Hello again from Lesotho!
I last posted from Methalaneng on Wednesday evening. The technical work went great there -- the satellite system is running well and the new networking equipment will benefit the doctors and EMR team working in that clinic.
Before leaving Methalaneng on Thursday morning I visited the local school, just up the hill from the clinic and very close to the airstrip. I had brought a soccer ball and pencils donated by my daughter Hannah's class and her teacher (Kathy Christensen, East Elementary School -- Spearfish, SD) and planned to give them to the school.
Hannah’s class wanted to support the kids in Lesotho by sending donated clothing and Kathy included 3 brand new soccer balls – a real treat over here. The donations pretty much filled 2 of my 3 trunks. I asked American missionary Laura Holmes if she would help distribute the clothing. Laura ministers to the Basotho people in and around Maseru, and was very happy to have the clothing. She guaranteed she would find worthy recipients. I brought a few donated items with me into the mountains this week, including the 3 soccer balls. Thank you very much to Mrs. Christensen’s class for being so generous!
At the Methalaneng school I was introduced to the Principal (man in the blue blanket, I can’t remember his name) and he was very happy to accept the soccer ball and pencils on behalf of the school. I had a black Sharpie marker with me and he wrote “A gift from America” on the ball. And then he asked me if he could keep the Sharpie. I gave it to him, but only because I had a spare.
The Principal asked me to “thank the children in America for these gifts for our school”. He then instructed me that when I return to America I should ask the American people for the next donation to be “a fence for the school grounds, a garden, and solar power.” I told him I would pass on the request. So you big givers out there let me know what you can come up with. It never hurts to ask, right…?
The Principal was clearly excited about the new school and looking forward to starting classes in these brand new buildings. He toured me through the old buildings, many of which were in pretty bad shape. One of them was crumbling and was now used to store food provided by the World Food Program and used for school lunches. The WFP bags were labeled as being gifts from Italy and the United States.
He was especially proud of the new bathrooms. They just call them “toilets” here. There is no running water – these are outhouses. But I have to say they really were an improvement from the old toilets. Talking with the Principal a little more I learned why he was so proud of these structures. They were funded by the World Bank and he personally wrote the grant request to have them constructed. The grant was approved and they are a welcome addition to his growing school.
And the grant process only took 10 years.
We said goodbye to Methalaneng and flew by MAF plane to another PIH clinic in Bobete. Bobete is again a special place for me because my son Thomas helped me build the VSAT dish at this site last year. Thomas stayed the night with me in Bobete and enjoyed a decent mutton supper. Having him with me in the mountains is a memory I will always have.
Thomas will be pleased to know the dish in Bobete is still running very well, we did not have to recalibrate this dish at all. We did run some new cables across the clinic grounds, added a new router and more wireless coverage, and cleaned up the overall network at this site. The EMR workers were very happy with the improvements and we were happy to be done in a matter of hours at this site.
Bobete has a very nice clinic grounds. This site is accessible by road (several hours drive from Maseru but still accessible) so PIH hired a landscaper to evaluate the site and she brought in many nice decorations. I personally like the meerkat statues. (They don’t actually have meerkats in Lesotho so those ones are funny to me.)
The Bobete clinic has a warm, inviting feeling and sees between 200 and 300 patients a day! Friday morning I spent some time walking around the clinic grounds and handed out donated clothing. I also gave one child my second soccer ball. His mom was pretty young and she and the other young mothers began playing a game of “keep-away” with the ball. They were having so much fun and it was enjoyable to watch. It was easy to forget they had come for health care, likely regular check-ups for ongoing AIDS treatment.
We were in Bobete for about 24 hours and then again flew by MAF plane to the village of Ketane. The airstrip here is called Nohana, as is the PIH clinic but the people call this place Ketane.
Nohana was the first clinic established by PIH in Lesotho in 2006. Along with Bobete this clinic now serves between 200 and 300 people a day. The clinic has had about 2000 patients test positive for HIV since testing began by PIH and most of them are on managed ART (antiretroviral therapy) treatment programs. They have seen about 6000 unique patients since the clinic opened. Nohana even has an x-ray machine and equipment for doing blood labs instead of sending samples to Maseru for testing.
The Nohana clinic is the only health care facility for people living in an area of more than 200 square miles. Considering the aggressive terrain and that most people have to walk or ride horses to access the clinic this is a huge area. Talking with Jeremy Keeton about where the patients come from he commented “we have had patients from Maseru!” Seriously, they have had people come from Maseru. Why? All of the medical service provided is free – even the ART treatments.
The MAF plane left us here on Friday and will be flown back to Maseru on Monday morning. Jeremy scheduled the project this way because we had the most work to do at Nohana and it is a nice place to stay for the weekend. This site has a dedicated solar power system with backup generator, hot water (using solar heaters), and the village is larger with many small shops and places to buy basic groceries. It is becoming sort of a boom town and I think the PIH clinic is a big part of the growth.
I gave out the final soccer ball and it was a huge hit with the local kids. They played with it until I made them leave for the night on Friday, and then woke us up on Saturday morning by yelling into our windows for the ball. Today was the same story. Nohana also has a great clinic grounds with a playground, nice grass, and landscaping like Bobete.
Nohana was the first site to receive a VSAT dish last year. It seems fitting for this to be my last stop on this trip.
We completed our tasks about noon today and had time to explore the surrounding area on a nice hike. It was such a beautiful day in Lesotho and honestly my pictures cannot do this place justice. It is absolutely breathtaking. I could not have asked for a better last day in the mountains. I felt closer to God today than I have in a long time and it was a good feeling.
Please enjoy these photographs. I will try to post one last time tomorrow night before I return to the U.S. on Tuesday. As always thanks for reading.
