On the road to Somasso

"I ne ce" (pronounced In nee chay)=  hello in Bambara

Hello from Somasso!  Today we travelled from Koutiala to Somasso, a village northeast of Koutiala.  It almost feels as if you are traveling back to the days of Jesus when you see the mud dwellings of these remote villages.  Animals roam free, things move at a very slow pace, and people spend time caring for each other in a way that is refreshing.  These are all so foreign to the way that we (meaning I) spend our days.  The other morning we started our daily prayer time at the hospital with a look at 1 Timothy 6:6-8 which reads: "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that."  I was listening to this message from a Malian worker at the hospital who lives in conditions not much better than those seen in these villages and what I realized is that no matter what your standing in this world, you will never be satisfied unless your contentment is grounded in the goodness of Christ.  

This morning started with a short talk to the nursing staff at Koutiala about the basics of the pediatric cancers that are common in Mali.  We then packed up the car for our 1.5 hour trip to Somasso.

 The courtyard of the Somasso clinic... built around the shade of a large tree.

 Life in and around Somasso....

 Reverse baby bjorn!

 School kids excited to see Tubabu (white people)

 Protection from the animals.

 A time to mend... the hot season is the time to make your mud brick and ready your house for the rains of August and September.

 A small oasis garden that requires constant water and tending in this hot/dry climate.

 Play time.

 "fast food" on the road to Somasso

 Patrick dwarfed by the baobab

 Collecting newborn samples and teaching the nurses.

 Our gift for the road from the Somasso team was several bags of roasted peanuts, which were amazing!

 Public transportation...

 The team asked us to bring them back a copy of this picture... I hope to be able to do that one day

 An old church near Samosso

 I know that we have all complained that the delivery room was not nice enough at the birth of one of our children.  What do you think about this?  This woman is nearing time to deliver on this tile slab.

 This would be my worst nightmare... the guinea worm!  This is the one that you have to pull out very slowly so that it does't break off in your foot.  We are trying to get one out of Patrick right now.

 Local kids glad that we have arrived

Visiting the Samuel School

This morning started with a teaching session with the pediatric nurses on childhood cancers and then we traveled to a YWAM (Youth with a Mission) supported school in Koutiala.  The school is run by christian staff and has around 450 students (mostly muslim).  The kids at the school always start their day with play time in the morning so that they can stay inside during the heat of the day.  They were very excited (hugging Patrick, doing cheers, etc) about the 10 soccer balls that we presented from Give a Kick for their program and wasted no time getting into the action.

 These kids took me to school on the soccer field!

Baramba (rural clinic)

                                

  

Koutiala Hospital supports 6 rural health clinics that are in surrounding areas.  As much as Koutiala looks "rural" in my pictures, these dispensaire's are in the mild of nowhere and are very quiet.  The clinics do all of the deliveries in the area and take care of the basic pediatric care as well.  One of the goals of this trip is to equip 3 out of the 6 clinics with the tools to do sickle cell screening.  Baramba was a perfect place to start.

The Baramba team with Brett and Joseph (pediatric nurse from Koutiala in the front)

Showing the team the blood spot cards and the equipment to draw samples from all of the newborns (they have around 600 deliveries per year).

All meetings are held out in the shade to stay away from the heat.  You can see the water tower for the clinic in the background.

Talking to the first mother about screening her 3 day old baby.  This is the "post-partum" area.

Joseph teaching the maternity nurses about the process of collecting blood from the cord.

Collecting the samples on the cards (donated by Perkin-Elmer in Greenville).  They will collect 50-60 samples in a batch and then deliver to Koutiala for the testing.

The nurses in Baramba learned quickly and are ready to collect the samples on their own.

Random pics from the delivery room.

This used, but relatively fancy delivery bed, was donated to the center but was in the corner in a side room and had never been used before.  We helped the team discover how much better this bed would be for their deliveries and then assisted moving into the delivery room.  

After collecting the samples, we had a small lecture on sickle cell complications with the team using my computer.

The separation between life and death is very narrow in this part of Africa.  The morgue is only about 50 feet from the entrance to the clinic.

Our "gift" for traveling to Baramba.... 2 chickens to take back to Koutiala!

On the road to Baramba...

The hot season is the time to mend your mud house and fences.  You can see the mud bricks stacked in the background.

The amazing Baobab tree...