Where In The World Is Dr. Linz?

So the answer to the question of where is Peter was in last week's blog.  Peter is in Texas!  Yup, the good ol' U.S. of A. - and I am in Africa.  How did this happen?  Well, Peter did not jump ship or throw in the towel on our 25 years of marriage.  No, he answered the call put out by Mercy Ships to help them design the next generation of Mercy Ship that the organization has spent the past several years hoping to build.  As you can imagine there are as many opinions on how to do this as there are people involved in the process.  So, the board has called a time out and decided to have a few select people on three or four different committees overseeing certain aspects of the design.  Given Peter's extensive time on the USNS Mercy and the high regard Mercy Ships has for the Navy's two hospital ships they are enormously grateful that someone with Peter's background and experience has come to the organization at just this time.  It seems that we are getting a clearer sense of why God has nudged us toward Mercy Ships.  He left Friday night and got into Texas early Sunday morning and their meetings will start on Monday.  He will be back to the ship next Monday night.  So lots of travel for an important meeting. 

Peter and Mercy Ships founder Don Stephens

The other thing that makes all this travel a God send - besides all the frequent flier miles he's accumulating, is that he had a 7 hour lay over in Newark of all places!  Yup - just across the Hudson from his mother!  So - as soon as he got his itinerary he started ordering stuff to be delivered to her house to bring back to Africa with him.  In addition he's getting to run errands and buy things for everyone on the ship that heard he was going back to the land of Walmart!  Yes, he took the big suitcase!  So, in addition to getting me my good malaria pills he had a lovely visit with his mother and with our son Andy who also lives in NYC.  I even got to talk to them on the phone yesterday so we all got something out of this trip. 

As promised  from last weeks post about meeting the president and founder of Mercy Ships, I was able to find some pictures of Peter and Don Stephens. 

The patient they are visiting here is somewhat of a local singing sensation that unfortunately had to have his jaw reconstructed due to an extensive tumor that kept coming back.  Due to the radiation damage to his tissues  he took a very, very long time to heal so he was on the ward for a long time.  One would think that someone who makes a living using his mouth would be upset or bitter about his lot in life but this guy was pure joy.  He couldn't talk but he gave two thumbs up to everyone that came through the ward.  He's finally been discharged this week after two months on the ward. 

The other big news this week is I started driving the the eye team to the screening sites.  Very few people get to be drivers but since I've driven standard transmission cars since I was a teenager I passed the test.  I think telling the guy that after learning to fly helicopters I figured I could drive just about anything.

Driving in the third world is a completely different type of experience!  I wish I could show a video of what it is like to have motorcycles jutting all around you as you try to make your way from point A to point B.  There are very few traffic signals and those that are there are usually ignored.  Like the car in the midst of the motor cycles on the left, one feels surrounded and hoping that none of these guys has as much of a death wish as it seems when they are darting through the traffic.  Most also carry large loads on the back of their scooters and you wonder how do they see where they are going and more importantly - do they see me???  Many of the roads are dirt and deeply rutted.  The rainy season starts sometime next month so I'm wondering how well we'll travel then.  Much more for you all to pray about for us! 

The upside of getting to go out into the community and off the ship is that I do get to see more of Lome' and the people and how they live. Here are a couple pictures of typical open air

markets along the roadsides.  It is amazing what you can find to buy.  Peter and I have not tried our hands at bargaining but many of our shipmates have.  I suppose we'll have to go out one of these days and get some souveniers before the rains hit.  But first, Dr. Linz has to make his way back to this side of the world.  Until next week.  Have a blessed Holy Week as you prepare to celebrate the sacrifice and resurrection of our Lord that makes it possible for us to be His child and have the promise of eternity with Him in paradise.  Hallelujah! 

Markets like these line the streets everywhere!



Hello from increasingly hot and steamy Africa!  Each week things seem more stable as we settle into a routine of sorts.  Each week something special happens to make the week stand out from all the others. 

Let's go for the special stuff first. 

Last week the founder and president of Mercy Ships, Don Stephens flew from his home in Colorado to take a meeting with the President of the Congo along with the managing director of the ship and our government liason.  They had the misfortune of flying in just after this nation had a horrific tragedy where there was a huge explosion and fire where many hundreds of lives were lost.  Despite the nation reeling from the tragedy and the national day of mourning the president and his advisors kept their meeting with Mercy Ships.  This tragedy reinforced the huge need Congo and their neighbors in the central Africa region have for access to health care.  Apparently the reputation Mercy Ships has has travelled throughout Africa and the Congo is very interested in partnering with us to build a river going hospital ship / barge that can travel into the interior of Africa!  This is indeed exciting news when you consider that 20 years ago Togo was the only country in Africa willing to take our ship and our help when it was offered.  Suffice it to say many people on the ship are very excited to see God working in the Congo and using Mercy Ships to be a part of that work.

