May 12
Farming Yams in the Front Yard
My friend Ibrahim gifted me some yam seedlings after his harvest last year and we’ve had them in storage in the pantry for months. Now that the rains have started, our babysitter Talata suggested I plant them. The next day her husband James showed up with two hoes and we got to work!
Twenty-one mounds and a whole lotta sweat later, the yams were planted in my front yard. I’ll need to weed them every three or four weeks but other than that we just pray for rain and wait for the harvest.
Apr 20
Zambulugu is a village about 3 miles east of us. The church congregation is always predominantly women and children and they love to sing. They’ll spend more than half the service in song and dance!
Apr 14
Teeth Cleaning (and then pulling)
Every year Dr. Fuller Robinson of Roanoke, Virginia comes to BMC to do mobile dental clinics in the region. He’s 88 years old and refuses to let that stop him. This year he came out to do his 41st trip since 1981!
Trey had a dental visit in the US last December but we thought it wise to swing him by Dr. Robinson’s office at BMC while he was in town. The dentist poked around a few minutes and declared Trey’s teeth to be perfect. He also invited me to come along with him on one of his village trips.
The next day I followed him to a remote village near the Ghana/Togo border. There over 140 Bimoba men, women and kids were waiting for him and his team. They all had teeth that they wanted pulled. All morning long, Dr. Robinson, Tommy Harrison, three BMC staff and two doctors volunteering from Boston looked into mouths and removed teeth.
Me with a mother & son whose teeth I pulled
After about 4 hours and the crowd of patients seeming to grow, Dr. Robinson finally told me to put my camera down, don some gloves and get to work! He patiently showed me how to patient pull a tooth (you don’t actually pull, but gently and steadily wiggle it back and forth until it loosens and rolls out) and then gave me my first patient. The triage would send me the easy, simple cases and refer the more complex ones to the pros.
A couple hours later, with the sun low in the sky, I looked up and saw the queue was finally gone. Never in my life did I think I’d go out to shoot photos and end up pulling 27 teeth in the process!
Apr 6
Bird Watching
After attending church in the village of Namangu#2, the pastor took us over to his house to show the kids his pigeons. I was prepared for the number of birds that he had! An entire side of his courtyard was full of rooms for the birds and there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. KJ loves birds but was a bit apprehensive about the sheer number of them.
