Matt finishes third and final leg on his 12-person, 200-mile relay run from Mt. Hood Oregon to the Pacific Ocean. Quote from Matt, “Finished! Best leg yet hardest but best time sprinted to the finish…we’re done and so are my legs”

Way to go, Matt! We are all proud of you.

In his relay race for hope Matt finishes 1st leg at 12:30am; total of 5 miles. Matt said “First mile was tough rest got into a groove. Next leg is 8 am and is 7 miles; a bit uphill”.

To support Matt and DH go to https://www.crowdrise.com/dhrunforhope/fundraiser/

Go Matt!

Check out our new video created by volunteer Scott Gronholz for a glimpse of our medical team helping the Dwankhozi community in Zambia and a reminder of why our work is so important. Click Here to watch.

Well we made it home after a brief respite to South Luwangua National Park to see some of the beauty Africa holds – it’s land, it’s animals and it’s people. We spent 2 days enjoying early morning and evening safaris, meals together and time to read, nap or just be. We all agreed that ending the trip this way was much needed after spending so much time seeing the tremendous needs of the community. It gave us an opportunity to let the week’s work settle a bit and reenergize us before the long trip home.

The Masalas saw us off at the airport and we all felt a sense of sadness as we said goodbye to our Zambian family and the county we grew to know so well. The trip home was long as we were all anxious to see our loved ones. Everyone was still full of thoughts and ideas of how we can best serve this community. There is much to be done as we gathered so much information.

As we return to the states we will start to process all this information and see what’s next. We look forward to sharing our experince and introducing you all to the many faces we met. Please feel free to ask us questions or join us for a BBQ on June 4th. We could not have accomplished this mission without the love, prayers and support of each one of you. Thank you all!

The DH Medical Team
Beth, Kate, Missy, Janice, JR, Sandy, Jerry & Mat

In case you’re wondering, “Where are the pictures?” We have them – hundreds of them! But we haven’t been able to email the photos since we’ve been here because of bandwidth issues. However, we promise to inundate you with pictures and videos when we get back home. The pictures will do such a better job in showing what it’s like here, how we set up the clinic and mostly – how beautiful these children are.

For our last day of clinic, we started with the large 5th grade class and then moved to the little children (K/1 grades.) Several of the K/1 parents came to accompany their children, demonstrating once again what a strong community this is here. While we were doing the clinic, Janice did her hand washing class with the two remaining grades, and was even assisted by some of her “alumni” students from yesterday.

Malaria continued to the constant health concern and hygiene issues were more prevalent with the younger children. Since we finally got to the clinic early today, it was a long day of seeing patients and more time consuming with the young ones. It was more painful today than in previous days to not have medications to treat those in need, but we could only do and bring so much in one visit … it just begs the question of “What now?”

After we got through the kids, we broke for lunch. Some of us got to “help” the school cooks make lunch for the kids – which was basically stirring nashima over a hot fire. Nashima is their staple food source which is made from maize/cornmeal and eaten with a relish (generally a cooked down green vegetable.) It is filling, but lacking in nutrition. On days when there isn’t enough for nashima, the children eat porridge. Every day – same thing.

After lunch, Mat taught a First Aid clinic for all the teachers and walked them through the many supplies we were able to leave with them. (Tomorrow we are also transporting more supplies to the nearest clinic.) They took notes and asked many questions. Then, we did the clinic for the 11 teachers. After watching and listening all week, the teachers were eager to spend some time with JR and Mat and discuss their medical issues. Overall, they are a very healthy bunch – which is a great thing as they have an enormous task here at the school. We complain about large class sizes of 30 kids, but here – the classes are 70-100 children! Beth then taught the teachers how to use the blood pressure cuffs we are leaving with them (as hypertension is an issue in this community.)

All told we saw about 350 kids out of the 600 school population. We learned today that many parents kept their children home from the clinic out of fear. Fear that we would find something wrong with their child, and then assume it was because they were bad parents or unable to care for their child. Only more clinics in the future will help to dispel that myth, and so … there is so much more work to do …

Tomorrow, the medical folks will be touring a medical clinic here in Chipata in the morning. We will head out to the school after lunch for Beth, Missy, and Janice (the DH staff) to debrief with teachers. We’ll then set up the cabinet with the medical records and first aid supplies at the school, and say our goodbyes to the children.

Beth & Moses headed out after breakfast to pick up a local doctor who would be accompanying us for the day. The intention was to return to pick up the team in one hour to drive to Chipata, but as we mentioned yesterday we hold our plans lightly and two hours later we were on our way.

Our time with the doctor was invaluable. During the drive we asked numerous questions to get a better understand of the general health and wellness of the Zambian people. It seemed overwhelming because the need is SO great and the resources are SO sparse. Even in town they did not have the necessary supplies to treat minor illness – no tongue blades, no otoscopes, little medication. By far the illness that is having the greatest impact on the population is malaria. Few have had no history of the disease and many have had it numerous times in one year.

The doctor also spoke at length about the need for solar polar. Currently Zambia uses hydro power for electricity, but it is failing them. They are sitting on a wealth of natural resources, yet are not capturing this potential. He explained that the future of their country lies in solar power.

After another late start at the clinic we managed to see over 100 children! This children were younger and had more health issues than the older children. Much of their conditions revolved around the issue of hygiene – another reason why we are so grateful for Janice and her classes on health and hygiene. We were able to treat a few with some basic wound care and referral to the clinic. A few children had symptomatic malaria – in fact one mother took her son to our clinic after leaving the local one just because she wanted to do anything possible for her child.

