to meet the “mama and papa of Joe”, and are looking forward to meeting Adrienne’s parents.
Let us report that Joe and Adrienne are doing very well, looking healthy and happy, they are being blessed by the experience and are being a blessing to the folks in Kabala.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Dry Season has arrived
November 13, 2008
Time is sure flying by. Tomorrow, me Mama and me Papa will by arriving into Freetown, and we are pumped to show our first official Kabala visitors around (of course, they have far more Africa experience than we do). The weeks are just starting to blend into each other a little too quickly. Nevertheless, we are excited to have visitors, and our friends here are looking forward to meeting our parents.
Last weekend we had a relaxing and fun couple of days in Freetown. We stayed with some friends at the Cause Canada guest house which was quite fun. The first day we went shopping downtown to the "PZ" market. I have been to large outdoor markets in big cities before, but this was like nothing I had ever seen. Street vendor after street vendor for as far as you can see. Busy, packed, loud, general sensory overload, and roasting hot. We were able to find some items in the market for the hand washing facilities at the school. A big highlight of the weekend was the food. Some excellent bakeries and restaurants that we ate at….Adrienne was in her glory…the pinnacle of which coming while enjoying a cheese croissant, fruit salad, and fruit smoothy with her morning coffee. In true Loewen fashion, she couldn’t stop talking about how good the food was.
The second day we drove about 1 hour south of Freetown to a beautiful beach called River #2. We grabbed a couple of umbrellas and tables, drank coconut milk, and soaked in some rays to pass the day before heading back to Kabala the next day on the public bus.
Prayer request: Ibraham Turreh, a class 3 student at CRC, is very sick. We had heard he was very sick with what had started as Malaria and was now severely constipated, so we decided to go visit him last Friday after school. When we found him, his abdomen was grossly distended with severe pain, he was anemic, and had peripheral edema (fluid in his hands and feet). He had also been vomiting, and running a high fever. Adrienne thought he possibly had a bowel obstruction with underlying complications which could be fatal, and wanted to get more information regarding an official diagnosis and treatment plan from Dr. Conteh, who is the hospital’s doctor. However, he had been out of town for a week, which meant there was no doctor at the hospital at all. So Dr. Samura (an awesome guy and very good doctor who we just met who has been running a private in and out-patient clinic in Kabala since April) had been seeing him. We visited Dr. Samura at his clinic, and decided over the weekend that Ibrahim needed an x-ray and blood work asap. Since Adrienne was quite invested in Ibrahim by this point, her and Dr. Samura thought it best that she accompany them to a private hospital in Makeni to have the tests and then return to Kabala afterwards for treatment. So, Monday morning the mother, Ibrahim, a nurse aid, and Adrienne journeyed via public taxi to Makeni. Long story short, the XRay and blood work showed that he had an "acute abdomen" and possibly a perforated bowel and internal bleeding. They decided to treat Ibrahim with aggressive antibiotics instead of performing surgery because he was too unstable to have surgery. He is admitted in Makeni (Adrienne came back to Kabala on Monday night), and needs a miracle if he is going to survive. The family was extremely grateful for all the ways that Adrienne helped out, like initiating a plan for him, finding out what is wrong and acting as a trustworthy middleman, and helping out financially for an extremely costly trip for the family.We are hoping to visit him in Makeni on our way down to Freetown tomorrow.
On a positive note, Sobie Shaw (the class 1 girl who suffered large burns to her chest and arm), came back to school on Monday! Other than some significant scaring, she is healthy and in good spirits – and has regained full use of her hand. She healed remarkably fast – I couldn’t believe it was the same girl that I saw at her home 3 weeks prior.
This week marked the grand opening of the new latrine facilities at CRC Primary. Adrienne was at school all week teaching kids about Jerry the Germ Bug, and why we don’t like him. After this, she took small groups of kids out the new latrines for a lesson on how to use the buckets, and also the new latrines. Because the holes are smaller than what they are used to, Adrienne got the kids to demonstrate how they would squat over the hole to do their business. One grade 1 boy took this request to a little too literally, so he ended up being the first to poop in the new latrine, with everyone watching.
Thanks for reading – will update soon.
Joe and Adrienne
Time is sure flying by. Tomorrow, me Mama and me Papa will by arriving into Freetown, and we are pumped to show our first official Kabala visitors around (of course, they have far more Africa experience than we do). The weeks are just starting to blend into each other a little too quickly. Nevertheless, we are excited to have visitors, and our friends here are looking forward to meeting our parents.
