Bush Life

The Bush

The flight to Vanga was like everything I used to imagine when I read missionary stories from Africa. Four seats including the pilot, diesel engine, flying over huts and rivers, landing on a grass runway, waving to cute African children on the edges, and seeing women walking on the road with baskets on their heads. Off to the side, there was a desk under a large tree where some government people were sitting. (Apparently, they have a tax for getting on the plane and a tax for getting off the plane. Maybe to pay them a salary to sit under a tree. We considered asking whether we needed to also pay a tax for breathing, but thought better of it :S ) We were greeted by the hospital doctors and administration and welcomed warmly to the village which has recently burgeoned to 6000 from a simple mission station with a church, school, and hospital. We drove in a land rover over sandy, eroded roads for only 5 minutes before we reached the guest house we will be staying in for the next 2 wks. Flowers adorned the gate along a natural fence line to welcome us. The house is made of white, painted concrete on the outside. Inside, there are 15 foot ceilings with ventilation windows along the ceiling, tiled floors, 4 bedrooms, and a spacious living space with 6 foot tall windows. The yard is spacious with a huge canopy tree, chickens, hand cut grass, clothesline, and a view of the Kwilu River far down the bank below. The guest house is part of a row of ex pat housing which runs parallel to the River. At the end of this row, the hospital stands with nearly 500 beds. Across the road from these houses (away from the River), there is a school and several houses where the Congolese doctors live. We were very surprised at the good conditions of the housing. We asked many questions of Katherine Niles, our interpreter who travelled with us from Kinshasa. She grew up at Vanga as a missionary kid. Her father is Dr. Fountain who worked at Vanga for about 30 years. Thus, she not only knows the local dialects, French, and English, but she also understands the dynamics of the hospital system, the mission, and many of the people we will be meeting.

Kwilu River

If you know me, you know I love to explore. As soon as we put our things away, I was eager to see the River. Katherine showed us the way down to the public area at the river’s edge. There is also an area just below our house which is much more private. But the public area has many people, a small market, some small houses, and an artesian well with clean water. Congolese were lined up to fill their containers or to wash their kids in this great water source. There is also an area where dugout canoes are tied. For 10 cents, they will take you across the river in the canoe which is very long and narrow. The navigators stand up and paddle the canoes. There should be several pictures in the slideshow which depict this very well. The River itself is majestic. Flanked by green forests of palm trees and canopy trees (those you would imagine as the canopy of a rainforest), it is the width of the Mississippi. In the rainy season as it is now, it can be quite muddy, but it was beautiful to behold. It is amazing to consider that Congo is canvased in rivers just like this one. It would be an amazing transportation mechanism if they were dredged or maintained for larger boats, but this has not been done regularly since nationalization of the country. All these rivers dump into the Congo River, which is the 2nd largest in the world and definitely the deepest.

Vanga Evangelical Hospital

We toured the hospital next. Unlike large hospitals in the US, it is only one story. There are separate buildings for the administration, pediatrics, emergency, surgery, maternity, etc. It is very well laid out, some of it designed by a German architect. It was very interesting to hear Katherine talk about its history as we walked and greeted people by saying, “Mbote” or “Bonjour.” There were patients lying near the entrance of the hospital grounds, staying on mats of straw, cooking small amounts of food. Goats, especially very cute kids (baby goats), were running around. We were introduced again (once already at the airport) to Dr. Mpoo (pronounced em- poe), chief medical officer, Dr. Fina and Dr. Freidhelm, a friar from Germany and pediatrician. Our schedule while here will be morning meetings with the residents, visiting physicians, medical students, surgery MWF, and more extensive rounds on Tues, Thurs, Sat mornings with outpatient clinic Tues and Thurs afternoon. I was excited to hear that we would have a fistula case my first day in surgery on Wednesday!

God’s role in healing the sick

Back in our guest house for the evening, we discussed our expectations over dinner. We asked Catherine many questions as she has vast experience in Congo and Haiti. One interesting topic was on God’s role in healing. She explained, “Some say that Congo is --% Protestant, --% Catholic, --% Muslim, and 100% Animistic. It is the background, the fallback worldview. They invoke the Ndoki (pronounced en- doe- key) which is also known as witchcraft or black magic. Many times, there are patients receiving treatment for an illness and they are not getting better. Then, it finally comes up that someone in the family has felt that the person is cursed or there is unforgiveness or animosity. Prayer has been powerful in these circumstances and once the name of Jesus is pronounced as Lord over this issue, patients have gotten better with no change to their treatment.” As Katherine told specific stories and accounts of seeing the power of Jesus and the power of prayer, I got chills. We just don’t see this kind of spiritual battle very often in the US, for whatever reason. I sensed this in Ethiopia and I sense it again now. The spiritual forces are very real and prayer is powerful. Treating the whole person involves getting a spiritual history as part of the social history, and especially in this primitive context, it can make a huge difference in the healing of patients.