Day 47 - Progress at it's Best

Today was one of the most incredible days I’ve had here. Amber and I really went to town today, both figuratively and literally speaking. We set out to set up stoves with different organizations including schools and orphanages alike, we rocked Lugazi. We had help from a friend whose name I won’t mention for fear that what I say might get back around to him/her. He happens to be a very helpful man when it comes to knowing people and where help is needed. The only problem is that not only is he a very frustrating person to work with, he doesn’t have the best reputation around town. He was once a very prominent member of the town and did many great things to help the people. Story has it he got involved with drugs and whatnot and hasn’t been the same since. It’s easy to see why his reputation wouldn’t be of utmost value. Nevertheless, we have continued to work with him because he has been very helpful with contacting people and starting projects. For example, we went out one day looking for stove pipe for our Simba Stoves and we ran into our friend. He immediately began to take us around town to look for pipe and actually led us to what we will now be using for many of the stoves. He is helpful, just hard to work with.

Our friend introduced us to 2 schools today that we have scheduled to make stoves with, we are very excited about this. We have been looking hard for more projects to do around town, and we have found them. We proceeded to find another 3 schools/orphanages and have either scheduled to make stoves or will be in contact with them in the near future to begin building foundations.

I really feel please with our work today, I feel like we accomplished a lot. I have been able to compare this experience with missionary work, and the similarities are remarkably close. We had been blinded in, as it were, to the city of Lugazi. We knew nothing about anything or anybody when we got here. We were forced to figure it out and get things going. Luckily, we were blessed to have Deo introduce us to the town counsel of Lugazi which really made everything work as it has up to this point. We are busy each day contacting people and getting their information, begging for an opportunity to come to their school/home and share a lesson with them about Simba Stoves and how they can improve many aspects in the lives of their cooks. Everybody we have come in contact with has been interested which is not typical of missionary work, but most definitely what is wanted. It has brought many memories back of being a missionary and always rendering service, almost every moment of every day. It feels good to be selfless and worry about others for a change. Nice to be lost in a work again. I think we loose track of where we are and what we are about when we don’t participate in major service projects often. When you don’t serve others in a major way it’s almost impossible to as grateful as possible for what you have. You really don’t know what you have until you and those around you are without.

The most insane things happened tonight. Ashley asked me if I would go with her to the internet late at night because she needed to do something for HELP. I agreed and took my laptop along with me so that I could check e-mail, upload pictures, etc. We were there for about 30 minutes. We walked home and when we walked in the door there was nobody to be found out and about. We made our way to the girls large room and sure enough, there’s everybody, in the room... not sure what was going on. Next thing I know I’ve got a camera in my face, it’s rolling, and I’m being directed to the bathroom. The next thing I saw I did no more expected than a flyer saucer beaming me up (scottie...). We no longer had a sink, the sink was gone, and there was absolutely no trace that it had fallen or otherwise. I was in awe. I couldn’t even speak. A million thoughts raced through my head as I tried to come up with a scenario in which the sink would actually break off the wall and no longer exist. When I turned around to exit the bathroom, camera in my face, I began to question, but not with words; with my eyes and a wide open mouth. The next think I know they’ve ripped a blanket off Heidi’s half naked butt revealing a wound that required stitches. Naturally, my instinct is to “go in”, and so I did.

Side note: Heidi had been laughing her guys out along with 3 other girls, such that they ALL were going to pee their pants if they didn’t all get to the toilet at once. One used the toilet, the other hopped in the shower, and Heidi, without anyplace to go, leans back with her elbows on the sink with her pants half down ready to switch off with the other girl on the toilet. The sink just couldn’t take the weight and down it went along with Heidi. She landed on top of the shattered porcelain sink and cut herself up real good.

I immediately seized control of the situation and began to do what I knew best; fix it. They had placed butterfly bandages unsuccessfully which I proceeded to remove and clean the wounds. There was one major laceration and 2 minor cuts. The largest of the three was pretty dang deep, the adipose (fatty tissue) was visible and I knew that stitches were needed. I did my best to clean it up really well and then I decided it would be a good idea to give her some local anesthetic to help stop the bleeding as well as give her some relief from the pain that would surely follow. I proceeded to do so. I took the sodium bicarbonate (buffer solution) and added 5-cc to the Xylocaine just as instructed. This is to take off the stinging edge of the anesthetic when it hits the flesh. I began administering the anesthetic to all part of the laceration until Heidi was eased and unable to feel anything in the area - only the size of a quarter or a tiny bit bigger. It’s hard to thoroughly cleanse a wound when you can still feel it because you don’t want the person to suffer. After it was numb, I used alcohol (because we didn’t have hydrogen peroxide) to clean the wound and to prepare it for closing. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring any suture kits, I was very unhappy with myself. Instead we will make a trip to Jinja tomorrow to have Dr. Debbie stitch Heidi up. I decided that super-glue followed by butterflies and some medical take on top would do just fine until the morning when she’d get her stitches.

I was sad to see that Heidi had gotten herself cut up but I have to admit that it was a great experience for me to treat her with the small amount of medical training I have. I love intense situations where you have to think fast and smart. She was in no way in danger of loosing her life, but she was definitely in discomfort, so I was glad to help. This topped off the night, it was by far the highlight of the day.