After this group came back to the ship Don spent several days meeting people, talking to old friends and going on ward rounds.  This, of course meant he spent a fair amount of time with Peter as he spends most of his time taking care of the ward patients.  Don was very interested in hearing about Peter's unique training that the Navy has provided him on hospital ships.  There were multiple pictures taken of the both of them however none have been posted on the marketing drive so I will hopefully have something to post in the next week or two. 

But, the other fun thing that happened this week was with the eye team.  Each week a group from the ship gives a short presentation to let others know what they actually do and how they contribute to the overall mission.  Friday it was our turn to give a little "dog and pony show".  Not knowing what our boss wanted to do for this - usually a power point presentation - I downloaded a bunch of pictures that were taken of the team in action. 

Naturally, he had a different idea and we did a skit depicting all the stages a patient has to go thru in order to regain their sight but since I have the pictures I might as well put them out into the blogosphere.  The skit was a hit and our videographer was there to record it.  No idea if I'll be able to get a copy of it but if I do you can be sure I'll post a copy so you can see a keystone cops version of the eye team. 

About 1100 people showed up on this day

So - twice a week the team goes out to a local church to screen people that have eye problems. The people are very, very patient and quite orderly as long as you take them in order. As you can see below one of the day workers uses a megaphone to address the crowd and tell them what our workers will be doing.  We have amazing day workers that are all fluent in at least three languages and multiple local dialects.  The man next to the guy with the megaphone is a security guard.  We always have at least two guards to keep the peace with so many people!

The screeners evaluate each person in the row.  As the row is seen their chairs are removed and the next row is asked to stand up.  In this way we don't have people jockeying for the vacated seats in front.  If someone has a problem that we are currently offering surgery for they get a card to go into the building for further evaluation. Those that don't have a surgical problem that we can help are told Mercy Ships does not have anything to help them.  It is amazing to see some of the problems these people have and is often very difficult when we tell them we cannot help.

Once the patients go inside there are several stations set up to screen their vision and get their information.  Surprisingly, it is the basic demographic information gathering that takes an inordinate amount of time to gather.  Most of these people have as many as five names.  They have "secret" names that only their family uses - I guess like a nickname perhaps.  Formally they use names that are given to all males or females on the day of the week that they were born.  So - Koffi - means this man was born on a Tuesday.  Yup- we get alot of Koffis.  Then there's the birth dates.  Many have no idea when they were born so a date is usually made up since the computer requires a date, of course.  Probably the most difficult is contact information.  Most do not have a phone so they have to give out a friend or relative's phone and addresses are nearly unheard of.  Many list "Near the market" as their address.  It's pretty nutty and they take a long time to divulge the information since even thinking about these things is quite foreign to them. 

Once the patients here are confirmed to have a surgical case that we can do something about they are given an appointment card to come to the ship the following week for a more intensive examination.

The eye tent dockside next to the ship

The patients are shuttled from outside the port to  the ship where they wait under awnings for us to call them into the tent to be examined.  Of the 100s of people at the screening day about 70-100 will be surgical candidates that we can help.  Once here they go thru multiple stations to get all the measurements needed by the surgeon to make sure they are OK for surgery and what sort of lens they need to put in their eye so they can hopefully see again. 

Here I am taking blood pressures

Scheduling for the OR on the ship

Once the patient goes thru all the stations I take their blood pressure and review their medical history and determine if it is safe to do surgery on them.  It is amazing how incredibly high most of their blood pressures are!!  Honestly - we would hospitalize most of these people if they walked into an American ER with pressures as high as I see on a daily basis.  Once they are scheduled they are given a patient card with a surgery date for them to come back and have outpatient surgery.  We see them again the day after their surgery, two weeks later for a post op visit and then six weeks later for laser surgery to ensure their cataract never comes back again.  It is a whirlwind with so many patients it's nearly impossible to have any real personal contact.  But every so often a patient lets us know how grateful they are so it really warms your heart.  In the end I feel like I'm getting to participate in a bone fide miracle so it helps keep me going.  And I'm getting to see more bits and pieces of Lome' each week so it keeps it interesting. 

As a teaser....next week I'll report a bit about Peter's trip to Texas and my part in the ship's musical!  Have a great week and thank you for your continued prayers on our behalf. 

A Typical Week?

