Madisi Home Visits

As Dan informed you, we arrived in Madisi about 3 in the afternoon on Wednesday. We were in time to briefly meet Dr. Leena Pasanen. She is from Finland and has served Ilembula Lutheran Hospital in Ilembula for many years. It has a nursing program attached to it, so I hope to visit the site in the future. Dr. Leena left her adopted son in our care because she wants him to realize how good he has it in life. He was an orphan in Tanzania and I am not certain how he ended up as an orphan. Susan (Steve Vinton’s wife) took us to see her “friends” shortly after we arrived so she could make food, clothing, and blanket deliveries. Her “friends” are people who are HIV positive and have recently started ARVs and are not yet strong enough to have resumed farming again or have so recently, but do not have anything to harvest. At the first home was a woman who is blind, whose husband had died. She lives alone in a brick structure that has many gaps for the wind to go through and her foot had an ulcer on it with three of her smaller toes involved. We left her a blanket and some used clothing items with a promise to revisit her the following day to more thoroughly evaluate her foot.
The next family consisted of a woman with HIV who lives with her mother and her daughter. Her toddler daughter also has HIV and Susan left nutritional supplementation for her. She also left blankets and used clothing with them. Her mother would not let us leave until we each had had at least one banana. At the next house, an elderly man was taking care of his 5 grandchildren at least one of whom was positive for HIV. The children’s parents were already deceased and the man’s wife was also deceased. Susan left formula and blankets and this man gave her a chicken as we left. (The chicken was not happy in the car and she would squawk every time we rode over a bump – which was often.) These people have nothing and they are so giving!
The following day after tea and breakfast (homemade yogurt with granola) Susan, Dr. Leena, two of Susan’s students and I went on home visits. We visited Mr. FP who is married and has tested negative at least a couple of times and he has had a chronic leg ulcer for at least 3 years. One of the students put on gloves and we cleaned the wound with hydrogen peroxide then dressed it with a mixture of honey and sugar. We needed to return the following day to recheck it, cleanse it and this time applied papaya to it to enzymatically debride it of necrotic tissue. Then we applied a new dressing. He spoke Hehe and in a very frustrated tone told us that he had been a successful farmer and now because he cannot work, he is very poor. He lives on the hillside in a house made branches and one of his grandchildren is HIV positive and had previously been very malnourished. He was so grateful for our care and has a very positive outlook that his wound will heal and he will be able to return to farming. Dr. Leena put him on a couple of broad spectrum antibiotics. The second day we closed our visit with him with a prayer.
The next woman (“B”) we visited is HIV positive. She is a widow and in her 30s. She had started school and was doing very well in her studies. She had been selected to attend secondary school because of her academic success. Unfortunately she could not complete her dream of completing secondary school because she broke her leg. She kept spontaneously breaking bones and has osteogenesis imperfecta. She has two young children and lives with her mother. Her skull has begun to bulge unusually b/c of this disease and consequently she has an unusual appearance and is tiny in stature. The past season one of the students at the Vintons’ school noticed that her field had not been planted. The students organized a group to go over and hoe and plant her fields. Understandably, Susan was so proud of her students. Now they are going to fix her roof. “B” is such a sweet positive lady and is a victim of such horrible circumstances. She had developed shingles and was quite uncomfortable from this.
J, 19 year old girl, was the saddest case of all. She is HIV with metastatic Karposi’s sarcoma. She lives with her mother who cares for her. She acquired this “wonderful” disease when she was raped at age 13. We cleansed and wrapped her foot wound. She is clearly in a significant amount of pain. Susan left peanuts, sugar and another food item as well as a pretty soft quilt. We closed this visit with a prayer also. At one point in the visit I literally had to pray for the Lord to give me the strength to get an emotional grip on myself. I simply felt like sobbing!

That evening Susan showed us a fresh water pond that forms a reservoir. A ram pump collects water which hydrolically pumps water up to the house complex and the school. After she showed us this we went to visit Godrey’s wife, Grace and daughter (Godfrey is one of Steve’s assistant.) Susan explained what my role is in the states. Some time ago Grace had seen a screening clinic ad on TV and went in to Iringa to get a pap smear. There is a team based out of the Cancer Hospital in Dar which travels around Tanzania and does pap smears screening for cervical cancer and dysplasia. Grace is well educated and when Susan explained that I am very interested in this topic and how it relates to Tanzania, she said, “It is a good thing for the women of Tanzania”

Steve got home that night after nine o’clock with his two assistants. He had been visiting schools. Steve and Susan have very long days and continue to work with the students and HIV patients in the Madisi community. In one area, Susan said that she estimates that 80% of the households have at least one person with HIV. They live on a shoestring budget with each of them “earning” 150 thousand shillings a month. This is the same amount he pays each of his assistants. If you are interested in their work, check out their website: www.villageschools.org and if you want a good cause with almost no administrative overhead, this is it! They are incredibly giving, loving and dedicated people.