August 7th, 2011

For 6 days we only had two doctors here. I bet Dr. Briggs prayed really hard every day for an ‘easy’ hospital/clinic load and no major accidents with lots of trauma.  He is the only long-term doctor here, so he runs the whole place on his own right now.  Maternity, surgery, everything.  We have not had a surgeon here for a week, and a few that were supposed to be coming canceled. So the hospital is paying for a surgeon to come- Sam Williams. He was here for a couple weeks right before I came and I guess he’s a pretty fun, great guy.  A young doctor came a couple of days ago, so that will reduce the patient load for the other two doctors.

I got to witness Dr. Wicker to an excellent job of telling a family member that her sister did not have very many days to live.  She had cancer starting in her knee six years ago and it went untreated and was now spread throughout her whole body and into her lungs- there is nothing the hospital can do for them.  The sister began to ask if they had treated the knee years ago if she would be healthy now, but Dr. Wicker cut her off and said that we can not live in the past and should not dwell on regrets, but we have to live in the present and enjoy the last days that they have together.  He explained that God rejoices in our death, because it means that one of his children is coming home to be with Him in heaven.

Friday and Saturday were two of my favorite days in Togo! Samuel was going to Atakpame to show films at a youth conference (the woman Becky who does this ministry is in the states so he has filled in for her) and he invited Ben, Peter, and I to join.  We played with children for a few hours that night.  Biggest duck-duck-goose circle yet, haha there were a lot of kids.  Some members of the church prepared a meal for us.  I have eaten village food a couple of times now, but this was the first time I had half of a nasty, dried, fish staring up at me.  I have been really good about just getting tough and eating things even if I don’t like it much, but there was no way I was going to pick up a fish and gnaw on the crunchy bones.  When it got dark Samuel played about 2 hours of film with speaking and praying in between each movie.  There were close to 300 people by the end of the night crowded on the church benches outside, it was awesome! It was also the first time I have worn a light jacket since I’ve been here.  We slept in one room of the church, and the volunteers from other churches around the area slept in the main part of the church.  Things quieted down around 11pm, and got going again at 2am.  At first I couldn’t figure out why on earth people were up at 2 in the morning and wasn’t real thrilled about it, but around 3 they started praying and worshiping together, then at 4 the horrible stereo system starting blasting praise music… I thought it was pretty neat to be in the middle of nowhere Africa with people that are too excited about glorifying God to sleep. I taught a lesson to 60 young women (didn’t know I would be doing that until the night I got there, but God managed to make it work out great). My translator was awesome and there was some really good discussion with the girls.

I think this is the rest of the interesting cultural facts I can come up with:

-A lot of people’s names are the day of the week that they were born on.  Some of them have that as just part of their name, some have a different first name but still get called by the day of the week, some are named a day of the week but get called a different name. Either way, there are lots of Koffis, Affis, Kodjis, and Kossis. It’s funny- when we go to pray for a new baby we ask the mother if they have a name yet and most of the time there is a small pause in the reply as the mother/nurses think of what day of the week the baby was born on.

-Almost every girl/woman and a lot of the boys have beads that they wear around their waist. I have asked a few people what the purpose of them is, and the clearest answer I have gotten is that it is meant to ensure that the woman or child will not leave their village.  But most people seem to do it simply because it’s tradition.

-Women wear skirts or wraps that go just past their knees (or to their ankles if they are muslim).  But above the waist? Well let’s just say it doesn’t seem to matter too much what is or isn’t covered.  You see babies (well sometimes they are 3 or 4 years old- milk is free and nutritious so they nurse as long as they can here) nursing everywhere.  I still laugh whenever I see a kid nursing even though they are tightly wrapped on their mom’s back (haha bet that’s a good mental picture for ya… there isn’t much use for push-up bras around here).  It is beginning to become more common to see women wearing jeans and pants in the bigger cities- definitely not in the villages though.