Back to DRCongo and Christmas at Katoka

My 2 weeks in UK went past very quickly but it was lovely to catch up with family and some of my friends. I was also able to have a quick trip to Worcerster to visit William in hospital and although seriously ill he was in good spirits and resting in the Lord. Thank you Peter for the lift in the car that was great and I have to say the return trip by rail the next day was excellent and arrived on time in Newcastle!

Rachel and Ian met me at the airport when I arrived in on the 17th Dec and then the 3 of us flew out to Kisenge on Sunday the 20th which was brilliant a lovely smooth flight in the 6 seater plane and we were grateful to Gaston our pilot.

Since arriving at Katoka there have been the usual pre Chritmas activities feast for the old people and special feast for all at the nutrition centre etc. A pre- Christmas trip to Uk is in some ways to be recommended because I came back with lots of presents in my suitcase so we all did very well and we have had a lovely time together.

Travel

Since writing my October blog when incidently I lost the ability to add photos for some reason, we have had a sad time at Katoka. Cathie Rew my friend and colleague for many years gradually deteriorated in health and passed away on the 11th Nov. The funeral which was held the next day in keeping with the custom out in Congo was impressive and a testimony to the high esteem in which she was held by the people with whom she had worked for 59years. Then her husband William who had been having breathing problems and pain for some time also deteriorated in health and we had to have him flown out to Lubumbashi for investigations. The doctor in Lubumbashi advised him to return to Uk for full investigations and so a flight was arranged for him ( with some difficulty ) to travel via Nairobi Kenya and I was asked to accompany him. We arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning 29th Nov and Elspeth William's daughter met him. They travelled to Worcester where Elspeth lives and he was admitted in the afternoon to hospital into the medical assesment unit and we are so thankful for the care and attention which is been given and we pray for the medical staff to have wisdom for his on going treatment.

October update time !

This is the planting season in our part of the world and so all able body people are out and about preparing their fields for their maize and peanut crops. Sandy my colleaque has been very busy organising teams to go out to an area which she is cultivating in order to help provide food for our nutrition centre.
We always have patients who cannot pay their hospital bills with cash so their relatives ask for work while they are away from home so they are happy to go out for the day to work in fields. It is also a source of income for the people looking after orphans here at Katoka so there is never a shortage of people to go and make up the teams.
End of Sept is also the time for the new school year to start so I have been busy with our sponsorship programme for orphans. We always help first of all the children being looked after by members of staff and it is surprising how many of them have 3-4 other children integrated into their families for various reasons...children motherless because of death in childbirth and aids orphans are high on the list.

Update for September.

We have been without telephone connections or internet connections from Friday until Monday lunchtime and it seemed forever !

At first the people manning the zain tower thought it was because they were running out of fuel so on Saturday we loaned them a 200litre drum of deisel fuel but when by evening they were still non functioning I sent to ask what the problem was and they said they were waiting for another technicien to come ! He obviously came today with good results and they also got a delivery of fuel so were able to return our drum to us.

Some of you may be familiar with the title " The curious incident of the dog in the nite-time " well we had the curious incident of the roofing iron in the nite time !!

I was working at the Maternity one morning when someone came to inform me that the roofing iron sheets had been stolen from the holding tank of the hospital water system. It seemed such a senseless theft but following on other incidents I decided to make a fuss...I said that the next day the outpatients dept would only see emergency cases. I also sent all my non essential workers home....this turned out to be a good move although not a popular one but they were so mad at loosing a days wage that they began to do some investigations themselves.....when the elders came out of church the following morning they discovered an anonymous note pinned to a tree outside the Maternity naming two people who they said were involved. We called those named and they came with members of their families and spent the morning denying any involvement and stating catorgorically that it was not in their hearts to do such a thing! We had to let them go but I said I would give them until after the weekend to think about things before I sent the paper naming them to the authorities in Dilolo 45 km away.

Well those fellows had hardly gone before someone else turned up to tell us that 4 of the 7 sheets had been found. Apparently the one who had bought 4 of the sheets when he heard all the fuss got cold feet and decided to return them and lo and behold he confirmed that the two who had spent all morning denying everything were indeed very much involved! Praise the Lord by evening we had all 7 sheets returned and all the guilty ones confessed.

It is very hot at Katoka at present we are waiting for the rains to come and while we have heard thunder and seen lightening several evenings the rain just hasn't come to Katoka. One of our builders was late to work this morning because he said they had had very heavy rain in his village which is just about 10km from here.

Sandy and Bethany have just got back from a quick trip across the border to Zambia they took two more patients for special surgery which can be done at Kalene Mission Hospital which is in Zambia's North West Province so reasonably accessible to people from here.

written from Lubumbashi.

