Wow. Today was awesome.

I was woken up again by the sound of the men’s church choir across the street at 5am and pretty much started my day then. Priscilla and I made our first meal together—oatmeal with bananas, and coffee! Everything in Congo takes a little bit longer and a few more steps, and this is completely true for cooking. We have a small kerosene burner that is large enough to place one pot on that is about 6 inches in diameter and we don’t have a fridge because we don’t usually have power. Although this is quite the predicament, we have found that we appreciate our meals so much more since arriving in Congo!

After enjoying a breakfast at 6am, we headed to the hospital for morning devotions and the morning meeting between the night doctors/nurses and the day doctors/nurses. The meeting was so fun because we got to meet all the people we could be working with; a few even speak a little English! So far in French I know how to say “I am a women”, “I want a red apple”, “I want the bathroom”, and “I do not speak French.” And in Lingala (the tribal language) I know how to say “Hi”, “Bye”, and “My name is Faith.” So as you can see, it is REALLY awesome to find a few people that speak even just bits and pieces of English while I am attempting to learn both French and Lingala.

After the meeting both Priscilla and I were assigned to working in the maternity ward for the rest of the week. And boy of boy did we jump right in! I very first experience with the ward was walking into a room in which the mother was completely naked, in the stirrups, and was SO ready to give birth! Although she was ready, Dr. Harvey told us to wait and continue meeting the other women with him until he was positive that the lady was going to deliver. So again, we walked into the second small building that encompassed the maternity ward and Dr. Harvey immediately had me remove a feeding tube from an infant. The baby was born very premature and was now finally ready to eat on her own. Dr. Harvey explained that in the United States the motto for teaching pre-med and pre-nursing students is “observe first, then learn, then do”, however in Congo the motto is “do first, then learn.” So as instructed I literally just held the baby’s back, tilted her forward and pulled out the feeding tube! It was quite easy, but I was still shaking a little afterwards because in the US I would never be able to even do a simple task like that.

After the feeding tube fun we returned to the room where the very-ready-to-push mothers all resided. And guess what, the mom who was naked in the stirrups had already delivered! What a bummer to miss it! We were also really sad to find out that the mother had delivered a premature stillborn. We looked at the baby and Dr. Harvey determined that it had probably died 12 or more hours earlier. The mother, as well as 3 other ready-to-deliver-mothers was all lying on the floor on thin blankets of the delivery room. It was such a shocking site. These African women are unbelievable, they deliver babies like it’s an everyday chore, they don’t scream, they don’t usually lie in beds, and they don’t even receive pain medications. So there you go American ladies, man up!

The rest of the day was spent wandering the hospital, learning the lay of the land, and meeting patients. After work was finished (around 4:30) we headed on a hike through the jungle, led by the one and only Sarah Speer (or Mama Sarah as we call her). She had lived in Congo for over 30 years, she was here before the hospital; she is the queen “mandeli” (white person)! She knows more people than anyone and she spends almost all of her time in villages with her people, taking care of them. SO, Mama Sarah led us to a jungle hike that lasted a little over an hour. We would have wanted to go farther, but it gets completely dark here by 6pm. We looked hilarious going through the jungle. There was about 10 of us nurses all in our scrubs just hiking through the jungle while 10+ African children walked with us holding out hands and begging us to take pictures of them! Those children were so precious! This one little boy wouldn’t let go of my hand and was so happy to make goofy sounds with me and run like crazy people down the narrow trails!

What a sweet blessing and pop of joy. Thank you God.