This past week we had very little in the way of adventure and since the weekend capped off with Peter being on call there was even less excitement these past two days.

Truth be told, after last week and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (sorry Mr. Disney) I’m still in recovery mode for a bit and was very, very glad to hang out on the ship and get some sleep as well as do some laundry and other mundane tasks. 

As a reminder of our last weekend we had a road trip to the bush punctuated by my untimely run in with a hot muffler on a motorcycle.  Although I returned back to our camp and dressed my burn immediately the dirt and wind were a bit much and by Monday I had developed a bit of an infection (cellulitis).  Once again our posting at probably the best equipped hospital in West Africa was quite a blessing as I was able to walk into the crew physician's office and request a nice course of antibiotics and by Tuesday my redness was beating a hasty retreat. 

Peter's week was filled with many admissions for the newly arrived general and plastic surgeons that were operating up a storm.  They are all so amazed and grateful that they are free to operate all day long without worrying about calls about their patients since Peter and Dr. Fiona do all the admissions work ups as well as take care of their patients post op.  For them - it is a very sweet gig.  Peter and Fiona seem to enjoy the exotic patients with their unusual tumors and their stoic attitudes.  Despite having enormous, body altering surgeries these sturdy people are often up and out of bed the following day and raring to go when it comes to their physical therapy.  Certainly having so many other people on the ward encouraging and supporting them in their recovery has a lot to do with it.  Possibly the din from all the noise is also an inducement to head home as soon as possible. 

I put in another week on the eye team.  Each week has had some interesting developments.  On Wednesday we went to a beautiful church retreat / training site that the team had screened patients at two years ago.  Apparently this time there was a new priest in charge of things who didn't entirely trust our system and was very leery of having hundreds of people in his compound.  In order to honor this man's sensibilities our team leader elected to just have us screen the people out on the street.  This was a test of our plan B and in some ways our plan C capabilities.  We not only had alot of crowd control to do - about 400 people had showed up to be screened - but we had to abbreviate our normal workup which determines what people get seen back at the ship.  Not a huge deal but we'll have more work to do when these folks show up this next week to see if they are really good surgical candidates.  As we used to say back at Camp Pendleton - Semper Gumby!  (Always Flexible)

My other new task this week has been to start working on helping the eye team and to some degree the rest of the ship develop quality management tools, standard operating procedures and hopefully someday accreditation.  Since this is an area of concentration where I have some experience I'm sort of excited to make a difference in this manner.  I spent most of the weekend while Peter was on call digging through file archives and computer records to glean what they already had and see what tools I have access to.  For those of you that haven't already fallen asleep from how boring this sounds let me say I know I'm an oddball for liking this stuff but strangely enough I find it all pretty exciting.  Yup - Bring On Those Spreadsheets I say!!!  OK, I'll calm down now. 

What we have to do in order to get someone to say "AH"

The upside of all this sleuthing was that I actually found some photos of Peter and I from several weeks ago that I can now share since this post is otherwise so boring most will not have read this far.  So - bonus for those of you toughing it out through the QA junk!  Bravo!  Enjoy the pictures and have a wonderful week.  Hopefully we'll have something more interesting if not spine tingling to share next week. 

On rounds with Dr. Gary and the interpreter

My first patient on the Africa Mercy





Into The Bush!

For those of you that have grown accustomed to adding my weekly updates to your Sunday ritual - I apologize for this being later than my usual postings.  Hopefully the rivitting blow by blow account of our weekend in the African countryside will more than make up for any musings regarding whether I'd gotten lazy or just forgotten to blog this weekend.  Never fear!  The past two days were punctuated with comments from Peter regarding "this will be great for the blog!" 

Eye Team home is white tent on left

Eye team enjoying some downtime

Our weekend started early in that the ship scheduled the first three day weekend of our outreach here in Togo.  Since we don't observe any country's specific holidays having an occasional three day weekend every few months is a real morale booster.  Each week we have a community prayer meeting on Thursday nights concentrating on different themes.  For the past four weeks we had cultural lectures and movies that really helped us understand some of the cultural and historical differences between the western nations represented on the ship and the local peoples.  This past Thursday night was the second week in the theme of getting to know the people we work with on the ship.  Thursday was the first time there was a communal dinner and celebration with all the day workers (200+) hired to work with us.  It was so nice to have a nice, relaxing time getting to know our day workers better, worshipping with them and sharing a meal.  The weather out on the dock could not have been more gorgeous so there was much dancing and singing well into the evening. 

