March 28, 2009

Hey everyone!
Sorry I haven't posted in a while. To update you on the past week. We had a dinner dance party at the clinic on Monday. It was a blast. Typically in Afghanistan the women are not allowed to eat dinner with the guests, they must eat the leftovers after the guests leave. Every time we go over to the clinic for dinner, the women aren't allowed to eat with us so we decided that we would do a dinner with only the women, and that way they could eat with us. It ended up being a huge success and we turned it into a dance party, as they taught us some of the local dance moves. They also decided to put glass bracelets on all our wrists (all the women around here wear them). Unfortunately, the women's wrists in Afghanistan are a lot smaller than ours. A few of us bled a little as the bracelets were being forced onto our hands. They had to oil up most of our hands just to try and get them on. It took me a long time to get mine off again and I ended up having to break some of them because it was just to painful to remove.

We had a lot of children at the clinic this week. Many of them had vitamin deficiencies and since we are out of vitamins, there is little we can do. I ordered some vitamins so more should be on their way and hopefully we don't have to turn away kids again for that reason. Also...update on the little boy with the missing leg. My friend Jenn is going to purchase the crutches for him...THANK YOU JENN!!! I have also been working with the Doc on base to try and find a hospital that might give him a prosthetic. I've also been emailing and posting the story of the clinic so we can get some more children's shoes, clothes, and medicine sent over. Hopefully I get some responses!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Conversation With Michelle

Hey everyone its Danielle. I just got off the phone with Michelle and she said her APO address has changed so I wanted to make a post so that everyone could have the new address:

Sgt. Michelle Johnson
333rd MP Company
FOB Waza Kwah
APO AE 09311

She has been making some real progress with the Woman's Clinic and has asked for kids shoes and vitamins. She says most of the kids there have no shoes or if they do they are full of holes. Also that there are kids that can not see at night because of vitamin deficiencies. Simple vitamins can make the world of difference in these kids lives. The shoes DO NOT have to be new. They will be ecstatic for a used pair of shoes.

Thats all I have for now.
dj

Another Child Touches My Heart

On Thursday, at clinic, I met the cutest little 5 year old boy ever. He was super shy and just so adorable. He was a healthy child but he was missing one of his legs below the knee. It was from a birth defect and it affected one of his hands and part of his other leg also. I can't describe what a cutie this little boy was and something about him just pulled at my heart strings. Out here, if you don't have a leg your life is bound to be really tough. The poor boy didn't even have crutches and can't move about. His Left leg which is only partially there is incredibly painful at the end and therefore it hurts him to crawl around on it.

I took some pictures of this little boy and I am going to try and convince an Aid organization to help out if I can. I'm also going to order him some children's crutches (the kind that go on the arm) so he can at least move around and be a semi-normal child. If anyone knows a connection let me know, otherwise I'm just going to order them on-line for him.

We also saw and treated the normal gamut of patients and we got to hand out some new clothes. I decked my favorite baby out in clothes from Andrew (my boss) and his wife Laura. I gave him his first pair of shoes and I wish I had a video of him looking at his feet like "what the heck are these things." He wasn't sure if he wanted to eat them, play with them, or take them off. It was hilarious.

Other than that not to much else is going around. We've been playing Volleyball everyday at 3:00 and I've discovered that a being a professional volleyball player is not in my near future :) I am horrible but at least I have fun doing it!

Hope everything is going well for everyone.

Mail

Hey everyone -
Just a quick note to let everyone know to stop sending mail to the FOB Waza Khwa address. If you got something you were planning on sending stick it in the mail by the end of the week. I will still be here for a while but with the inconsistency of mail, I don't want anything to get lost. I'll post the new address when I get it.
THANKS!!!!

Boredom and an Imagination = FUN

Another beautiful day in Afghanistan. Today we had clinic and we are getting to have quite a crowd on clinic days. We now not only treat women but we have men lining up to be treated by the clinic girls. We had a pregnant woman come in who fell down a flight of stairs the other day. She is 8 months along and it made her go into early labor. We weren't able to stay for the delivery but we gave her tons of newborn items to take home with her. As usual they were so thankful for the generosity of the Americans.

