Too Many Caskets...

Our recent posts on trips to the game park, the zoo, and the Indian Ocean have shown the more enjoyable aspects of being here in southern Africa. But unfortunately daily life in Lesotho can be a bit more depressing.

The past few days was a little tough on the MAF team. On Friday afternoon (March 28) the MAF hangar received 8 "Code-1" calls. These are emergency medical calls that come in by radio or cell phone (when available) from the mountain clinics and typically require a patient be flown from the mountains to Maseru so they can be admitted into the hospital. The situations can vary from sickness to pregnancy complications to severe injuries. Code-1 calls take priority over all other flights on the schedule.

Friday was a mix of medical emergencies including a 2 year old boy who was severely malnourished and sick. He was accompanied on the flight by a Baylor doctor (Baylor Medical School is working in the Lesotho mountains). Despite the doctor's efforts this little one passed away during the flight.

He was the first of four patients who have died since Friday's flights. Half of the patients from just that day's worth of Code-1 calls have not survived. Two of them were very young children.

When a patient is flown to Maseru for medical treatment and they pass away, MAF flies the casket back to the village for the funeral and burial. Seeing a casket in the hangar is usually not too alarming, but seeing the little ones for babies and children is tough to ignore. There just shouldn't be caskets that small...

I just got off the phone with Danny Hulls, one of our pilots who flew another Code-1 patient this afternoon (Wednesday, April 2). This call came in late today - after 4:00 PM - from the clinic in Manamaneng. A 19-year old male with stab wounds. Danny was alone on the return flight (no nurses chose to accompany the patient) when the young man died a few minutes after take off. Danny described to me how he put on gloves and tried to hold up this guy's head while he was throwing up and choking. How he saw him stop breathing and die alone in the back of the plane. How he attempted to do chest compressions with one hand (...while flying...) but with over 30 minutes to go in the flight there was little hope.

It was the second time in just a few days that a patient has died in Danny's plane - he was flying Friday afternoon when the little boy passed away. Danny has 2 little ones of his own. I cannot imagine how hard these flights are on him and our other pilots. It is tough enough for me to hear about the losses but these guys are right there behind the controls, praying for just a little more time so they can get the plane back on the ground and the patient into the ambulance.

We know there are many people back home praying for our family and the technical work I have come here to do. Please add to your prayers our pilots and their families as they deal with a growing number of emergency flights and the death they are seeing almost daily.

8 caskets this week and counting...

God Bless you and your families back home, please don't take your time together for granted.

Traig and Laura Friedrich

Sunshine, Sand, and Squid

We had a great Easter weekend in East London, South Africa at the Indian Ocean! The kids journaled about the trip and I wanted to include their writings in this blog!


Our Vacation to the Indian Ocean by Hannah Friedrich
For Easter we went to the Indian Ocean! We went shell hunting and we found beautiful shells. The sand was warm and soft on our toes. The ocean was salty and cold. The waves were big and strong. Thomas and I were belly surfing on the waves together. At our campsite there was a play ground we played at.

Thomas
Yesterday we went to the Indian Ocean. Me and Hannah went belly surfing and we went shell hunting and I almost died! There was a very big wave! It took me out! So I went back to the beach.

editors note: He did not almost die-I was about 2 feet away from him when the big wave hit! :)

Thomas also enjoyed lots of seafood including squid. None of us realized that squid is served (at least here) with the tentacles, body and head. The heads were served in little cups. He ate every bite and it has become his new favorite seafood.

Noah-spoken word:) What I like the best about the ocean was getting soaked and my next favorite part was making a sandcastle and my last favorite part was running up the big hills (sand dunes). What I didn't like about the ocean was, well, one time I was in the ocean and a big wave almost came and got me and I didn't like it, it wasn't very fun. Let me think here, um, about camping my first favorite one is animal safari, my second favorite part was seeing the giraffe, why do we call zebras zebras? My last favorite part of camping was going to the Indian Ocean. Thats all.
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The kids had a great time and so did Traig and I. Oceans always amaze me! We camped at a great campground that was inside a small game reserve. Ostriches roamed freely among the tents and we also had to navigate around giraffe to leave the park! The kids took a wagon ride to see the rest of the animals, zebras, wildebeests and bontebok and more giraffe and ostriches. We spent everyday at the ocean and enjoyed the sun. It was a very nice departure from life in Maseru which some days overpowers us. The extreme and desperate poverty surrounds us and is closing in on us more each day it seems. Until we left for the weekend, I had forgotten what it was like to not have someone begging for food and money as soon as we were in public.

Traig is STILL waiting for the poles that are the first step in the satellite dish installation. Each week we are promised this is the week they will come in and the weeks keep passing. That is our prayer request this week-please pray for 4 galvanized poles to arrive in Lesotho from South Africa. The solar installs are complete and the clinics are now waiting for the dishes. We had another waterless day today. I was keeping track of the days but they are piling up as quickly as the laundry! I hope this finds you all well and enjoying all the luxuries that we are so desperately missing right now-like the water :)

Grace and Peace, Laura

P.S. We are so excited to become aunt, uncle and cousins to the new baby Akland coming in September--Congratulations Amy and Jim!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I write this surrounded by shamrocks and leprechauns that the kids made this morning. We had quite the time explaining what we were doing to our housekeeper, Me Augustina. She thought it all was very nice. Everything is either “nice” or “smart”. She had a very good weekend despite the fact Saturday she went to three funerals for people from her neighborhood. (I will use neighborhood as it sounds better than "shanty town".) All three AIDS deaths she said, one was for a mother who has a daughter and an infant granddaughter who are still living but both positive as well. The funeral director here dictates when funerals will be held, almost always on Saturdays, and sometimes because of the volume of funerals, it will be up to a month after the death before the body will be buried. Have we mentioned the nicest home in town belongs to the funeral director? After just 6 weeks here I can not believe how much the AIDS epidemic has impacted me-it is literally everywhere. Some friends of ours, Ben and Sara, have a nanny and the nanny’s husband just died of AIDS. They are purchasing the casket and the cow for the funeral. It is very rude to not serve your funeral guests a meat hence, the cow.

