Pictures of Danja

The plane we flew in from Niamey to Maradi.

Alainie, Me, Lindsay and Ginger wearing our matching free bird head wraps.

The women waiting under the tree.

Camels are not as fun to ride as you would think!

Preparing for the dress ceremony.

Group hug!

Group picture.

The women in their taxi home.

The empty tree... until next time...

The new fistula center under construction!

Home

I arrived home yesterday after being gone for seven months. Thank you Esther for picking me up! It was wonderful to be picked up by someone I had met in Togo on the ship.

The last few days in Niger our internet connection wasn't the greatest so I couldn't keep you all updated but everything wrapped up really well there. Ten amazing women had surgery and almost all went home dry! The final day we had a dress ceremony and the women looked amazing! Their smiles were infectious and it was bittersweet to walk them out to the end of the road for their ride home. It was amazing to see their lives transformed in such a short time. Women who showed up scared and frightened left laughing and smiling. One of the girls I had tried to reach all week came up behind me as we were walking out and held my hand out to the road. It was a beautiful sight to see them all pile into the back of a truck and drive away. It is my prayer that as they return home, they will continue on this path of joy. That they will be welcomed and accepted back with open arms and that the joy I saw radiating out of them will continue.

Yo Yo Yo

In hausa the word for leaking, dripping is yo yo. I wondered why when I walked up to the group of women and just said yo, they all laughed. I found this fun fact out yesterday and today I was reminded of a camp song in which the chorus is "Yo, yo, yo..." over and over. I sung it to a patient today and she just laughed. It's an easy word to remember when I ask the patients if they are wet or leaking.

The final patients had surgery today. Ten women in four days. When I took one of the young girls to the OR I could tell she was petrified. Her mother was there but they speak Twarg, a language not many people here speak so we had difficulty communicating. We walked across the sandy ground and when we got to the door she stopped. She started crying. The fear that must go through these women and girls. To be in this state where they are outcasts and then brought to a hospital where white nurses are telling you how to prepare and how to wash and how to sleep in a bed off the ground and then being led to an operating room which is freezing to your standards and we will put you in stirrups and make you vulnerable and a male doctor is going to do your surgery after we stick something into your vein and another man is going to poke you in your back so you can't move your legs...I took care of her after the surgery and it took a bit to get her to smile, but she did. Her and her mother have been here for over a week waiting for this day. She is dry and has so much to smile about. Please keep praying for her and her recovery.

After the final surgery of the day we heard they were here. They are the camels. We had all been wanting to ride a camel on this trip and the time had come. They were waiting outside our house. When we drove down the road and I spotted them I got really excited! They were so tall and had seats on them and I couldn't wait... until we got out of the car. Camels are not the most graceful of animals. The way they stand up and get down to the ground scares me. One of them was yelling and was hating life. There were three camels and six of us. I knew that if I waited until the second round I would chicken out so I got on one. Here in Niger we need to wear skirts down to the ground. I showed more leg today than I have in months. There was no way around it. When the camel stood I screamed. I don't know how this seat didn't slide off. It felt so awkward. As long as the camel was walking I felt ok but if it was stopped I just wanted to get off. I will fully admit this was not one of my highlights for the week. After our short walk, when it was time to get off, the camel did his same awkward movements to lay down and again, not a good moment in my life as a volunteer. I was thankful only my friends could understand what came out of my mouth. Would I ride a camel again? No, but I am glad I did it today. The men who brought them got the biggest laugh from us all.

It is raining like crazy outside right now! It's actually a good thing for the tadpoles. The day we got here, the four of us girls walked by a puddle full of frog eggs. Every day we check on them and a day or so after we found it they had hatched into tadpoles! It rains almost every night so the puddle fills up. Once we had to fill up the puddle because it was almost dry and many of the tadpoles lay dead on the sand. We drug an old wheelbarrow full of old water and dumped it in. They were happy. Last night it didn't rain and we all got busy and the puddle dried up and the tadpoles died. We hung onto hope that they found refuge in the mud and with the rain now they will come back out. We can hope... This is our nightly entertainment.

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I wrote this post last night but because of the storm the internet cut out. Here's an update on the tadpoles...they all died BUT the puddle filled back up to overflowing and it is full again of frog eggs! We will try to be more on the ball this time around.

The Urine Song

I finally found out the gist to the song the women sing:

I became wet.

My husband left me.

He took me to live with my parents.

No one wanted me.

I heard about this VVF hospital so I came.