Today I heard that Jonathan had arrived home safely after his 7hr wait in nairobi for the connection to UK. That was good news although we are going to miss him. Mind you in his last week at Katoka he fitted in quite a lot of things and seemed to enjoy himself ! He also managed to see the traditional Mukishi or spirit dancer before he left Katoka.

He and Michael also went to a bush fire hunt which was interesting.

Back from Kasaji ladies dry season conference

Thank you for those of you who prayed for us while we were at the women’s conference at Kasaji. Paul Angela Jonathan and I arrived at Kasaji mid afternoon of Wed 5th August to be given a tumultuous welcome singing and dancing women and even some of the men too had waited for us at the corner at the entrance to the mission! They surrounded the car and escorted us to the house where we were to be staying and then the elders came to welcome us. We had a very good time and they were all very very kind to us all. They gave us among other things a sheep 2 chickens eggs oil salt and sugar .They brought fresh bread rolls and drinking water everyday…such generosity is humbling. I had 11 teaching sessions over the 4days and I translated for Angela on the Tuesday evening session and for Paul at the breaking of bread so it was quite busy as you can imagine. I had 3 sheets of Bible searching questions for the girls and Jonathan kindly did the marking of those for me for which I was very grateful otherwise I would have had some very late nights. We taught the women the words (in Chokwe ) of the beautiful hymn “In Christ Alone my Hope is found, He is my Light my Strength my Song” I am always amazed at how quickly they pick up a new melody and by the time we got to the last session it sounded really lovely. Paul meanwhile was busy putting in a suspended ceiling in one of the mission houses so he too was kept busy.

Getting back to Katoka it was good to see that there was progress in the building of the secondary school administrative building which was very encouraging. Hopfully the ring beam will be poured next week and then we will have the big job of the roofing of this large building.

Jonathan flies to UK via Kenya on the 26th August and another short term worker Bethany Smith also from Tyneside arrives in on the 22nd so the next item on our agenda is the trip to Lubumbashi by road. Dr Kayombo has kindly agreed to give Jonathan and me a lift as there are no internal flights in our direction at present. 2 days journey but the first is the bumpiest part and takes most of the daylight hours of day 1.......

3 days after we leave Katoka, Paul Angela and Sandy also leave, heading for Zambia it has been so good to have them all with us and we are grateful for all their help and fellowship. Well the generator is going off now so I will leave this for today and hopefully catch up again from Lubumbashi.

More vsitors to Katoka..now we are 10 !

We are really enjoying having Dr Fred Holmes with us from UK for a few days. He is actually a surgeon and it is so good to have the use of his vast experience and expertise in the hospital work. I was pleased to have him with me at the scanning session today. We are also making use of him at church preaching to various groups including the Hospital Groupe Biblique the nurses specially asked for him to take the Thursday morning Bible study with them.

Yesterday evening we welcomed Ian (Harvey ) my nephew currently working in Lubumbashi and his friend Mark Gant from Chester. Unfortunately theirs is only a very brief visit this time but it is good to have them here anyway. Mark tells me it is 15 years since he first heard about the work at Katoka so he is pleased to at last be able to say he has actually seen it first hand.

Michael is doing well with the IT department. His pupils seem to be doing well and are very keen to learn and would have him doing a course with them every day if he had nothing else to do ! The idea is to teach this initial small group so that they in turn will be able to teach others. The group includes 2 teachers from the secondary school and of course all being well, they will be offering this course at the school once their new building is completed.

Polio vaccination campaign and distribution of mosquito nets !

The internet continues to be intermittent here so today seems a good time to update the blog. We continue to keep our volonteers busy with a variety of jobs. This week they have been out and about on the villages in this area helping with the polio vaccinations and distributing mosquito nets. We were given 500 treated nets to distribute with the criterea to give them to children under 5yrs and to pregnant ladies. The families pay 300 FC for them and as to buy they would cost about 3000FCs most people have been happy with that contribution.

This month too saw the work on the 2ndry school administration block resumed. The school prefet has been organising the senior pupils into teams making bricks and building the brick kiln.Some of the parents from the area have come in on a daily basis to help with sand and gravel and mixing the concrete so progress is definitely being made.

The carpenter has been busy making tables for the computer room which is causing great interest. Michael has a friend Zango translating his computer class lessons into French and he is hopeful that these classes should get off the ground this month with an initial small group of local people. This will include 2 teachers from 2ndry school 1 from Primary school and the administrator from hospital then he will see how things work out after that.

Last week we had the end of term prize giving and march past for Sunday school. We close for the summer while the general schools are also on holiday. We met up at the football field and they did a march with banners and lots of singing before going into church for the service.

This month there is a special conference and get together for all the choir people for this area. Dilolo Poste is the venue and our 3 choir groupes are all looking forward to going despite the fact that many of them have to walk the 45km ! Others come from further away but I am sure they will have a great time.

