November 20.

A lot of time has past since I last wrote. Almost three weeks in fact.
I've now been here two months. One-third of my time is gone, but by no
means was it wasted. One thing that's new is that I have now watched
my first surgery. It was a C-Section and it was also the most intense
thing I've ever seen. My job was to assist the anesthesiologist by
holding the oxygen mask on the patient. This gave me a great view of
what was going on. All in all the surgery went quite well, although I
didn't feel quite so good. After the baby had come out and Dr.
Annete was checking the placenta, I started to feel sick.
Luckily there was a chair nearby and so I quickly sat down; I was still
still holding the mask on the patient. Nearly fainting during a
surgery is not exactly my idea of a success, but all is well that ends
well.

Last week, was time for a little break. Two of the other
volunteers that were here were leaving and they wanted to see part of
Ethiopia before they left. We agreed to join them, so last week was
spent in Addis Ababa, Bahir Dar, Gondor, and Lake Tana. We had a great
time. Gondor is called the "Camelot of Africa."  It has a whole bunch
of castles from the 18th century. Lake Tana was also great. We went
and visited some old monasteries and also the outlet to the Blue Nile.
We were told that hippos can sometimes be seen there although we
didn't see any. However, one morning on a run on the lakeside I saw a
leopard. Don't worry it was running away from me. The trip was
also full of good times, great food, and all that, but man is it ever
great to be back in Gimbie.

The hospital did have another crazy thing happen this week. Yesterday a
Chinese man was driven here by some of his coworkers (The Chinese
build roads here in Ethiopia). This man had been hit by a car
36 hours earlier. His neck was broken and he was already
determined to be a quadriplegic, but he was still alive. It was
decided that our hospital did not have the proper equipment to treat
him, so he was loaded into our Ambulance to be taken to Addis Ababa.
This morning we found out his fate. About halfway through the trip to
Addis, which is about eight hours, all the electricity had gone out in
ambulance. This meant no more oxygen for the man. Trudy Squires, a
nurse practitioner whose husband is the Chief Operations Officer here at
the hospital was driving the ambulance, they had to perform CPR on
the man for the rest of the trip; in the dark. I am told that the man
died one hour out of Addis, but CPR continued. When they arrived at
the hospital there was no doctor there. They waited for one and a half
hours before leaving to try and find a different hospital. The second
one was no better than the first and so they returned. Finally, at
4 a.m. a doctor showed up and the man was pronounced dead.

Now for a little better story.  About two weeks ago a lady from Spokane
sent us four hundred US dollars for Fletch, Justin, and I to use to
help kids go to school. A full year at the Adventist school it about
60 US dollars, so there was enough for six kids, plus a little
something extra to help someone else if we could. Yesterday while we
were at work one of the cleaning ladies asked us, through a translator,
if we could help her buy shoes for her two little boys. Fletch and I
decided that this was a perfect project for that extra money. We sent
the boys into town with the purchaser for the hospital, Buressa. We
could not accompany them because the towns people see that we are
helping these kids and not theirs and the end result is not a pretty site.
The shoes were bought, but we told Buressa not to give the shoes to
the boys till today, because we wanted a picture of them to send back
to the donor. Today, as I walked through the hospital the mother
grabbed my hand tightly and pulled it to her chest, then lead me to
where Buressa was standing. He was in a conversation, and while we
were waiting, she would not loosen her grip on my hand. Occasionally
she would lift my hand to her lips and kiss it and say, "galetoma,
galetoma" (thank you, thank you). I soon found out through Buressa
that the kids were ready to have their picture taken. I rallied up the
shoes and the kids and brought them to our house. Most of the walk was
spent with the mother's fingers interlocked with mine, she would not
let go. After we had taken the pictures we found out that this lady
was not even the mother, she was just caring for these two kids,
because they were orphans. With her eyes starting to tear up, she thanked us again before she left with the boys, who had rolled up their
pants so they could more properly show off their new shoes.

It again stuck me just how easy it is to make a difference here. These
shoes were eleven dollars per pair. This may not sound like a lot but
you must remember that this lady is probably only making about $30-$40
a month. For her to buy these shoes it would have been impossible.
This is just one story. There are many others like it that happen.
Just a thought, Christmas is soon approaching. Don't forget that it
is the season of giving.  Maybe go out of your way to help someone a
bit. It won't hurt you, and man it will make you feel good. If you
want, you can even send just a couple bucks here. Fletch, Justin and I
would be happy to find a worthy cause for it. Shoot even get your
families involved. My email is njkinne@gmail.com if you are interested.