Blessings from Nohana,
Traig
I last posted from Methalaneng on Wednesday evening. The technical work went great there -- the satellite system is running well and the new networking equipment will benefit the doctors and EMR team working in that clinic.
Before leaving Methalaneng on Thursday morning I visited the local school, just up the hill from the clinic and very close to the airstrip. I had brought a soccer ball and pencils donated by my daughter Hannah's class and her teacher (Kathy Christensen, East Elementary School -- Spearfish, SD) and planned to give them to the school.Hannah’s class wanted to support the kids in Lesotho by sending donated clothing and Kathy included 3 brand new soccer balls – a real treat over here. The donations pretty much filled 2 of my 3 trunks. I asked American missionary Laura Holmes if she would help distribute the clothing. Laura ministers to the Basotho people in and around Maseru, and was very happy to have the clothing. She guaranteed she would find worthy recipients. I brought a few donated items with me into the mountains this week, including the 3 soccer balls. Thank you very much to Mrs. Christensen’s class for being so generous!
At the Methalaneng school I was introduced to the Principal (man in the blue blanket, I can’t remember his name) and he was very happy to accept the soccer ball and pencils on behalf of the school. I had a black Sharpie marker with me and he wrote “A gift from America” on the ball. And then he asked me if he could keep the Sharpie. I gave it to him, but only because I had a spare.
The Principal asked me to “thank the children in America for these gifts for our school”. He then instructed me that when I return to America I should ask the American people for the next donation to be “a fence for the school grounds, a garden, and solar power.” I told him I would pass on the request. So you big givers out there let me know what you can come up with. It never hurts to ask, right…?
The Principal was clearly excited about the new school and looking forward to starting classes in these brand new buildings. He toured me through the old buildings, many of which were in pretty bad shape. One of them was crumbling and was now used to store food provided by the World Food Program and used for school lunches. The WFP bags were labeled as being gifts from Italy and the United States.
He was especially proud of the new bathrooms. They just call them “toilets” here. There is no running water – these are outhouses. But I have to say they really were an improvement from the old toilets. Talking with the Principal a little more I learned why he was so proud of these structures. They were funded by the World Bank and he personally wrote the grant request to have them constructed. The grant was approved and they are a welcome addition to his growing school.And the grant process only took 10 years.
We said goodbye to Methalaneng and flew by MAF plane to another PIH clinic in Bobete. Bobete is again a special place for me because my son Thomas helped me build the VSAT dish at this site last year. Thomas stayed the night with me in Bobete and enjoyed a decent mutton supper. Having him with me in the mountains is a memory I will always have.
Thomas will be pleased to know the dish in Bobete is still running very well, we did not have to recalibrate this dish at all. We did run some new cables across the clinic grounds, added a new router and more wireless coverage, and cleaned up the overall network at this site. The EMR workers were very happy with the improvements and we were happy to be done in a matter of hours at this site.
Bobete has a very nice clinic grounds. This site is accessible by road (several hours drive from Maseru but still accessible) so PIH hired a landscaper to evaluate the site and she brought in many nice decorations. I personally like the meerkat statues. (They don’t actually have meerkats in Lesotho so those ones are funny to me.)
The Bobete clinic has a warm, inviting feeling and sees between 200 and 300 patients a day! Friday morning I spent some time walking around the clinic grounds and handed out donated clothing. I also gave one child my second soccer ball. His mom was pretty young and she and the other young mothers began playing a game of “keep-away” with the ball. They were having so much fun and it was enjoyable to watch. It was easy to forget they had come for health care, likely regular check-ups for ongoing AIDS treatment.
We were in Bobete for about 24 hours and then again flew by MAF plane to the village of Ketane. The airstrip here is called Nohana, as is the PIH clinic but the people call this place Ketane.Nohana was the first clinic established by PIH in Lesotho in 2006. Along with Bobete this clinic now serves between 200 and 300 people a day. The clinic has had about 2000 patients test positive for HIV since testing began by PIH and most of them are on managed ART (antiretroviral therapy) treatment programs. They have seen about 6000 unique patients since the clinic opened. Nohana even has an x-ray machine and equipment for doing blood labs instead of sending samples to Maseru for testing.
The Nohana clinic is the only health care facility for people living in an area of more than 200 square miles. Considering the aggressive terrain and that most people have to walk or ride horses to access the clinic this is a huge area. Talking with Jeremy Keeton about where the patients come from he commented “we have had patients from Maseru!” Seriously, they have had people come from Maseru. Why? All of the medical service provided is free – even the ART treatments.
The MAF plane left us here on Friday and will be flown back to Maseru on Monday morning. Jeremy scheduled the project this way because we had the most work to do at Nohana and it is a nice place to stay for the weekend. This site has a dedicated solar power system with backup generator, hot water (using solar heaters), and the village is larger with many small shops and places to buy basic groceries. It is becoming sort of a boom town and I think the PIH clinic is a big part of the growth.
I gave out the final soccer ball and it was a huge hit with the local kids. They played with it until I made them leave for the night on Friday, and then woke us up on Saturday morning by yelling into our windows for the ball. Today was the same story. Nohana also has a great clinic grounds with a playground, nice grass, and landscaping like Bobete.Nohana was the first site to receive a VSAT dish last year. It seems fitting for this to be my last stop on this trip.
We completed our tasks about noon today and had time to explore the surrounding area on a nice hike. It was such a beautiful day in Lesotho and honestly my pictures cannot do this place justice. It is absolutely breathtaking. I could not have asked for a better last day in the mountains. I felt closer to God today than I have in a long time and it was a good feeling.
Please enjoy these photographs. I will try to post one last time tomorrow night before I return to the U.S. on Tuesday. As always thanks for reading.Blessings from Nohana,
Traig
No comments:
Post a Comment