On Friday Peter was on call so I figured we'd have a calm, peaceful long weekend on board the ship with plenty of time to clean our cabin and do laundry.  At dinner on Friday a few other crew members told us of their plan to go visit a popular mountain retreat about 60 miles away that we'd wanted to visit and asked if we wanted to join them?  We deliberated for a bit and decided "why not?" 

So, at 8am on Sat. morning we had our extra undies, toothbrushes and alot of water packed and we headed off the ship in search of a cab driver willing to take us 60 miles out of town.  We've heard many stories about the negotiating for rides, appropriate pricing, etc... but this was probably our first real experience trying to find a ride for 7 people that distance.  We soon discovered that Peter's conversational knowledge of French was going to be a bonus.  Amazingly, we found a van for 6 that could take 7 for a mere $6 a piece!  On the way out of town the driver had to stop for money, a bottle of gas and getting stopped by the police for overloading his van but we made pretty good time to our destinating of Kpalime' (pronounced Pal-o-may). 

We found it interesting how often the police like to stop cabs and vans with white people supposedly over the limits of the particular conveyance since if one observed the locals and how much they pile onto a falling apart motorcycle one would not pick the van as the point of impending danger.  Oh well...on with our story. 

A couple of the fellows with us knew of a retreat center outside of Kpalime' run by the Christian sister organization to Mercy ships known as YWAM (Youth with a mission).  Apparently, it has a reputation for infinite availability and very cheap prices.  We had the driver of our van drop us at the foot of a very long, very winding dirt road with the promise to pick us up the next day at 2pm for the trip back to the port.  The sign at the bottom of the hill indicated we were on the correct road but the phone number on the sign apparently wasn't working.  I thought this could be omenous.  


Guest House

"road" to YWAM retreat center

The trek up was not too bad as it was early in the day and it was not terribly hot.  As we climbed higher and higher up the mountain road I was praying that a) we were going to the right place, b) this place was actually open and c) they had room for us to stay there.  After wandering past multiple groups of abandoned buildings we finally saw a few people that confirmed we had found the YWAM center!  Hallelujah!  They then accosted us with "why didn't you call?"  Peter, in his limited French explained we did but the number didn't work but could we stay there?  Apparently they had many, many residents currently there and it would take a little shuffling but they could accomodate us for the night.  Second hallelujah!  As luck would have it the group already there was a primary health care group that many of us had met on multiple occasions already that just happened to be working out of this base visiting remote villages in this part of Togo.  Of all the people in this little country it struck us as odd that we would run into this particular group four times in four different places over the past month. 

Termite mound along road

So - having secured a room for the night we stashed our stuff and wandered back down the winding trail to the village at the bottom to go into Kpalime' proper and hike to the local waterfall. 

We walked, and walked and walked some more.  We older folks - Peter and I - were losing our sense of humor regarding lack of conveyance in the outback of Africa.  Plan was hatched to flag down some of the locals with motorcycles - called Jimmy Johns - for a ride into town.  This mode of travel is reknown for it's low level of safety and Peter and I were less than enthusiastic but within moments three cyclists stopped and began the negotiations.  I climbed on the back of the first one and my weekend immediately changed course.  Not for the better either....

I'd forgotten a short person needs to be extra careful of the muffler when riding on the back of a hot motorcycle.  I immediately remembered this fact when I felt the searing pain of the new burn on my right calf as soon as I hopped on board.  Not being the type to tough much of anything out for long I suggested that Peter and I take the first two Jimmy Johns back to the base of our mountain and let the rest go on into town for their hike. 

This trek up the mountain was met with much kvetching and moaning on my part as it was quite hot, about 95 degrees out and about 85+% humidity by now and my leg didn't belong to a happy person. 

By the time we got to the top we'd consumed all our water and all our good humor.  The good news was our room was ready and the health team was able to give me plenty of ointment and dressings to help me take care of my nasty burn.  We had plenty of water with us in our room, an ossilating fan, a rejuvenating breeze so we settled in for well needed afternoon naps.  I started feeling much better about things in general. 

Kitchen

That evening we had a most interesting meal with the group.  Very African in preparation and menu.  The caretaker has an African kitchen where everything is cooked in large metal pots over open fires.  We had fish, fried plantains and baked cassava.  Probably one of the best meals we've had since we've arrived in Africa!  The rest of the evening was spent enjoying the glorious cool breeze at the top of our mountain retreat.  We learned this center was founded by German missionaries 120 years ago!  When I think of the arduous walk up the steep hill I'm amazed to think that these industrious Germans not only made many, many trips up and down but hauled all the building supplies as well without the benefit of the modern capability even currently available.  Never mind the medicines to protect them from the diseases and parasites that we now have at our disposal. 