We took a break for lunch to enjoy the traditional Zambian cuisine that the local woman lovingly prepare for us each day. We are getting quite good at eating with our hands! We finished up with a few more students after lunch and concluded our day around 4:30.

The evening was spent printing student photos and putting all the medical records together over dinner – a working dinner to say the least. We can’t believe we’ve been here a week already. Tomorrow is the last day of our clinic and then we will begin some first aid classes and community meetings on Thursday.

More to come tomorrow! Blessings from Zambia!

After much planning and preparation, today we learned to hold our plans tentatively and to go with the flow.

Our plans were to start the clinic by 9am, but our actual start time was more like 11am. After a few delays in our departure, a forgotten backpack, we were further slowed down by hitting a goat on our drive to the school. Goats are an important food source in Zambia. So in the time it took Moses to find the goat’s owner to apologize for the accident, the village had circled around the goat and picked up every last piece of it from the road.

We decided to start the clinic with the oldest students first. One clinic handled the girls, and the second clinic handled the boys. There were three stops in each clinic. The first stop was with Jerry and Kate to check each student in, initiate their medical file, take their photo, and get their height and weight. The second stop was with our RNs, Beth and Sandy, for an eye exam, vitals, and family and medical history. The last stop was with JR and Mathew for a basic physical exam. Missy, our other RN, served as the floater helping where needed and giving us bathroom breaks. And each stop, the teachers served as interpreters. It would have been impossible to do without the help of the teachers – how else could you explain a blood pressure cuff! The teacher’s presence also helped put the students at ease.

It was amazing how seamlessly the clinics operated and how willing (and curious) the students were to be examined and answer questions. We were able to get through all the grade 6-9 girls and boys on the first day (which was our goal.) We knew that many of the students would be malnourished and that hygiene would be a problem, but were surprised to learn that virtually all of the students had repeatedly suffered from malaria. We also learned that most of the boys do not sleep with bed nets, but most of the girls do. Several of the children are orphaned but living with other family members. A few students with pressing issues were identified and we are planning to meet with their parents on Thursday to encourage and help them get to a nearby clinic for treatment.

As the clinics were in progress, Janice taught classes on basic hand washing and hygiene. Utilizing her years of teaching, Janice used puppets to show how germs transfer and demonstrated how to wash hands properly. The kids were rapt with attention in her class and delighted in the goody bags they received after it.

After a very late lunch at the school, we headed back to the hotel with a bus load of people to drop off along the way. There is never a direct drive from point A to point B here in Zambia! And although the students we were not planning to see today were officially dismissed hours before we left, they lingered for as long as they could to just be around us.

Once we got back to the hotel, we settled in to the lobby to debrief and print all the student photos. We printed two of each photo – one photo to attach to their medical files (which will be stored at the school) and one photo that we will give them tomorrow. It’s a small thing, but these children rarely even see their reflection and so will be overjoyed to have their own picture to keep.

With each day, the children are less shy and more talkative. It’s hard to describe how special it was to learn each child’s name, to be able to touch each of them, and for them to allow us to share in their medical concerns. We can’t wait for tomorrow.

This is the day we’ve been waiting for – to see the school. We arrived at the school at 9:30 am after the 45 minute drive from Chipata and a brief stop at the Masala family farm. (Mr and Mrs Masala Zulu, the matriarch and patriarch, of this special family live just one mile from the school.) We expected that when we arrived we’d meet the Headmaster and perhaps a few of the teachers (since it was Sunday), and then dive right in to setting up the clinic. But this is Africa – and here they are serious about greeting a visitor. Hundreds of students and people were there to not just welcome us, but to put on a celebration for us that lasted most of the morning.

After a tour of the school, everyone gathered for a celebration: the headmaster, the teachers, students, families, tribal leaders from most of the 14 neighboring communities that the school draws from, the Chief’s representative of Dwankhozi village, the PTA board, 3 headmasters from other schools in the area, a representative from the Department of Education, and a journalist from Chipata who was covering the event. Wow. That’s a turnout.

One of the Masala brothers (Mauris), a teacher at the school, was the MC and translator for the program. After several introductions and welcomes, the school choir sang. Amazing. The students also put on a “radio news” program. They presented school achievements, members of staff, sports results, school challenges and future plans, and interviewed Missy about the purpose of our trip. It was wonderful to hear directly from the students. One of the themes that we heard from several who welcomed us, including the Chief’s representative, is their desire to build the first community High School at Dwankhozi. Currently the school goes to Grade 9, and there are no high schools in the area. (A student would have to go away to a boarding school to attend high school, and the families in this community do not have the resources for that.) The program then wrapped up with some traditional dance, and JR was brought up to join in the fun!

We finally got to set up the clinic and education room around 2 pm. It was awesome to see the team at work – the collaboration of thoughts and ideas allowed for a quick set-up and time to work through some potential issues. We used 2 classrooms so that we could run 2 clinics in parallel. Janice worked with the teachers to discuss the lesson plans and set up her class in another building. We finished up around 6:30 pm – the sun had set giving us the perfect opportunity to test out the school’s new solar lights. With these lights the school plans to have evening literacy classes for adults and study groups for the pupils. Amazing what a little light can do.

After a long day, we loaded up the bus for our drive back to Chipata. We were all tired, but filled with such adrenaline and excitement from the day we couldn’t stop talking. Upon our arrival to the hotel we shared a meal together and discussed our most memorable moment of the day.

* Seeing the sheer number of people there
* Realizing how similar the gathering was to a small town community gathering in the US
* Being struck by the formality of the program and their overwhelming graciousness towards us
* Noticing how similar kids are everywhere – in how they love to laugh and play
* Noticing how similar parents are everywhere – in how they want their kids to learn and succeed