At Thursday's clinic we saw one of our "regulars," she likes to bring new people in for us to look at. I made a comment about one of her rings that she was wearing. It was really pretty, almost antique looking. For thanks for all that we have done for her and the locals, she gave me the ring. I felt horrible taking it but she insisted. It's just a cheap ring but it means the world because they have nothing and she is giving one of her valued possessions to me - warms my heart every time.

In other news, they tracked down all our mail and I received 10 boxes today! It was awesome. And as usual, I am amazed at the outpouring of generosity from everyone. I got HUGE boxes of clothes and school supplies from my boss and co-workers, and a box of baby clothes from my cousin. I can't wait to hand these items out, especially the toddler shoes that were in one of the boxes, they will be a HUGE hit out here. None of the kids wear shoes and we during the summer a lot of them come into the clinic with infections from stepping on dirty needles (there is no such thing as a garbage dump here) and other sharp objects.

Today was also Ang's birthday. So to celebrate we had a cookout and had a cake for her. While we were sitting around chit chatting, I came up with the brilliant and ingenious idea of playing glow-in-the-dark volleyball. Needless to say it turned into a laughing fest as we coated the ball with glow-in-the-dark sticks and lined the volleyball court with glow-sticks. We were all covered in the glow-in-the-dark liquid. It reminded me of Miss Congeniality where they play the drums and get covered in the glow-in-the-dark paint. It was so much fun. I guess this is what happens when you get totally bored and are stuck in the middle of nowhere - you come up with ways to amuse yourself.

Hope everyone is doing well and once again THANKS for all that everyone has sent. Myself, the clinic girls, and the locals appreciate it more than you could ever know!!

I'm still kicking...

Sorry for the lack of posts, things have been crazy around here. Just wanted to let everyone know though that I'm safe and hanging in there. My Birthday was yesterday and we made the best of it. Ang made me a play-doh card. It was awesome. Hey you gotta do what you gotta do around here! Then they had ice cream and cake for me at dinner. Wish I could have been surrounded by family and friends but you make the best of the situation you are in!

We didn't go to clinic yesterday, to much going on. I will add some new photos after clinic tomorrow. I missed the last two trips over there because I just had to much to do. Good news is that the weather if finally warming up some - which means more patients will be trekking in to see us. Bad news is that with warm weather comes more Taliban.

I'll try to post again after clinic. Hope everyone is doing well!

A Life for a Life

A busy day today for the clinic girls. We delivered the cutest little girl ever. We got to deck her out in the baby clothes that everyone has been sending. I've included some pictures of her in her new outfit. She was such a cutie. The woman delivering her was 23 and this was her second child. She was so pretty and such a sweetheart. During the delivery, she got really weak so she wrapped her arms around my neck and put her head on my shoulder - it was really touching. Wish I had a picture of it. She gave me and the two other girls there a bracelet off her wrist as a thank you for delivering her baby. As always, it was a touching experience which just makes me realize how brave and strong these women are.

When we got back to the base we were told that a baby who was severly burnt was being brought into our aid station. Our medics started working on her and I headed down to see if I could assist in anyway. The little girl was 8 months old and burnt really bad. Her breathing was irregular and instead of putting burn ointment on her, her family put bengay on the burns. Our medics worked on her for about 40 minutes. There was little they could do and she ended up dying about an hour after they brought her in. I had to clean up the body before giving it back to her family - it was very hard to clean the lifeless body, no matter how many times you see something like that I don't think it ever gets easier.

The thing that always gets me though is the reaction from the families. Her grandfather brought her into us and didn't seem that concerned whether she lived or died. I guess when you live out here though, and there is no real medical facilties, death is just something that they are accustomed to. I guess you have to make yourself not be as attached to these children as the chances of them making it through childhood are not the best. In America, I think maybe people are closer to their children because they really don't have to worry about getting to close to them as we have the best medical facilities in the world....just a thought. I don't know how else to explain the coldness that you get from these people. It's not that they don't care, I think it's their coping mechanism. Sometimes though you get a father or mother who brings their kid in and is crushed that something has happened to them. I have to keep reminding myself that theirs is a different culture and they have different customs / reactions.

I got a care package from my friend Greg the other day. It had paint in it and I've been trying to paint. Not all that great at it but it let's me escape mentally for an hour or so at night. I included a picture of one of my paintings. As I said...I'm not a painter but anything to keep your mind off things is great.

Hope everyone is doing well. Keep in touch and thanks for all the encouragement!