There are nice nurses and doctors here.

Now I can be healed.

Only one day of surgeries left tomorrow. I had to fight back tears today more than once. Tears of happiness and tears of sorrow and tears of joy. Women and girls finding healing and others finding a longer road ahead. One needing to wait a little longer but in daya, biyu, uku (one, two, three) months she can come back for surgery.

How do these women and girls survive? I say girls because we have one here who is 14 who had her surgery the last time the clinic was running. 14! Wild. The youngest here now is 18 but looks younger. Only one more day then a week more of recovery and other things.

I can't post pictures on here because the connection is too slow. When I get home I'll post lots!

Urine is the Oppressor

The first two VVF surgeries were done today and the women are doing well and are dry! The day started of rough, which you will read about later, but it is impossible to not laugh and smile when you are with these ladies. Oh, how I love them!

I told you in my previous post about “the tree”, the place the women congregate. They lay their mats out and eat there and talk there and spend their days at this tree until it is time to be seen or have surgery. After the first woman left for surgery this morning I went over to that tree, my small book in hand which I am scribbling down the hausa I am trying to learn and attempted to talk with the ladies. My name in hausa is Sarahtou. I love hearing them say my name. Inakwana was all I said when I walked up and they started laughing and claping. I learned to say goodmorning, a change from yesterday when all I could say was sanu, hello. I have already learned more hausa in the few days I have been here than all the ewe I learned in my six months in Togo. Ina sunauki, what is your name. I am really bad at remembering names, but as they started telling me theirs I realized I would only have a few names to remember: Aicha, Howa, Mariama...if I say one of those three I will have a good chance of getting the name right.

Singing. I needed to hear them sing. After church last sunday, I needed more. The singing isn’t like what I have heard in Liberia or Togo. It’s not accompanied by the chicken dance or any other form of wild dancing. It’s slow and almost monotone. It’s really beautiful. I started moving my feet and clapping and they got the hint. I’m still trying to find someone to translate the words to the song they sang for me, but it was glorious. I could sit and listen to them sing forever. If they aren’t singing or telling me their names, we just smile and laugh at each other.

I feel like I have so much more to share but don’t know where to start.

For those of you who follow my blog, I wanted to let you know too that I received an e-mail today from Michael, Lovelace’s father. She went home to be with the Lord last week. I don’t know any details or how they are coping, but the last time Jane and I went to visit we had talked a bit about this time. He told us that he was never angry at God but that he trusted Him and knew that if Lovelace was going to be healed it would be and if she wasn’t going to be healed, then that would be. He trusted fully in the hand of the Lord and never spoke of anger or bitterness. She was loved so dearly here on this earth and I picture her now, asleep in the hands of God, no pain, no more dressing changes, she was a small girl who knew nothing but Love.

Under a Different Sky

I arrived in Danja yesterday and it feels like I have already been here for weeks. So much has happened and so many new experiences in such a short time. Niger is like no other African nation I have visited. The red dirt gives it a sort of pueblo feel. The red brick changes the color of the houses and the ground. I hear this July has almost set a record rainfall. I'm not surprised as it has poured the last two nights. Tonight I have only seen lightning but no rain yet. I'm sure it will come. The heavy rains are making the fields green which I hear is uncommon. Great for the crops though which this country is in need of.

We flew into Niamey, the capitol of Niger on thursday afternoon and stayed at an SIM guesthouse for the night. Yesterday morning we got up early and got on a small six seater plane. Dr Steve once asked what we were most afraid while planning for this trip. I said this plane ride. I was not looking forward to it but it turned out to be amazing. The takeoff was so smooth and to see Niger from the air was beautiful. Dry land, many small villages, small lakes, different types of irrigation for the fields, dirt roads and more dirt roads...

As we landed on the small airstrip in Maradi we passed many farmers tilling their land right next to the runway. When we stopped, people came to watch us. Going into this trip I knew modesty was a must, but almost immediately I felt like I needed to cover my head. I was wearing a long skirt to the ground but I needed to cover my head. I had made us all head coverings from fabric I saw at a VVF dress ceremony on the ship. It's of birds flying out of a cage, symbolic of the freedom these women receive with the new lives they get after they are dry. Long skirts and head wraps will be my clothing for the next two weeks. Within a few moment of landing, a man said he would have no problem finding us all husbands and yet a different man, as we were driving out, asked our driver were he was going with all these brides. We had to laugh.

