While the cat's away...

Liz went away for the weekend, so i bribed Kayleigh and Sam with muffins to come visit me and keep me company. Kayleigh has started keeping plastic containers from the pharmacy to use in the therapy department. I had some of them home with me to be washed (- wouldn't want to accidently poison someone!). So on Sat afternoon we were messing around with them, trying to think up ideas for turning them into an income generating project (yes, even in our silly moments we are thinking about community transformation). We had some incredibly crazy ideas, particularly from Kayleigh. She was convinced that we could use some containers for mugs, so Sam and i made her prove it could work. Kayleigh drank a cup of coffee from a paracetamol tub and declared it successful - despite having to wait for the coffee to cool down so as not to burn her hands on the hot plastic. She even labled it ("Kayleigh's ultimate pharmacy mug") and put it in our mug cupboard for when she comes to visit.

Later that evening, Liz's fridge was tempting us to play a prank. After much discussion, it was decided that we would move the contents of her fridge into my fridge and replace them with Bactrim bottles (back to previous story about pharmacy containers). In the process of emptying Liz's fridge we discovered Kayleigh's 6 week-old leftover birthday cake, so that got moved to a prominant position (yellow tub).

Liz's discovery of the new state of her fridge was somewhat entertaining. She obviously had a good weekend and didn't get much sleep, because she was totally confused and it took a while of staring at the fridge to realise who the culprits were. Turns out, she was wondering if we had moved her food into the Bactrim containers - we're not that mean Liz!

What does the Lord ask of me?

Something i have been pondering this week.

He has shown you, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

What a beautiful insight into God's character and our part to play. Once again justice meets mercy (like at the cross) - so difficult to fulfill both at once. I have taken the approach of seeing what i can find in other parts of the Bible to help me understand the Lord's concept of acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with Him.

I'm back in the game :)

After 3 weeks of being sick, i am finally back to normal life. I went to Cape Town for a week and a half of it and strangely didn't feel very at home there. I am SO grateful to be HOME, back at WORK and HEALTHY. Ah, the simple things in life :)

Sometimes i LOVE my job

Not every day, but especially after a 3 week break, i feel like i have the best job ever. I was trying to explain to Nix recently why i'm not sure if i'd ever be able to work for the NHS (in the UK): something about lack of freedom and creativity. The last week has been a perfect example of all the variety of creative, sometimes crazy, things we get up to as rural therapists.

The pics:
1) JT bought this cute red donkey thing for the children to bounce on. Here is Nomsa (one of our persona dolls) riding the donkey. We have been having a bit of a debate about whether children will like the donkey or be terrified of it - i vote terrified. Marlie had fun the other day chasing Asive (an intellectually impaired 12 year-old girl in-patient who often visits our department) on the donkey - it was hilarious - must post the video! Suggested names for the donkey are "JT Junior" or "Diti/Didi" (Asive's favourite word).

2) Marlie (legend physio) announced one day that she was going on a mission. She came back a few hours later with her hand bandaged and told us she had been chopping down trees to make walking sticks. I was shocked because Karen (chief physio) is a greenie. But, she assured me that they were alien trees. Because we have very few crutches to issue to patients, Marlie had the bright idea of making them sticks. So here she is cutting and sanding her walking sticks. Part 2 of this story is me discovering Sam and Anita (Jabulani volunteers) wondering around the hospital looking like they wanted something to do. So i recruited them to put ferrals (rubber crutch tips) on the ends of the walking sticks to make them more stable. They made a great job with sawing/cutting the ends to the right diameter. Unfortunately their therapy department experience ended badly with Anita managing to get herself locked in the bathroom - but therapists and their tools to the rescue!

3) We have had quite a few patients from TB ward recently who basically need to be forced to get out of bed and be active. We now have a new therapy volunteer: Mute, who is also one of our patients. Since Mute is a man and also on crutches i convinced him to kick a soccer ball around with one TB patient. Yay, less work for me!


