Clinic Life Day to Day

Ailegue Clinic

Ailegue Clinic Commitment

Clinic life here at Ailegue is a serious commitment. It is not always easy for our dear nurses and it takes their all. It is a very fulfilling position to work in- you know you are making a difference in people's lives who truly need help. Sometimes the staff grows very weary and hopes for reprieve while other times they have extra time and energy to go visiting the sick or lonely in their homes throughout the mountains.

Mali, one of the main
nurses here much
sought after for her
skill and caring spirit.
Her last weeks before
her furlough she ran
herself ragged.  She
has a real heart to
serve.

Whitney Smith the
sweet senior nurse here
 now since Rhoda just
left to go back to the
US.  She was also my
personal nurse when I
was so sick.  The IV
fluids she gave me
felt like a real life
saver and her kindness
meant soo much!

When we first arrived the nurses were not too overloaded, but after a couple weeks life really sped up. They had been working with a man who stayed in their overnight hospital room area... he was young, maybe still in his teens or early twenties. He could talk, but most of the time refused to. His mother pressed him to speak to the ones dressing his wounds but he only stared blankly much of the time. Suddenly though he would look at them directly and ask them forcefully why they are doing whatever procedure they were working on at the moment. He came with serious bedsores that they had been working towards bringing to healing. I'm not sure what his underlying sickness was that had laid him up at such a young age. Each day, morning and evening they re-bandaged his slowly healing sore spots. Hans, the young man who helps with clinic needs changed a catheter for him as needed. Overnight patients like this add a fuller dimension to the regular clinic work. Extra monitoring, IV's to be checked, fevers to be regulated, rehydration concerns for those with vomiting or diarhea....and sometimes the most stressful aspect of all- studying and restudying medical books as you question and queery if you are treating the correct disease with the best available medicine. Without a lab these young people have a big job sometimes to know if they are properly classifying the symptoms a person comes in with. If they send the person out, they may be giving him a better chance or they may be sending him to die... One nearby hospital is too well known for being a better place to die than recover. I can well remember the stress involved in trying to do my best to diagnose serious sicknesses when I worked as a nurse there at Ailegue. In spite of the Hercules efforts the mission staff puts out with less than advanced training they have received an outstanding reputation in the community far and wide. God has given them wisdom and mercy when they needed it most.

Hans, an EMT in the States,
 on a clinic run, taking a man
out to more advanced medical
care.  He and Julian are on call for
just such emergencies aside
from their other mission
responsibilities.  He is the secretary
and takes time each week to do an
English class with some local
young men. 

EllaMae on the right, Kindra on
left(more about her below).
Ella-Mae had been house help
during the busy team season over
the Winter, but now has moved
to the Pharmacy at Clinic.  She
does a great job keeping up with
meds that need to be repackaged,
counted into individual bags, etc.

When Clinic suddenly became busy there were births frequently at night keeping the nurse/midwives up often as they worked to bring a new little Haitian life into the world. Some Mamas had complications too complex for our facility so they were transported by our young people out to more advanced care. This sometimes meant midnight runs keeping part of the staff up the greater part of then night. When they returned exhausted they usually still had a days work ahead of them after a few hours catch-up. High numbers of patients at clinic made for long days diagnosing and treating various diseases, minor colds, regular high blood pressure patients, malnutrition program cases, ladies being seen regularly for pregnancy, etc. etc. The extra work was only compounded by a couple haitian nurses that were not on duty for a week and a mission nurse that had just finished her time at Ailegue and headed back to the States for further medical training. The girls labored faithfully night and day. The guys, Julian and Hans often accompanied the two girls on duty at night with medical cases or with driving those out with urgencies. One day specifically I remember the entire staff worked very late... Haitian and American staff alike labored late into the afternoon and pushing towards evening. A normal day ends around 2-3p.m. But duty demands flexibility.

Our faithful Haitian pharmacists...
Mme Leger and Mme Jean Mark.
Both of these have been working at the
clinic ever since I worked there.

Julian, normally the mechanic, fills in
when needed for crowd control or other
such urgencies at clinic.  He keeps the
mission vehicles in great condition and
also goes to town for groceries, takes out
sick people and wears a lot of hats.

Kindra, one of the newer nurses
taking blood pressures and temperatures.  She has a heart for the people... we often find her talking to the children or a neighbor or clinic patient.
My boys loved her... feeding
the pigs with her was a daily
highlight!

During our last two weeks -excitement brewed at the mission as we prepared to welcome a dentist friend of one of the nurses. He and his daughter were coming from Germany to treat a list of patients at the clinic with teeth problems. Teeth here match their poor diet. Many adults have crooked or missing teeth throughout their mouth. Others with not enough money to treat their problems have one rotten tooth after another giving them pain. Mali, who knew Dr. Ewald, prepared a schedule of one and a half weeks worth of dental work for the willing dentist. He had practiced in Bolivia for a number of years previously.

A lot of dental equipment had to be sent down ahead since we had previously done nothing much with mouth problems here at Ailegue. A dental chair was necessary along with all the tools to pull and drill and suction, etc. Most of his materials arrived ahead of him, but one important bag had not passed through customs yet. The first few days there was a lot of rain so not all the patients came and some teeth were very difficult requiring some of the instruments he didn't yet have. Dr. Ewald told us that people of African descent often have very strong jaws making it much more difficult to remove a tooth from them than from a European. He was obliged to have some 

Ewald and Mali
working over a dental
patient.

