As I (Fenton) am wrapping up my 8+ weeks here (I leave here Tuesday AM), one interesting thing to contemplate is that if I have been even somewhat successful, the results here will be invisible. If I have been successful, people won’t get electric shocks anymore, there will be no further electrical fires, the generators will no longer get overloaded, and medical equipment will no longer get damaged from voltage surges.  It will, in a word, be completely uneventful--but obviously in a good way.  That is in contrast to Pat, for when she is successful, someone with a previously fatal ailment walks out with the rest of their life ahead of them.

Even though it has not rained here since sometime in May, the valley just below us still has moisture in the soil and there are people farming it every day.

Well, we changed our return dates. 

Pat just couldn’t walk away and leave the place with no surgeon for the next six weeks until the “main guy” returns and there are still plenty of things to do on the electrical side for me. So Pat will stay another six weeks, returning September 21st and I will be here through the end of August at least. Much thanks to assorted friends who have helped take care of the details we thought we would be home to do ourselves. An example of Pat’s dilemma was a one-day-old baby she operated on today for an open spinal issue that would likely kill her if left untreated. The parents don’t have the money to go to Bujumbura (Buja), the capital city of Burundi, and Pat has never had to do anything like this before. But if she does nothing .... So she operated for two hours and the baby looks good so far.

It was Monday, July 25th, at around 7am and I was finishing breakfast when Pat came back home steaming hot (and not from the outside temperature). She had been called out at around 1:30am to “fix” a grandmother and twelve year old granddaughter, both of whom had been slashed up by the drunken grandfather with a machete. The grandmother had a slashed up hand, while the granddaughter had a large slash in her scalp, another one across her face (just missing the eye and partially amputating the nose) AND a badly slashed forearm / wrist with some of the tendons cut.  It was learned later that the grandfather has died, apparently after receiving a bump on the head when neighbors tried to intervene. He then apparently bled internally after that. 

We have now passed the half way mark of our scheduled time here, but have been thrown a bit of a curve ball. The surgeon who was going to relieve Pat will not make it. They would like us, especially Pat, to stay another six weeks. Pray with us as we try and figure out what makes the most sense, as I have clients that expected me back on August 12th.

We have been here just over two weeks, and we are certainly into a routine. Three mornings a week we have the son of a pastor (Amon) come in and do some cooking and cleaning. Partly because so much has to be made from scratch and partly because any kind of paying job is hard to find here. He makes “killer” fresh bread and cinnamon rolls and quite good minestrone soup. So we are not suffering.  And then the last two nights we have been invited over to eat with missionary families, so sweet an sour chicken and pizza!  And of course there are all kinds of tree ripe tropical fruit: bananas, pineapple, passion fruit, and an unnamed tropical plum. So definitely not losing weight.

When something weird happens at the hospital, Pat has a saying that it is just “TIA”, as in “This is Africa”. I have some of those too! Some of my work is bigger picture planning kind of stuff, and some is just plain fixing stuff that doesn’t work. One the first things on my list was to figure out where and how to install a new power conditioner that will protect the sensitive hospital equipment from electrical surges. 

We have arrived safely in Kibuye, Burundi.  The multiple flights from home were definitely long, but we slept some and arrived in fairly good shape along with all of our bags and boxes.

As we came into land at the airport in the capital city of Bujumbura, it was obvious that they were well into the dry season.  Things looked a lot drier than when we had been here previously near the end of the year, which is wet season. Also noticeable was the distinct brown layer we descended through, almost like smog, but is in fact fine dust from the Sahara Desert that travels over a 1,000 miles in the dry season to get here.

It’s Wednesday and I am in the clinic today with just one resident, with both Dr. Zach and Dr. Jen in the operating room with the other resident team. This week, first Jen, then Dr. Renee and Dr. Izzy, and now Dr. Zach have been able to come back to work following their very educational trip to Greece.

Pat and I are scheduled to go to Burundi for 5½ weeks in July / early Aug; Pat to fill in for a doc on furlough and me to help with upgrading the electrical system.

I have been thinking of writing this post for over a week now, so maybe it would be better titled “What a difference TWO weeks makes”. Now that I want to post something, the internet is “not cooperating”.  

Yesterday I took Pat to the airport for her to go back to Gabon for the month of April.  Then this afternoon she e-mailed to say she had arrived in the capital (Libreville) with all her stuff and would head out tomorrow on the 11 hour road trip through the jungle to the hospital.  Many times this road trip is avoided because of the missionary plane, making it just a two hour Cessna ride. But the plane is broke, so they had to go back to PlanB.

Pat got back from Gabon on Sunday afternoon, along with fellow medics Lilly Ann and Jerry Rusher. The two surgeons who had been on furlough and who Pat was substituting for arrived back at Bongolo 2 days before Pat left, so she was able to “pass the scalpel”.  Pat will miss her time helping to train the residents at Bongolo, but it was time to come home.

The Rushers and I have started our trek back from Bongolo Hospital in Gabon to the Pacific Northwest. We left at 8 AM and had a wonderful, smooth flight (1 1/2 hours) transitioning from the southern to the northern hemisphere and arriving in Libreville, the capital city of Gabon. We now are "resting" at the guest house here in town until we go to the airport at 7 PM to check in for our 11:50 PM flight to Paris. Just a 7 hour lay over and then a direct flight back to Seattle. We will arrive Sunday afternoon. 

Early this morning, my very ill patient, Lewis, passed away. His wife was sitting with her packed suitcase, alone on the bench outside the surgical area when I arrived. She started crying as she saw me. I couldn't say words of comfort as I have no French, but the hug, the listening to her and nodding as she spoke seemed to be of a comfort to her. 

Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who have prayed for my patient here in Bongolo Hospital. (And the prayers for me and for the staff here, too!) "Lewis" survived the surgery, which was amazing as he looked like death as we wheeled him into the operating room. 

I was teasing my young resident the other day that he had an entire "administrative day" off. What was he going to do with all his time. Yes, I know that he has a presentation to the medical staff in 2 days, has an hour long PowerPoint presentation that needs to be done by next week, is expected to read 2 chapters in the surgical text a week, and is to do all his "paper work" for patient charts, labs, pathology and such on this one day. Oh, and take call of all the patients that come through the ER that need surgical care.