After a simple breakfast in the morning Peter set off for a long hike up the rest of the mountain while I stayed back enjoying the breeze and the shade. 



Mountaintop church

Peter's group found a small village at the top of the mountain who were in the midst of their church service.  They joined in for awhile and Peter even managed to convince them his French was not extensive enough to give the sermon they wanted from him.  Once again - his advanced age in high demand!  Meanwhile I came into a fair amount of humility as I hung out being lazy in my room and on the balcony overlooking the valley below. 

Most of the morning I could hear the faint but distince beat of African drums and singing.  As the morning progressed the singing became louder.  After hours of this I all of a sudden heard the most gorgeous, harmoneous singing in response to a cantor's lead.  I started to wander to the highest point of the retreat center and then saw an entire congregation making their way up the dirt road in their Sunday finery singing God's praises as they made their way up past our center to an ampitheater just past where we were staying.  Here these people, grandmas and grandpas, mom's with babies strapped to their backs were winding their way up the road praising God all the way where just yesterday I had groused and moaned about how awful it was to climb this hill when my leg hurt. 

I wish the good Lord did not have so many lessons to teach me. 

Three more groups made their way up the hill in glorious harmony as the morning stretched on.  These people certain can teach us a thing or two about worship. 

By about noon the rest of our group came back and we made our way back down the hill in hopes that our van driver from the day before remembered his promise and was on his way to pick us up.  Peter had tried to call him earlier but did not get thru.  Once we were down the hill he did get ahold of him but unfortunately he was still in Lome' and not even on his way to come get us.  Hmmmm....

This was the part I was concerned about as getting places is usually not the challenge here.  Gettting back is where your prayer life gets a work out. 

So - we came up with our plan B.  Peter and another guy got a couple of Jimmy Johns to take them to a cab stand and hire some conveyence to take us back to Lome - a two hour drive.  Fortunately Peter and his French were once again our hero as 15 minutes later we saw them return in a somewhat delapidated van.  The good news was we would still be able to all travel together.  The bad news was this van was in decidedly worse shape than the one we'd been in before. 

So - despite stopping twice to buy a liter of gas here and there as well as a small bag of water for the driver's friend and later two huge bags of charcoal we made it into Lome'.  We were extremely grateful as we got closer and closer since we noticed that each time the driver had to slow down for a giant pothole or speedbump he often had to restart the engine.  Hmmmmm.  Each time he needed to restart it would take more than once to turn the engine over.  Hmmmmmm.  Seems his alternator had seen better days.  No doubt since Peter - in the passenger's seat - saw that the odometer, now broken stopped working at nearly 300K kilometers!  About halfway there the driver's friend told him to stop.  We were out in the country and hoped we weren't getting kicked out.  No.  The friend saw that the lugnuts on the wheel where Peter was sitting were loose!  Three, four, five or more turns later of all the lug nuts and we were back on our way.  Livin' on the edge...

As long as we were in the countryside and the van could drive without stopping we did pretty well.  Once we got into the large, capitol city of Lome' he had to stop multiple times.  Nearly each time the engine would die.  Each time it took more effort to get it to start.  Soon the battery sounded like it was nearing its end.  Then it died.

At least we were in Lome'.  We figured we could get cabs from here but no!  The friend hopped out and started pushing.  This amazing guy not only got the van with all of us in it to move but the driver was able to jump start it!  We were amazed!  He continued to drive us to the local bus / cab station that many had been to before so we were happy that we had gotten that far and with no additional casualties!  Soon cabs were dispatched with us to the local port and we were in our rooms enjoying a hot shower with time to spare before dinner! 

My burn looks like its healing up alright and we've got an interesting story to tell for our weekend in the Bush.  I'm actually rather grateful Peter is on call all next weekend as I know his wanderlust will have to take a break for at least two weeks.  Most of the younger crew go off on "seat of their pants" weekends like this every week.  We like our adventures to feel less like hitch hiking I think.  The thing we are very happy for was not only the peace and quiet we enjoyed at the retreat center but also the sense of really seeing something of Africa.  Many of the villages we passed through looked as though time had not touched them in hundreds of years.  There were thatched roofs, goats and chickens running around and everything was very, very clean.

Peter mentioned last night as we were getting ready for bed that the weekend was not exactly restful in a stressfree sense but it was rejuvenating just by getting away from the ship and the port.  Having something like this every so often makes us more curious about this African continent as well as punctuates our time on the ship.  Although I'm not terribly anxious for more adventures Peter's heard alot about Ghana.....  We'll see.....