We are looking forward to more visitors at the end of this week DV.First Gillian and Walter Raymond who used to be based in Lubumbashi but returned to New Zealand some years ago and then a friend Fred Holmes from the North of England a surgeon who spent some years as a missionary in the middle east. He has visited various African countries but is coming for the first time to DRCongo. Sadly they will not be with us very long but it will be good to see them.

More arrivals and Bush Conference June 09

Already a month has passed since I last wrote on my blog. Mid May we were delighted to welcome Zoe Rew and Michael Hawtin to Katoka, they will DV be here for 6 mths they are our IT experts and are hoping to set up a computer network for the 2ndry school and teach the first class of computer basics to the teachers who will then be able to help the pupils in the future. First task though is to overall the computers at present out of 6 tested only one is completely OK and ready for use.

At the end of May Sandy and Jonny went over to Zambia to collect Angela and Paul Hannay. They will be with us until the end of August. They are helping out with practical jobs like for Paul laying floor and wall tiles and Angela has already started on a control of all the hospital linen which is great. More photos as the work progresses !!

We have just been out for our annual bush conference for all the churches in the Katoka and Divuma areas. A new experience for all our visitors and one which they seem to have enjoyed and which they have survived. Living in tents or grassy shelters can be fun ! About 500 people were present at the Sunday morning service so that was great.

Distributing sheets of roofing iron May 09

We finally finished all the buying for hospital and ourselves and left in the Methodist Mission Plane ably flown by Gaston and arrived safely at Kisenge a mining town boasting an airstrip...the nearest airstrip to Katoka.
The road was very bad but we arrived safely at Katoka and Jonathan was given a very warm welcome in true Katoka tradition. We didn't give him much time to relax but he was plunged into language learning and helping out in the pharmacy. The young folk didn't take long to learn he likes kicking a football around so the noise levels around the house increase in the late afternoon when the temperature is more accomodating to rushing around madly!!
I was able to cheer up quite a few people on Friday past. We have a banking system for our workers and some others in the area and this time it was the turn of the folk who were saving up to put roofing iron sheets on their houses. I was buying for the 2ndry school building project and so purchased some extra for all those who had been saving up....they were so pleased and probably it will now be an incentive to others to save again. Pictures do not seem to want to upload tonight so I will post this pictureless and try again next time.

APRIL UPDATE

April saw me headed out to UK for a flying visit to sort out a passport problem.but all went well and I appreciated the chance to catch up with all the family including the new additions and also friends and colleaques.Thanks to my sister and brother in law for kindly driving me around the country in a whirlwind tour from Whitley Bay to Whitley Bay via Penrith Liverpool Chester Attingham Park Tatton Park,Manchester and Leeds !!I left UK again on Easter Sunday accompanied by Jonathan our short term worker who will be at Katoka with us until the end of August DV. We had 2 nights in Nairobi meeting up with my nephew Ian who was also headed for Lubumbashi in DRCongo so we arrived in together.

March Update

March 7th. Yesterday was the Women's world day of prayer and we had a good time here at Katoka. Over 150 ladies came and their enthusiastic singing and dancing was great. We had morning and afternoon sessions with prayer groups in the afternoon. We had prayed for a fine day and as you can see some of the prayer groups were outside it was a beautifully sunny day but today has rained all day so we do thank God for His goodness.

Mattresses

The 75 mattresses gifted by the Governor of our province and taken to the railway station on October 29th arrived safely at our local station on the 6th February !

February Update

February 2009 and a belated happy New Year. My apologies for not being able to update since the end of November 2008 but the problem has been with our internet connections or lack of them due to our bush situation. The powers that be assure is the problem is being looked into...
Sandy and I are fine and being kept out of mischief with the medical work and church work and for Sandy her cultivating. She is a great motivator and has been organising the folks to grow corn peanuts and soya beans. She has already harvested most of the corn and some of the peanuts so that is a great help for the nutrition centre.
I had an interesting case at the Maternity recently. I was called in the early hours one morning to see lady who had delivered on the village a dead baby of about 5 + mths but had been brought to hospital because of a retained placenta. On examining the patient I discovered a second baby which was still alive and this was confirmed the following morning by ultra sound scanning. After consultation with our nearest mission Doctor 90 km away it was decided to give her antibiotic cover and to observe her. The first placenta still being insitu but she was not haemorrhaging. She did well for 3 wks but sadly last weekend she delivered after no apparent labour pains, another dead baby and again the placenta was retained. At this point she was transferred to the medical centre for Dilatation and Curretage or Hysterotomy whatever was deemed necessary by the Doctor in charge. We had hoped that she would continue to term but I have certainly never had a patient before who waited that long to deliver her 2nd twin ! DV I hope to be in touch more often now.