It is estimated that there are over 150,000 orphans in Lesotho, 100,000 of those because their parents died of AIDS. To think the entire country is barely 2.2 million people. Over the weekend, I went to a school where the Jewels of Hope program operates on Saturday mornings. The room had about 40 junior high/high school age kids, boys and girls, all orphans, at tables making jewelry. The objective of Jewels of Hope is:

“To reach out to orphans with the love of Jesus and give them hope; by discipling each one through the Word of God and empowering them with life skills towards a safe and secure future. By partnering with families, churches and organizations to provide a means of income generation for child-headed households and vulnerable children, that is both safe and legitimate, whilst the children are able to continue with their education. The income generation activities, together with mentoring and Christian discipleship, take place within a project setting that is provided and maintained by the partner organization, using support systems and methods developed by Jewels of Hope. This project setting is known within Jewels of Hope as a ‘network’.”

Each Saturday, the teens make jewelry and then it is sold, (they are in desperate need of more ways to distribute the jewelry). The money earned buys new beads to make more jewelry as well as pays them a monthly salary. There was a table of teen moms with babies on their backs, who were busy trying to earn their 150 rand—a little over 20 dollars-for the month. It is a minimal amount, but about 40% of the people in Lesotho make less than 1.00 a day, so for teenagers, they are doing ok. Plus it is a place where they receive other help. When we were there, we distributed over 40 pairs of shoes and baby blankets to the mommies there. Many of the kids are also caring for younger siblings and several of those siblings where there as well. These are children raising children and this program keeps them in school and gives them a means of support, both financial and emotional.

Please pray for all involved in keeping Jewels of Hoping operating, and all those caring for orphan’s world wide. There is a desperate need for help for these children and it all begins with prayer.

Grace and Peace, Laura

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

James 2:15-1

Wildebeests, Eland and Ostriches... Oh My!

We had our first African wildlife experience over the weekend! We traveled a short 30 minutes across the border into South Africa to a small game reserve where we took a “self-guided” tour, that required 4 wheel drive on more than one occasion. The scenery was beautiful-the mountains amazing as usual. Thomas was in his glory telling us all about what we were seeing. There were only hoofed animals and ostriches at this particular park so we are still waiting for our chance to see lions and elephants and hippos in the wild.

Tomorrow is a Lesotho holiday—the King’s Grandfather’s birthday, so the whole country shuts down for the entire day so everyone can attend a celebration held at the football (soccer) stadium. Being that we aren't that close to the King or his Grandfather, we are going to head to Bloemfontein (in South Africa) to the zoo and to the Pick-n-Pay, a more reliable place to grocery shop.

Today Thomas came with me to the orphanage. He was so busy trying to hold every baby he could get his hands on! The kids are so great there-Hannah went last week-and it is fantastic to see them in that setting. The toddlers love to see them come in the room-today Thomas was about mauled at the door! He laughed so hard and got right down on the floor with them all and played and read books. Kids know how to play so much better than adults do!

Tonight we received our care packages from our Mt. View Baptist Church family—wow were we humbled. We had no idea that we would receive such an outpouring of goodies from home! Words cannot even describe how much we appreciate what was given. The mixer is a life saver as I am doing so much baking from scratch and until now was mixing everything by hand. I was so excited to use it that I immediately mixed up some pudding! It is so nice to have a little taste of home here where sometimes we feel a million miles away from everything we have known. God bless you all and know that you are in ours prayers as well.

Grace and Peace to all, Laura

My New Office

Hello friends and family! Sorry we are falling behind on our blog posts - we have been without Internet at home for 10 days and borrowing wireless Internet from the Vennell's (Tim and Tonya our MAF neighbors) is a challenge. Plus with me taking the VSAT training course this past week and helping coordinate the housing and meals for other international students in the course things have been pretty hectic here. Fun, but hectic.

Before losing our Internet I was planning to post some photos of my trip to the mountain village of Nohana on February 20. Nohana is the site of the first Partners In Health clinic in Lesotho and will be the first to receive a satellite dish for Internet access. The Internet will be used by the medical workers. For this visit I conducted a site survey to get the GPS coordinates of the installation site, select the ideal location for the dish itself, and make sure there were no obstructions that would affect a satellite dish installation. I also visited with the solar installation team who is going ahead of me to each site and installing the solar panels and batteries that will power the dish and related network gear.

As you can see from the photos below, Nohana is a beautiful place. The airstrip sits a couple hundred feet below the village so I had about a 15 minute hike to the clinic. I was able to spend 4 hours at the site and ate lunch with the solar team (and film crew shooting a documentary on solar power in the developing world -- could this be my big break?!?) before my trek back to the airstrip for my flight home to Maseru. It was a fantastic day in the mountains of Lesotho...















Currently we are waiting for mounting poles to be fabricated in South Africa and shipped to Maseru. Then we can start flying the rest of the satellite gear to Nohana and I will begin the installation. I am looking forward to this being my new office for a few days!

Traig