4) As a therapy team we have had a recent burst of renewed enthusiasm for APT (Appropriate paper-based technology - making positioning equipment out of cardboard). Jess, Megan, Marlie and JT have been working hard on two chairs. I think the APT enthusiasm is almost dead. I spent ages sewing cushion covers for Megan's chair - my sewing is getting quite good now :)

Another activity (not captured on camera) was Mute and i going to a local teenage boy's house to see if Mute's ATW wheelchair is able to conquer the hill by this kid's house. Very close. Now all we need to do is measure the maximum gradient Mute's chair can do and give it to the Rumdel engineers (fingers crossed) who have promised to build a path up the hill so Siphenathi can get to school. More news on that project as it happens...

Sometimes i love being an OT! :)

Being white covers a multitude of "sins"

Fortunately, i was feeling a little better today, so thought i would try leave the house and go to church. I don't often go to the local church, but being Easter and being bored out of my mind (since everyone else went away for the long weekend, but i was too sick to move) i decided to try it. I tried to dress suitably and wore a long skirt. I thought i'd try get there a little late and leave a little early cos i'm not well yet...

So, this being Easter, i expected something a little different, but not what i saw. The church is usually about a quarter full with adults, a quarter with kids and the rest empty space. But this morning the kids weren't even allowed inside because the church was overflowing with adults! And to surprise me even more, they were all wearing these black robe-type things with large white collars and a broach.

So here was me: late, with no seat and wearing a pink and white striped jersey in the midst of the masses of black. So i thought to myself, maybe if i take off my pink jersey and put on the black cardigan in my bag, i might be able to blend in. Then it struck me: who am i kidding?!! I stand out like a sore thumb no matter what i wear!

Later, i got sent to sit at the front and had a "translator" allocated to me. Then it was communion - never done that before in this church. I don't know what they gave me to drink but it definitely had alcohol in it and it didn't taste like anything i'd ever had before.

After some forced dancing - everyone is tightly packed, so if the people next to you are moving from side to side, you have to too - the announcements started. At this point i had been there for over 2 hours and was hoping the sermon would start soon. Half an hour later the announcements were still going on and i was beginning to consider that maybe i had missed the sermon. And then, i was asked to introduce myself and greet the church like a good guest. And like a good (but sick) guest i complied, without mentioning all the times i have been to this church before (and never had to introduce myself).

As the announcements continued, the lady next to me (my "translator" had gone MIA by this stage) whispered that it was the end of the service. So yay, that was good news, but no, i could not leave yet as it was lunch time (late lunch may i add). So then was the challenge of trying to refuse a large plate of food. My legitimate excuse of being sick and having no appetite sounded rather lame, but since it was the truth, i stuck with it for several offerings of food.

After it seemed like i had watched everyone else eat for a socially appropriate amount of time, i decided to say my goodbyes and sneak out. Not that one can sneak out when one is an umlungu wearing a pink jersey and leaving early. Oops! Sometimes it pays to be white...they might just decide i'm strange and forgive me...

With or without me

I don't want to be sitting somewhere in suburbia watching

television while God changes the world!

(Floyd McClung)

God is changing the world with or without me. And in His great love, He has invited us to be part of it - not because He needs us, but because he wants to share the pleasure with us. With or without me the end result is the same.

I choose with.

The rural girl has a rural disease

Tick-bite fever! (aka Lyme disease)

The symptoms are: killer headaches, general malaise, a bite with a black head and swollen lymph nodes near the bite site. In reality, its a lot worse than it sounds. It especially didn't help that I was taking expired brufen - no wonder the bite and lymph node swelling were taking forever to clear up.

But there are definite advantages to being here when you are sick: living with a doctor and "pharmacist" and having a large supply of drugs (i.e. hospital pharmacy) at your disposal. Liz diagnosed me on monday morning while we were eating breakfast half asleep. At least i provided the morning's entertainment. Kayleigh was laughing at Liz for getting so excited.