The Jogoo (Rooster) Crows

 Our day began as did Monday and Tuesday with the rooster crowing at 5:30 AM.  Today we had morning prayer at the hospital worship service with the palliative care team at Nkoaranga and then hit the road for a full day of visiting patients with Mama Swai and Devotha.

 This young boy whose name is Thomas is 18 years old and was recently diagnosed with juvenile diabetes.  We traveled to his home which is on the lower part of the mountain Meru.  Hiking to see him was a challenge but we made it only to find he was taken to the government hospital founded by the George W. Bush Foundation where he was being treated for both his diabetes and TB.  Thomas holds a comfort doll donated back by Chaplain Don and Karen's daughter Abby.

Karen is sitting with Naum Alias with an advanced stage of esophageal cancer.  He is one of the patients getting the benefit of morphine which is controlling his pain.  As you can see the newspaper on the wall is what we would define as wallpaper.  At this visit we handed out lollipops, soap and lotion.  Naum was grateful for the lollipops as that is helping with his dry mouth as he is not able to swallow whole foods and can take only liquids. The gifts are received as treasures by the patients and families.  They give you huge smiles and repeat asante, asante. (thank you, thank you)

When we arrived on Sunday night as we broke bread with the palliative care team we recalled tonight Dr. Julius words which were, "Monday will be a greet and meet day and then we put you to work" ... which is exactly what they did.  After Naum we continued on these long dusty African "roads" to see Betti Nico Santoni who has cirrohosis of the liver and ascites. From there we traveled on to see a patient with bladder cancer and his name was Mshamu Mboga who was living with his second wife and three young children.  From that point we moved on to visit a single mother who as the team described is "very poor, poor" and we could clearly see that.  There we not only gave goodies but we made plans to buy corn meal and the team will take it to her later. Our last stop was to visit Mary Petrol who is an 18 year old boarding at a secondary school working to pass to move on to high school.  She is the eldest daughter of our single mother and is being encouraged to study and get an education so that she can help the family survive.  Mary is a gorgeous young lady with a smile that would make a magazine cover in the United States. Mary ended our day on a bright note of hope for the young people of Tanzania.   Debbie