Alive and well.

I am alive and well.
I hope you have been following on zmm2008.blogspot.com while internet has been scarce.
The trip has been amazing.
We flew to Livingstone, Zambia airport and drove 4 hours to Namwianga Mission. There, we stayed with our host family, the Sitimela's and their extended family. A bath was the luxury to be had there- in which our host mom carried buckets of hot water from the fire in the backyard and poured our bath. We felt bad for the inconvience, but it was necessary after 3 days of camping at a time. One night, we had a family dinner and soon after Leigh suffered the consequences for about 24 hours.
Our group of 150 persons or so, loaded up on American school buses and drove on pot hole laden roads or just dirt roads to a total of 4 clinic locations/villages for 6 clinic days. There our clinics were set up in school rooms. I saw about 60 patients per day. Chief complaints included backache and headache (Rx ibuprofen), abdominal pain (Rx albendazole), fever, cough, blood in urine, etc. Lots of referring for TB testing done. We were able to test about 2000 people for HIV and about 12% were positive. In all we saw about 9000 patients, extracted 2000 teeth, around 140 baptisms done, and ate about 96 fresh chickens. I took some pictures of interesting patients as well as some real cute babies I'll share later. Side note, I need some queso real bad. And a margarita... Our tent mates were Ellen Little, a medical missionary in Uganda, and Carol Buchholz, a doctor in Alaska. I really enjoyed serving the people. We were able to distribute a lot of necessary meds and I was blessed to be able to pray for every patient I met.
The Zambians are so happy. The children run from their huts as the buses pass by. One boy was stark naked outside his hut, peeing with one hand and waving with the other.
Now, we are in Livingstone. Last night we enjoyed a sunset cruise. We saw a white rhino (who was babysat by two men to protect him from poachers), hippos, and a beautiful sunset. Our lodge is delux, especially compared to our recent previous digs. Today, we went on our safari in Chobe park. My favorite was the elephant families. We also saw giraffe, hippo, kudu, impalla, sable, baboons, crocodiles. We made one croc mad when we woke him from an afternoon nap... no lives lost. I probably owe 20,000 kwacha for this internet time, so I will say goodnight. I will leave one joke as I go... What do you get if you cross an elephant with a rhinocerous? Ell-if-I-know! I love you! Mel