Exciting Day!!

Raines, Brett and I all stayed back from the field today while the rest of the team and, all but three of the kids, went to finish the field. Sam, fifteen, stayed back with the younger ones and did the following…kept the fire going, washed dishes, filled the water barrels, and watched the younger ones…yes, he knows how to work! Our exciting day started as follows…

Since I didn’t go down to the field to work, I decided to have a hot bath. Let me describe to you where I took my bath so that a little further down you will get how funny things were. Petros and Elizabeth have three homes on their property. Standing down the hill and looking up you will see the following…right in the center is the main house, to the right is where the boys sleep, and to the left is where the girls sleep. Now, we girls take our bath in the girls’ house, makes sense, and the bathroom is on the backside of the house next to the field…I’m hoping you have a clear picture of this in your head. So! I went to the house, took my bucket bath, cleaned up my mess, and proceeded to unlock the door. Door WILL NOT unlock. Don’t panic! Just keep working the key, sometimes you just have to hold your mouth just right. Don’t panic! Take the key out, re-insert it into the key hole and try again, nope. Don’t panic! I know! Open the window, which opens onto a field, and yell for Brett. Brett! Wait a little bit, no response. Brett! Wait a little, still no response. Don’t panic! You’re just locked in the bathroom; eventually someone will miss you…won’t they?! BRETT!!! Still no response! At this point desperation is creeping in and I decide that if no one comes maybe I can fit through the window. Yeah Right!! DON’T PANIC!! Brett!! Raines!! Brett!! Raines!!  SOMEBODY…ANYBODY!!!! Finally, Raines hears me, goes to get Brett and I get out of the bathroom!! This is the start to a very exciting, interesting, hopefully never to be repeated day!

Our next excitement came in the form of a snake. Yes, a snake. Raines was cleaning up around some brick and stones that were on the property when he picked up a cinder block. Curled up all nice and cozy under the block was a cute little three foot snake. Praise the Lord none of the children had messed with the block and that Raines was the one that found it. As I’ve discovered since being in South Africa, Raines has a knack for finding and killing snakes. Or maybe I should say, snakes have a way of finding Raines and he has a way of lovingly showing them the doorway to heaven. You don’t mess around with snakes in Africa! You see a snake; you kill a snake…that’s the way it works! Ok! Snake dead, excitement over; let’s get on with the day. And please! No more excitement!

Not…going…to…happen! Raines had asked me to peel some potatoes for lunch, which I was doing, when Brett came out and asked if I would hand wash a few of his things, to which, I said “if you’ll peel potatoes, I’ll wash clothes.” OK! So, I’m getting some things together to wash, preparing to get the water in the buckets, when Brett comes up to me and says the following words…”we have a little problem.” I look at him funny and realize he’s holding his hand and blood is dripping from between his fingers. Now, when Brett Roseman says “we have a little problem” and not “just give me a band aid” I know…we’ve got a problem! He had decided to peel potatoes with his brand new pocket knife. Everything was going along just fine until he started to drop a potato. As the potato started falling, he tried to catch it—bad idea! The knife slipped and cut him right between his pointer finger and middle finger on his left hand. The cut was clean, thank God, but it was about 1” long and about 1 ½” deep. In the moment I’m pretty good at handling what’s going on and so is Brett. Our biggest issue was not knowing if he should go to the hospital or the private clinic in town AND if anybody could go with him. Raines got on the phone and called Petros, who had just made it to the field. Petros called for a bakkie to get him home so that he could help Brett with the particulars of where to go and how to get there. So we wait…

Finally a bakkie, I use this term very lightly here, appears and Petros gets out of the front. We hear him on the phone with Luciano, leader of the YWAM Swaziland base, and the following words are leaving his mouth, “this bakkie will not make it to town.” Ummm, ok, now what?! No problem! This will at least get us to the taxi stop at the bottom of the hill and we can take a taxi into town. Ok then let’s go. Brett, Petros and the driver all pile into the bakkie and down the hill they go. At one point, this is so much funnier when Brett tells it, Brett starts to realize that this bakkie is very quiet. Wait a minute! It’s not even running!!! It’s coasting down the hill!! You may not be laughing at this but, I’m telling you, if you could see Brett tell it you would laugh till you cried!! The adventure is just getting started! Finally get to the taxi stop and jump in a taxi. Need to stop here and describe the taxi to you. A taxi in Africa is generally a mini-van, driven by someone who may or may not have a legal driver’s license, and generally has a sign that says “maximum 14 passenger capacity.” Brett is seated on the back row of a taxi that is carrying 17 adults and 2 children, making a half-dozen or so stops along the way and is trying not to bleed on anyone. By the time Brett got to the clinic it had been two hours since he cut his hand.

Clinic time! Petros helps Brett get signed in at the clinic and the receptionist says “have a seat and the doctor will be with you shortly.” An hour later, the doctor appears and asks “what’s the problem” as they enter his office/examine room. Brett says “I cut my hand badly and need sutures.” They immediately turn and leave the room and the doctor directs him down a hallway, up a few steps, to a chair and says “wait there, while I have the nurse prepare a tray, and I’ll be right there.” Fast forward an hour…no nurse, no doctor and its lunch time. Brett had gotten to the point where he was looking around for someone to ask “where’d everybody go,” when a lady, who had seen him sitting there, said, “you’ve been sitting here awhile, who’s your doctor?” To which Brett answered “I don’t remember his name, oh wait, there he is now.” The doctor, who was finally walking up the steps, saw Brett and said, while slapping his forehead with his hand, “I’m so sorry, I forgot!” Enter the treatment room!!

The treatment room looked like a room from the twilight zone. Think 1940’s/1950’s! I think this is the place where his thoughts went to “Jesus, could You just heal me now, so I don’t have to go through this?” Nurse gets the tray prepared, doctor comes in, Brett shows him the cut and the doctor says “the knife must have been very sharp.” Ya think?! Brett sits on one side of the table, doctor sits on the other. Doctor numbs the area and Brett has to help move his hand around so that the doctor can stitch him up. It was an awkward place to have to put stitches. There were seven stitches, really needed nine or ten, and Brett made it all the way to five before needing to put his head down and not watch. He’s a tough fella! Doctor wraps it up and instructs him to come back Tuesday to change dressing and then Friday to have the stitches removed. “UMMMM, let me think about this…NO!!! I can change my own dressing and remove the stitches. I will not be coming back here!”

Stay tuned! There is so much more that happened on this day that I haven’t even touched on!