David Newswanger the newest
Ailegue team member is taking
Julian's place as mechanic but he
already had the privilege of getting
involved in some clinic duties by
being the dentist assistant a time
or two.  

patients return the following week when he hoped all his stuff would have arrived. The schedule the last full week he worked was a whirl of activity. Hans or David helped Ewald during regular clinic hours and then Mally kicked in after her normal day of seeing patients. They worked themselves ragged. From sun up to sun down they hardly left the clinic. We barely convinced them to take a couple breaks to eat. During the day we would send down sweet tea or juice with some high protein snacks to revive the weary, faithful workers. Patients were demanding at times explaining they had come from far and must be seen yet today... Dr. Ewald's heart of compassion was stretched to capacity. Hopefully when he got home he had a chance to crash and sleep and sleep to make up for his short nights and long days. I'm sure the Lord will reward him and the others working alongside.

Ewauld played for us
as well as the neighbors.

During the first few days before clinic life got too crazy with teeth work we had some relaxed, fun evenings together. German chocolate bars and a gift for everyone broke the ice as we got to know each other. Then we had a wonderful time singing while the dentist skillfully played the accordian, Hans the guitar and Whitney the keyboard. Ewald had fond memories from Bolivia that inspired him to offer to barbeque a goat. I(Kara) was thrilled with the idea so began to ask around for the going rate to buy a live goat. $40.00 seemed to be a normal price but we hoped to pay less. That

seemed so steep for the little critters that foraged on these bare mountains. As I nquired for someone who could sell me our supper on the hoof I made it clear I didn't want one too old and it must not be a rank billy goat. The first little kid that came to be inspected was hardly 2 months old and of course very tiny. I didn't bother having Dr. Ewald look at it. Next a little bit bigger scrawny female was brought on a leash, but our chef had to laugh as he tried to find any meat on the animal that he could barbeque. We turned her away and hoped for another. Another came, but one after the next was sent back to it's tethered spot on the mountain to nibble choice Haitian herbs and grasses. Soon we began to despair of any local goat sporting enough meat to feed our hungry, protein starved crew. We found a large bag of locally made charcoal easily enough and the brick grill was neatly prepared, but we eventually settled on hamburgers and grilled chicken. That was a huge treat in itself since meat is special and two meats in one meal not sparsely hidden in a casserole was almost unheard of. But after the week and a half marathon of extra hard work everyone had definitely earned a meal to be remembered. Eugene carefully grilled the precious meat and we ladies prepared the rest. Our meal was enjoyed under the night sky as we sat on the patio together. A few normal interruptions called various ones of our group to this or that caller in between bites. It can be exasperating when you want so much to just sit all together as a group and enjoy a quiet evening to hear that clinking rock hitting against the gate(the Haitian knock) as someone demands attention for a clinic need or a question from a neighbor, or someone begging food... you have to bring every thought captive and just deny your flesh as you remind yourself that we are not our own.

Our family took a little trip up to
Don Weaver with Ewald and Debbie.
You can see the typical foggy
atmosphere that often passes through
the higher elevations where they have
their home for orphaned children.

Eugene and the friendly Christian dentist from Germany had a special connection as they shared  German/Hutterisch words back and forth from time to time. Our visitor and his daughter both knew English enough to communicate well, but there were times they didn't understand something one of us said. In times like these it came in handy if Eugene could say the word learned at his mothers' knee and see if it prompted a similar familiar spot in their memory. Often it did and the light would come on as they enunciated the German word as they would pronounce it. One funny incident brought a lot of fun as they saw a small bottle of perfume mist on the table. It clearly was labeled “Mist”. Such a pretty bottle with such a confusing title brought questions from Dr. Ewald. When it was explained that is was a perfume this made for a clatter of astonished laughter... “Mist”, you must understand, in German(and Hutterisch) is nothing less than manure! To imagine someone unashamedly labeling a perfume bottle with that title seemed frightfully strange. :-) Oh the mystery and fun of foreign language!

Janelle and my little ones.
She is the main house help and does
an excellent job keeping cleaning,
laundry and meals moving.  She had
many responsibilities and still took
time to be a friend to my boys.  They
loved helping her feed the goat and
rabbit.  Here she is bottle feeding an
orphan puppy.

Debbie and my Tabitha

Debbie, the dentist's 13 year old daughter was a big help with housework for both Janelle and I. When Lydia left after her three weeks with us there at Ailegue I prayed and searched my mind for how it would work with less help and the normal mission compound work load, plus the busyness of my little brood. We three ladies had kept a full schedule and it didn't seem likely that any part of our regular duties would overnight disappear. As I prayed about the options it seemed the Lord was trying to soothe me that it would work out. As we welcomed our friends from Germany the night they came I wondered how it would all work out with extra visitors now too. I somehow hadn't fully realized that a young lady was going to be along. Soon though I found that Debbie was well trained in the art of being a blessing and helping out with the household work load! She did such a good job assisting Janelle in the morning with her responsibilities of squeezing juice and making Haitian food for the local workers, then she often volunteered to take my little Tabitha in the afternoon when I needed to make supper for the mission crew. God knew He had it all neatly worked out and I learned another lesson in trusting. 

My dear Lydia hard at work serving...
This time she was butchering a local
chicken for a hutterite meal she blessed
us with.  Even though she had to leave
and go back home God supplied our need
for extra house help.

We said goodbye to the father and daughter pair that had become dear to us all. They departed from the mountains a few days before our family left Ailegue. We had a few quieter days to wrap up our final goodbyes to the neighbors and pack our bags and totes.   Clinic slowed down and gave the nurses a reprieve too and many happy mouths smiled for the needed dental work done.

Our going away grill out with Dr.Ewald from Germany