August 2015
Greetings from Nyankunde!
It is a peaceful and rainy Sunday morning. Our baby is sleeping, Warren is roasting coffee, and I am catching up on correspondence. We have found our lives to be very full with a very active little boy. Emmanuel is starting to walk and is
gaining strength and agility. He is very
curious about everything and seems to be decoding his world. Here is a list of his top daily activities:
1) Open and close doors.
2) Drop everything and then pick it up.
3) Hide and then "pop out."
4) Climb over and go under.
5) Eat and then spit it out (or gag oneself).
6) Play with puppy and crawl all over her.
7) Unplug the nightlight.
8) Turn on all the buttons on the fan.
9) Take a bath and then roll in the dirt.
10) Hide under the hamper with a flashlight
11) Splashing in the outdoor puddle pool
11) Splashing in the outdoor puddle pool
12) Hugs!!!
It is a real joy to see him
learning and growing everyday, He hears
Swahili everyday and has learned to wave when he hears “tutuanana” which means
“we’ll see each other later.” Now if we
can only coordinate our nap times so I can get some rest too.
We have welcomed a new family, the Larochelles, and an
obstetrician to Nyankunde. They are
integrating and learning about life in the village. It has been been pause for me to think about
“village life” and real community as we talk about realities of life.
Village Community Life
First in a village everyone knows everything. It is hard (impossible even) to keep secrets
and private life just looks different.
This was a reality when Emmanuel was born…everyone knew I had gone into
labor and that I was having some health problems. I could be lying in bed and hear people in
the fields outside talking about my son and how I was doing. One of the single doctors who lives alone was
sick recently. People came to her house
daily to check on her, as they were genuinely concerned for her especially with
her living alone. It is nice to know
that people really care and want to be involved in your life, but it can be
hard to rest at times.
In a village your identity is in relation to others. No one lives in isolation. I am known as “Mama Emmanuel,” Warren’s wife,
just as much I am known as “Doctor Lindsey.”
And it’s true- my child and my husband very much define who I am. My relation to others is more important than
what “I do.” In a tribal society like
the one in which I live, you really are who you are (customs, language, values)
based on your relatives. There are a lot of orphaned children in the hospital
right now so I have been thinking a lot about how their sense of identity must
change. Who do these children
become? Do they marry?
Interestingly, The Bible says that we are all orphans and
aliens in this world. So our identity in
the earthly sense is less important. Scripture
tells us that there is “one body and one Spirit-just as you were called to one
hope when you were called-one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father
of all” (Ephesians 4:4-5). We belong to
God the Father, to the body of Christ, and to the Spirit. Someone could refer to me as “Lindsey, child
of God and sister in Christ.” This fact
is even more important than that I am a mother, wife, or doctor.
In a village you really need to find a way to get along with
others. In a village you rub elbows with
everyone everyday. There are people you
get along well with and people you have differences of opinion with. Sometimes in the west I think we become good
at avoiding people and situations that we don’t want to deal with. We probably also avoid conflict whenever we
can. Extended family may be estranged to
one another. In a village this does not
work and is not good for the health of the community. Paul says, “Make every effort to keep the
unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). It is important to work on relationships and
work through differences…this is to the benefit of the entire body.
In a village, people need each other to survive and men and
women fall into more “traditional roles.”
In this culture as a woman, you really need a man to do the hard work of
field preparation for crop planting. As
a woman your role is to work in the fields, harvest, prepare food for your
family, and support your husband. Can
these gender roles change? Yes, they can
adapt to the situational needs. I fall
much more into these traditional roles here.
But the fact that Warren helps me cook sometimes or that I have a
Congolese man helping me in the house is unusual and definitely makes me more
“western.”
In a city, you can
hide easier from others, associate with whom you like, and not need to depend
on
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that village life is
better. In fact sometimes I wish I could
hide out a little. But village life does
illustrate life in close community which is
a positive thing and very Biblical. It
takes intentional effort to create community and foster relationships. May the Lord awaken our spirits to living in
close relationships with others.
others. You might not even realize that there may be another way to
live.
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| Our growing ex-pat medical community at Nyankunde |
News from Pediatrics
Have you ever struggled to be in the “in crowd,” to feel
like you are understood and belong?
Living overseas puts you out of your element on a daily basis. But I can honestly say that I “fit in” here
now. I am a foreigner and will always be
a foreigner, but I feel like I am part of the family. As I walked into the pediatrics building the
other night to check on a patient I was greeted warmly by everyone in the room
with waves and “Hi Doc.” It warmed my
heart. The room was full of people sitting
on the floor, the beds, and kids walking to-and-fro. There was a lot of interest over the patient
I had come to see on a Sunday night.
Recently I felt very appreciated by a mother for taking care
of her 1year old daughter named Zawadi. She was hospitalized in May with
“failure to thrive,” in other words malnutrition. After a month of increasing her calories I could not get her to gain weight. Then
she developed pneumonia. This led me to
believe that she had tuberculosis. After
weeks and weeks of treatment for tuberculosis she began gaining weight, playing, and doing
developmentally normal things. This is
why I do my job. There are daily
frustrations. There are families that
disappear from the hospital during treatment. There are patients that continue to get so
sick despite everything you do. There
are patients that you can not diagnose precisely. There are people who simply don’t believe
they have the disease and don’t follow your advice….or maybe start to believe it
after the third hospital admission for the same problem. But then there are kids like Zawadi who
achieve a cure. We give God all the
glory for these victories.
A New Addition
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| Building a fire together |
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| Warren's geodesic dome and homemade swing |
That’s all for now.
Thank you for your prayers and interest in our lives.
Love,
Lindsey (for the Coopers)
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| Just having fun |
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| Rehabilitation of the old maternity building at Nyankunde is underway! |
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