Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Today is Wednesday, March 24, 2010 7:30 a.m.

For the first time here I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night. Wow, something must be wrong. I have not been sick yet, and I hope I don’t get there. Bracken says when he starts to feel like he might be getting sick he takes a Sipro and then 12 hours later he takes another one. I think that’s a good idea for me too. Last night Alan was really stressed out. The machinery and items that need to be here are just not getting ordered correctly and he is doing without a lot of things. They have been waiting for an air compressor for weeks now. They finally sent one, but Alan says it is a piece of junk and is already falling apart. It is not the kind he wanted. Also they don’t dare store any fuel in the large underground tanks, because they don’t have any fuel pumps to go on top of them to pump the fuel out. Once they get the fuel in, there is no way of getting it out. If Alan could go to Addis for a few days he might find what he is looking for. Everything gets lost in translation.

It’s evening now and the day has gone pretty well. The baby and her mom came and we opened up her bandage, and it really looked so much better to me. Her palm and her little finger are still very open and bleeding, however, I smelled her hand and arm and couldn’t smell anything bad, I checked her for a fever, and there was very little yellow puss and sloughing skin. Again we watered her, brushed off all the bad skin, Neosporin, antistick bandages applied, gauze and tape. I know that the prayers and fasting in her behalf are helping her to heal. I know it and have felt the power of prayer in her behalf. She is the cutest little thing, I love seeing her come everyday, even though she starts to cry when she sees me. The mother walks about one – 2 miles to get here everyday. They took a picture of the little girl,her mom and me. The other little girl will come tomorrow for us to look at her cut on her back. I hope it is healing. I’ve had a few others come up to the porch and want me to medicate them. I can’t do much.
Today for dinner I had the girls prepare an exotic bird. We took pictures of the maids holding the bird, they were so excited to have me take their picture with it. Then they went out and killed it, and skinned it and brought it to me to fix. These are the toughest old birds and I decided to cook it with barbecue sauce. It didn’t help the toughness but the guys sure sucked the sauce off those tough birdy parts. I’m trying to find some humor in this craziness. And I also made tomatoey rice, which I didn’t like so much, but they all ate it. I saw a group of camels today and went and took some more pictures. It was fun. It was a good day here in Ethiopia, hope yours was good too.

3 comments:

liz and dennis said...

shelley,
this is the first time i have checked your blog since you got there. this is incredible. i want to send you dressings for the little baby's burns. you are amazing to be doing all of this. everything you write seems so foreign and yet i know it's real. we are praying for you and the little children you are caring for. love liz

liz and dennis said...

shelley,
i just wanted to let you know i phoned the manti temple this morning and told them about your little ethiopian girl that needed to be on the prayer roll. when i explained that i didn't know her name the lady said "i think the lord knows". which made me tear up a bit. anyway, she said she would take care of it. love, liz

Unknown said...

A couple of thoughts,

First they used Crazy/Super Glue to help stitching.

Second, Alan is STILL the 1st counselor in the bishopric.

And Third, could you get me your new Unit number (or perhaps your GPS coordinates) so I can transfer your records :-)


Bryan