Moving Day for the New Health Dispensary at Rugari

Good Afternoon and I greet you with the wonderful scenary of Rugari, the small village where I will be living during the week as I do my nursing work and see to the other projects of the parish. The volcanoe in the first photo is Mikeno Volcano. The name in Swahili means many teeth and you can see that indeed it is a bit jagged, not like many other volcanoes. The second photo is a view down the road from the driveway of the house we are renting for Abbe Louis, Abbe John Fidel, and myself. These next photos are of the new dispensary that has been built at Rugari. We hope to open next week, but I predict it will be later. There is much to be done before we are able to actually perform health care in these consult rooms. For instance, we need to build a bit of a road to access the site and next, a very important thing is that we need to build a toilet. I will appreciate that very much, even if it is a pit toilet like our grandparents and great grandparents used.

I was so happy with all the items we were able to rescue from the old dispensary which was ruined by the soldiers in the fighting this past fall. You can see that many items are still in very good shape and will be very useful in saving money as we prepare to open the dispensary.

Next is a brand new bed for me. Well, the term BRAND NEW is a bit of a euphamism. It is new for me, but hardly a new bed. My estimate is that it must be 30-50 years old, but a very good one and it sleeps so much better than the old one I had. This is another item we rescued from the old dispensary. So I say Thank God from whom all blessings flow, again!!!

Some of the children of village who were up to the spring to collect water came to watch us load our treasures. This location is high up the hill toward Mikeno Volcano and they must hike up the hill every day to find water. They carry it in 5 gallon gerry cans or smaller. It makes life very difficult to find all the water they need this way. Some of them walked down the mountain with me and I taught them a song in Swahili. We had a great time and on the way one woman asked me to visit her mother who was very ill. I stopped, but was unable to give any medicine. The next day I returned with some unga kwa uji and sukari. Uji is a porridge that you drink and sukari is sugar! I like this drink very much in the morning, but for people who are ill it is good any time and all the time, as it is very nutritious. The mix I brought contained flour from bull rush millet, soya beans, corn, sorghum, ground peanuts, and powdered milk. All of this is whole grain flour and so it contains very good nutrients. Well, one last look at my new bed as we were finished cleaning it. I left it to dry in the sun which is the best disinfectant we know and then I slept very well that night in my new bed and had no backache or neck pain in the morning. YAHOO!!!

Until next time, I send my greetings in the peace of Jesus Christ our Lord,

Jackie