While the team was here in May, Berry, a trained paramedic, informed us that Marie Elande’s extreme outie was a hernia that needed surgery to prevent future pain. Today, I arranged to meet Marie’s mother at the Baptist Mission hospital to hopefully get the okay from a doctor to have the operation here relatively soon. Do I have fond memories of this particular hospital? Definitely not. But I tried to maintain some level of optimism. I told the moto driver to be at the center by 9 so of course he rolled up at 9:30. Off to a great start…still trying to think positive. We started down the road, rollin’ on down the mountain, until we came to an incline and the driver needed to turn the engine on again. Nothing. Sputtered for a bit then silence. Me and the other guy with us hopped off (yes to add to the moto fun a random guy accompanied us part of the way) and started walking while the driver pushed the moto, with Marie still on it, up the incline. At the next hill we all jumped on and glided down quite nicely until we came to the next incline. Three times we played this off and on game. Finally we reached someone selling gas by the vegetable oil jug. After filling up, we continued on our way. Dropped off the random guy and started down the paved road. As we descended a few different motos pulled up alongside us and said something about our tire. The only word I could make out was tire so they could have been saying anything…‘Your tire is flat!’….‘Your tire looks like it is going to fall off!’…‘Your tire has a timebomb strapped to it that’s going to go off in 30 seconds!’ Whatever they were saying I could tell it wasn’t good and yet he kept driving. At this point prayers began. Eventually he gave up and pulled over. Flat tire. He found a pump which of course didn’t work. So he hailed another moto driver to take us the rest of the way. Switcheroo and we were off again.
Thankfully, we arrived to the Mission safely. Marie’s mother and Junior hadn’t arrived yet so she and I sat in the restaurant for a bit. She was fascinated by the number of white people in there. She pointed out every single one to me and asked if her friend Kiley was here too (Kiley is a girl her age in the states that sponsors Marie). She was disappointed when I told her Kiley was still in America. After a snack and two bathroom breaks complete with fascinated gazing as the toilet flushed, Marie’s mother arrived and so did Junior. I stayed in the restaurant to prevent any temptation to see how much money they could get the white girl to spend as the three of them entered the hospital.
After about 3 hours of waiting, they emerged from the hospital with papers in hand. Definitely a good sign. The doctors wrote her a referral to go to another hospital downtown to have a better look at the hernia with their X-ray equipment and such. These were exactly the papers we were hoping for. Junior and I scheduled with Marie’s mother to meet at this hospital on Tuesday. Now I pray that the tests will reveal what the doctors need to know and will ultimately lead to her treatment. I thank all of you for the prayers thus far and ask that you continue to ask for God’s hand to work to heal Marie Elande.
Oh and if you thought our ride to the mission was eventful, on the way back to the center we came upon an accident where a 4 wheeler had struck a couple of people. Nothing major but there were definitely some angry people. The driver of the 4 wheeler was clearly a bourgeois so the victims were demanding money and the bourgeois and his friends in other off road vehicles were trying to calm them down. Someone asked me if I had a hundred dollars to which I promptly said no and in my head said ‘You are not dragging this white girl into all this.’ Always an adventure.
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