Monday morning came bright and early. I experienced my first power outage at 6:30pm
the night before. Kevin had warned me
before coming to Zambia that they were losing power every other night. Just as we were finishing dinner everything
grew dark and still - for just a few seconds.
Candles and flashlights were readily available throughout the house, so
no one missed a beat. Even Analiese (age
3) and Gabriella (1 year old) were accustomed to the routine. Savannah and I spent the next hour and a half
talking about random “nonsense” and tried to keep each other awake. I was determined to not fall asleep before 8
o’ clock! We laughed and talked about
all things southern, like fried apple pies (which Savannah had never tasted,
bless her heart). Gabriella helped me
count diaper pins, and she and I folded cloth diapers together in the
dark. These items were going to be part
of the newborn layette kits that I’d be delivering to the maternity clinic that
week, and I was grateful for her help.
Once the power returned, I retired to my room, ready for a full day of
activity at the clinic.
 |
| Local barber shop |
 |
| General Clinic Building |
The Chinunda Rural Health Center is located about 1 ½ miles
down the dirt road from Big Tree Baptist Church. Village huts, family grain silos, and mom ‘n
pop businesses line the road to the clinic.
We even drove past a village barber shop. I exited the vehicle and was greeted by some
of the members of Big Tree Baptist Church that I had met the day before. They were putting shoe leather to Dan
Jalowiec’s sermon challenge about being committed to Christ and had come to
offer their help in transforming the clinic.
Before we started working, Kevin introduced me to the head nurse/midwife
of the facility. Everyone called her
Amayi Phiri (pronounced peer-y). She had
such a warm smile, and she even laughed just a little when Kevin told her my
last name was Perry. I would soon learn
that her first name is Mable, and she has an incredible life story. I’ll share the details of that in my next
post. There were so many patients
waiting in line to be seen, and I didn’t want to take Mable away from her work,
but she graciously agreed to show us around the compound. The health center is divided into three main
buildings: the general clinic, the
maternity delivery ward, and the recovery ward.
We walked down to the delivery ward and into a semi-dark room. Mable was so excited because just weeks
earlier a team of people from the Chick-fil-a, Winshape organization had helped
to totally renovate the clinic. They had
painted walls  |
| solar lighting in the rooms |
As we were talking with Mable, we walked by a 16 year old
that had just delivered a baby girl at 1am that morning. She was sitting on the
recovery table, eating a piece of bread.
She had such a faraway look in her eye that seemed to whisper, “What in
the world just happened to me?” I smiled
as sweetly as I could, touched her arm and said, “God bless you.” She didn’t seem to understand, but she did
make eye contact and gave me a weak smile in return. I felt like I was intruding on the young girl’s
private moments of reflection, but I asked to see the baby. The mother’s relative was also in the room
and seemed to indicate that it would be alright. Mable unwrapped
the little bundle that was on the bed next to the new mother. I had no idea there was a baby tucked inside
all those blankets. She was so beautiful,
just hours old, and I dared not touch her (I get baby fever so easily)! We completed the tour, and it was time to get
to work. I thanked Mable for her faithfulness
and hard work. Then I asked Kevin to take a picture of the two of us. I knew I would never forget this woman.
I was dressed for a full day of painting – well not
really. I was wearing an ankle length
broomstick skirt, sneakers, and a short sleeved t-shirt that Harden had given
me with the words 'super mom, Super Wife, SUPER TIRED!' written across the
front. It is customary for women in the
Bush to only wear long skirts out in public, and I didn’t want to offend anyone
by my appearance. However, painting in a
skirt was going to be a new experience for me.
I had told Kevin the night before that I was a professional
painter. What I meant was that I had a
lot of painting experience, and my work rivaled that of any painting pro. However, somewhere in the translation the message
was conveyed that I painted houses and buildings for a living! I could only laugh.
Kevin assigned me the task of showing the villagers how to paint. Some of the men had a little experience. None of the women had ever held a paintbrush before, nor were they accustomed to climbing up and down a ladder. Once we got the rooms cleared of the dilapidated medical furnishings and the painting equipment organized, I set about getting my new painting crew involved in the work. Kevin told me how important it was to demonstrate the technique and then allow them to do the painting. We were applying oil based primer to roughly plastered walls, and it seemed like the walls were a sponge. We used over 5 gallons of paint in two small clinic rooms! Despite our best efforts to keep the paint on the walls and off the floor, it was being flung everywhere!
One of the ladies carried a
paintbrush in one hand and a baby on her back at the same time. After a couple of hours, that sweet little
guy’s brown skin was flecked and smeared with the primer. I felt so sorry for him when I thought about
the scrubbing his little body was going to get to remove the paint, and oil based paint can only be removed with mineral spirits. The clinic floors were also rough and uneven,
and the ceilings were about 10-12 feet high.
At one point one of the young ladies was standing on the ladder when it
began to give way due to the uneven grade of the floor. She didn’t know how to balance her weight on
the step. I could see the fear in her
eyes as she almost took a tumble, and from that point forward none of the women
climbed the ladder, except me. I, too,
kept tripping over my skirt every time I climbed up, so I finally yielded to my
common sense, tied up the base of my skirt into several evenly spaced knots
just above my ankles, and I kept on truckin’!
The most pleasant part of my day was being part of the
sing-a-long as all the painting, plastering, drilling, and installing of solar
light fixtures was taking place. True contentment is standing on the top rung
of a 6 foot ladder, knocking down spider webs with my right hand, balancing a
small bucket of paint on top of the ladder, and ‘cutting in’ paint lines near
the ceiling with my left hand all while singing about the joys of heaven and
the journey to get there! These are the words from the chorus of the hymn I
sung most often. I’m humming it to
myself, even now, as I type:
Zoona Nizapitadi, Ine nizapitadi
Zoona Nizapitadi
Kumwamba, nizapitadi
Komwe Kuli, angelo kumwambako
Zoona nizapidatdi, Kumwamba nizapitadi
Truly I will go
Yes, I will go, I will go
In heaven, I will go.
I will be where there are angels
©2013 Phylicia Perry. All rights reserved
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