Last weekend we had a relaxing and fun couple of days in Freetown. We stayed with some friends at the Cause Canada guest house which was quite fun. The first day we went shopping downtown to the "PZ" market. I have been to large outdoor markets in big cities before, but this was like nothing I had ever seen. Street vendor after street vendor for as far as you can see. Busy, packed, loud, general sensory overload, and roasting hot. We were able to find some items in the market for the hand washing facilities at the school. A big highlight of the weekend was the food. Some excellent bakeries and restaurants that we ate at….Adrienne was in her glory…the pinnacle of which coming while enjoying a cheese croissant, fruit salad, and fruit smoothy with her morning coffee. In true Loewen fashion, she couldn’t stop talking about how good the food was.
The second day we drove about 1 hour south of Freetown to a beautiful beach called River #2. We grabbed a couple of umbrellas and tables, drank coconut milk, and soaked in some rays to pass the day before heading back to Kabala the next day on the public bus.
Prayer request: Ibraham Turreh, a class 3 student at CRC, is very sick. We had heard he was very sick with what had started as Malaria and was now severely constipated, so we decided to go visit him last Friday after school. When we found him, his abdomen was grossly distended with severe pain, he was anemic, and had peripheral edema (fluid in his hands and feet). He had also been vomiting, and running a high fever. Adrienne thought he possibly had a bowel obstruction with underlying complications which could be fatal, and wanted to get more information regarding an official diagnosis and treatment plan from Dr. Conteh, who is the hospital’s doctor. However, he had been out of town for a week, which meant there was no doctor at the hospital at all. So Dr. Samura (an awesome guy and very good doctor who we just met who has been running a private in and out-patient clinic in Kabala since April) had been seeing him. We visited Dr. Samura at his clinic, and decided over the weekend that Ibrahim needed an x-ray and blood work asap. Since Adrienne was quite invested in Ibrahim by this point, her and Dr. Samura thought it best that she accompany them to a private hospital in Makeni to have the tests and then return to Kabala afterwards for treatment. So, Monday morning the mother, Ibrahim, a nurse aid, and Adrienne journeyed via public taxi to Makeni. Long story short, the XRay and blood work showed that he had an "acute abdomen" and possibly a perforated bowel and internal bleeding. They decided to treat Ibrahim with aggressive antibiotics instead of performing surgery because he was too unstable to have surgery. He is admitted in Makeni (Adrienne came back to Kabala on Monday night), and needs a miracle if he is going to survive. The family was extremely grateful for all the ways that Adrienne helped out, like initiating a plan for him, finding out what is wrong and acting as a trustworthy middleman, and helping out financially for an extremely costly trip for the family.We are hoping to visit him in Makeni on our way down to Freetown tomorrow.
On a positive note, Sobie Shaw (the class 1 girl who suffered large burns to her chest and arm), came back to school on Monday! Other than some significant scaring, she is healthy and in good spirits – and has regained full use of her hand. She healed remarkably fast – I couldn’t believe it was the same girl that I saw at her home 3 weeks prior.
This week marked the grand opening of the new latrine facilities at CRC Primary. Adrienne was at school all week teaching kids about Jerry the Germ Bug, and why we don’t like him. After this, she took small groups of kids out the new latrines for a lesson on how to use the buckets, and also the new latrines. Because the holes are smaller than what they are used to, Adrienne got the kids to demonstrate how they would squat over the hole to do their business. One grade 1 boy took this request to a little too literally, so he ended up being the first to poop in the new latrine, with everyone watching.
Thanks for reading – will update soon.
Joe and Adrienne
Theresa's son Matthew, who certainly wins the award for chubbiest kid in Kabala
This experience was hilarious.....I think. We went to a play in Kabala recently, and these two ladies were introduced as sort of an opening act. The audience (which consisted almost entirely of the 6 expats in Kabala), were then treated to 10 minutes of excessive suggestive booty shaking. Naturally, I pulled out the camera to snap a few pics.
The crowd at the play
Taken from the public bus on the way out of Freetown.
Last weekend we went on a trip with the other expats from Cause Canada in Kabala. This is when we filled up at the gas station on the way out of town
PZ Market in Freetown....it goes on endlessly.
Can you find the white guy in PZ market?
a shot from the back seat of a po tah - po tah (taxi) that we took to Freetown
Meaghan (Cause Canada friend), and us
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