Driving through Maradi and out to Danja took about fifteen minutes. On that drive we saw real cowboys. Small boys, maybe ten, shepherding their sheep and goats, but also sitting on large, very skinny cows, driving them. The real cowboys of Niger! We drove quickly around the hospital grounds and took a look at the VVF center being built. The walls are going up and it is amazing. I couldn't help but think of the women who will soon be using that center. It's a great gift to the country and such a need. During the flight into Maradi, seeing one, maybe two paved roads that whole time and seeing villages out in the middle of nowhere, it hit me again why VVF occurs and why we are here. The women in these villages, even if they wanted to go to a hospital for delivery, can't. There is no way to get to one. They would be walking for days, weeks. By then the baby would die and they would still end up with fistulas.

Today we got to work. We were told there were already some women here waiting for us by "the tree". They had been screened the last time Dr Steve had a team here and they are ready! My eyes teared up as we walked over to them. About fifteen women sitting on their mats waving as we walked up and smiling. I only know how to say hello in housa and that amused them as we shook their hands. I can not wait to get started! These women are sleeping on their mats under "the tree" just waiting. ..

Lindsay and I set up the ward with Mariama, one of the head nurses here working at the leper mission. We made their beds, cut black plastic garbage bags to use as pads on their beds and hung mosquito nets. Hanging the mosquito nets made me laugh. I never thought I would be here, hanging mosquito nets on beds to do VVF surgeries in Niger. At this moment, I would not want to be anywhere else though.

When we were done in the ward we helped Alainie and Ginger finish setting up the operating room. A few more things to do tomorrow and we will be set and ready for Dr Steve to arrive monday for exams and start surgeries on tuesday!

Here are a few more random stories of the last two days:

Today one of the guys working here took us to town to a "tea house". The tea house turned out to be a tea tent on the corner of a busy street. Maybe the best tea I have had. Spicy, had a good kick to it. The owner came and told us all the states he knew in the US and all the presidents he knew. A TIA moment at its finest (This Is Africa). Great place to sit and watch the city. Cows pulling carts, a man and a boy on a motorcycle carrying hands full of ginny hens? Women in their burkas. Men at prayer in a mosque. Trucks with too many people to count hanging on. Trucks loaded down and overflowing with goods. A gas station where you get gas poured into your gas tank from old glass or plastic bottles via a funnel. Sometime in the next two weeks I hope I make it back there.

After an afternoon out, it was dark as we drove back to the hospital. We were stuck behind a taxi coming up on a checkpoint. The taxi was full of women dressed in their finest. One woman was pretty glittery with all her sequins. We were stopped on the road talking about her sequins when a sheep slowly pops its head up in the back window from behind the back seat, looks around and slowly goes back down. We wondered if the people knew it was even there. It looked like a puppet. We all had a good laugh with that.

I'm trying to upload pictures on here but it's not working. Check back tomorrow and I will keep trying!

Danja

I thought I would take a moment to fill you in on my life after Togo. It's only the first two weeks after Togo, but that's a start. More to come later on my life after two weeks after Togo...

My time here on the ship is starting to wrap up and I can't believe how quickly the past six months have flown by! I leave two weeks from today and I feel like there is so much I haven't done or seen but those feelings are always swept over by the memories of the things I have seen and experienced and tasted and seen and touched.

In two weeks I head to Danja, a small town in Niger. I am flying there with three other amazing nurses I have met here on the ship. We will meet up with Dr Steve, the surgeon we had here on the ship for the season of VVF. He works with The Worldwide Fistula Fund and they are building a VVF clinic in Danja. When this clinic is complete they will have a 42 bed fistula ward! That is so exciting for Niger which is one of the worlds poorest countries and has so many women suffering with fistulas. Click here to see some pictures of the site and where it will be. Here is a picture I took from The Worldwide Fistula Fund website which shows the current SIM hospital and the outline on the left is where the fistula hospital will be.

Because the clinic is not yet complete, WFF partners with SIM, another NGO, which has a leper hospital on the same grounds where the VVF clinic is being built. They give WFF use of their operating theater a few times a year for two weeks at a time so Dr Steve can bring a team in to do surgeries. I will be working with Lindsay as a ward nurse while Ginger and Alainie will be working in the operating room.

Please keep us all in your prayers during this time. Pray for safety and health for us all. For protection from dehydration and the heat and anything man might throw in our paths. Please pray for the ten women who will be having surgery. For physical and emotional healing. That we all can meet the women where they are at.