PATE D’ARACHIDE!

It was a pretty slow day at the clinic today. When we arrived at the clinic…we went and took vitals of the patients who had been there overnight.  Dr. F showed us the ultrasound of the woman who had “debris” in her uterus.  It turns out that she actually had very large cysts on both of her ovaries.  By pressing on her stomach—I could feel them!  The left one was larger than the right one.  They can’t do anything about the cysts until the inflammation goes down…which calls for a lot of antibiotics.  A French man was in for malaria—all of the nurses simply referred to him as the white patient.  He had 3 African women waiting in the room with him while he slept.  My favorite lady was being kept in the broken X-ray room (the pregnant woman who fainted was gone).  She has malaria.  When we went in she liked joking around with us in French.  Once when I walked by her room…she caught my attention because her IV pole had slid down and the IV bag was no longer above her head…She asked me to reset the height.  It wasn’t much—but I felt so awesome getting to help her.  She smiled when I realized what she was asking and thanked me several times for helping her once I finished.  Anyone could have reset the pole…but for some reason I just felt really good about making her more comfortable and helping the medicine get to her.

I spent some time with Maggie the midwife again today.  OBGYN services are so needed here in Burkina…and honestly…it isn’t as terrible as I’ve always thought it was.  I’m not as awkward around that type of thing (as I don’t even explain in correct terms…maybe I still have a little way to go…) as I was before.  I like that relationships are built with the women because they come in before the pregnancy, for the birth, and afterwards with the kids.  Having children is so important to the culture here…and an OBGYN gets to help increase the chance of the baby living  Granted, it is difficult to see several pregnant women that weigh less than I do, or that  haven’t gained any weight in the last 2 months.  One mother brought in her baby girl…she brought her in for a vaccination…but the baby kept throwing up.  It sounded like she had debris stuck in her throat and just in general didn’t look healthy…but then I looked at the mother and saw that she was dressed well and looked very healthy…it just didn’t seem like the same care was being put into her baby girl that she was putting into herself… One baby boy came in that melted my heart!!  He was about 6 months old…and by that time…a baby should have doubled in weight…this baby had tripled!!  He was soo pudgy!!  We kept complimenting the mother on how strong he was, how big and beautiful!  His eyes cracked me up though—they were the biggest and roundest eyes I had ever seen—and they never seemed to close.  He was so precious.

Sector 27

Julia, Kirsten, and I went for a walk because the day was going so slow.  The clinic is in sector 27-which is fairly poor.  Dr. F told us about the “shanty village” so we went looking for it.  We may have walked through it but I think we were expecting tents and leaning metal houses…but it was a different type of mud brick and things looked a bit more impoverished…not that there is much difference between really poor and poor here.  I practiced some of my More and people always smiled a lot when I spoke to them in More.  Mostly greetings…but it means so much to them for a white girl to speak their native language.  I really enjoyed our walk.  We talked a lot about our observations of life in Burkina…especially about missionary couples and the struggles that they must deal with.

Alice picked us up a little early so we could go to visit Dr. J before he went home for lunch.  We went to his office to say hello and see how he was doing—and let him know that we are leaving on Sunday/Monday.  He told us that yesterday he received information from TeleHealth in Texas that they are going to give him a scholarship to go to Texas for 4 years and specialize in Cardiology.  He will probably come over in the fall of 2010—and his wife Natasha will probably get to come with him and specialize in OBGYN (she is in her last year of medical school here in Ouaga).  He is very excited…but is nervous about his English.  He is already planning to do an intensive English course for a year in Ouaga and then get to the US 5 months early before school starts to practice his English.  I am so happy for him and he said that he would like to visit us when he comes to the US.  He also updated us on news that he has been reading about Michael Jackson (supposedly he did not actually molest a child that testified against him…and his personal doctor is responsible for his death…)  We gave him his wedding gift (a vase from the US) and he saved it to open with Natasha.  He is hoping to have us over for a meal…I hope that we will be able to do that…but I’m not sure if time will permit it.  It was sad to leave…I am going to miss Dr. J the most out of all the Dr. that we have worked with.  He is so young, so smart, and he really wants to be able to help people.  He isn’t into medicine for the money or prestige…if he was…he would be practicing elsewhere.  He has such a great heart!

We had lunch at the Brokopps with Jess.  Alice made enchiladas!!  They were delicious!  After lunch we went back to the Hub and Mark came with some of our tailored clothes!!!  I had an African outfit made (tight fitted long skirt and matching top) that I LOVE!  Kirsten and I both tried on the items that he had finished…it felt like a fashion show.  Most of the stuff needs to be altered a tad..but I am so excited about the things that I had made!!! YAY!

Then…it was time to COOK!!  I don’t think I will be able to accurately describe how fun it was to make the pate d’arachide with Virginie…or how CRAZY Virginie must have thought we were…but let’s just say…we took lots of pictures!  We were tourists in our own kitchen.  I had a pen and notebook in hand for almost the entire process…so I can replicate the sauce in the US.

The bookkeeper

We all took turns stirring the sauce and getting our pictures taken.  We made the sauce in a HUGE pot.  The meat used can vary…but we used some thin steaks that Kirsten and I had purchased earlier.  We didn’t let Virginie cut the meat because Burkinabe will put everything into the sauce…including all the fat and questionable parts.

The Butcher

So my task was to cut off all of the fat and cut the meat into bite sized pieces.  We all took pictures with the cabbage—because there is a French saying used for a boyfriend…petit chow (small cabbage)…like a pet name.

Mon petit choux

So we took pictures kissing the cabbage etc…it was very entertaining for us.  Virginie taught us how to taste the sauce like a Burkinabe.  Instead of putting your finger in, or taking a taste off of the spoon, you flick some of the hot hot hot sauce onto your palm and lick immediately.

Burkinabe Taste Test

Ya so ma (Se bon) (it is good)

It was really fun.  She was so surprised to see that we did it another way.  Kirsten did not enjoy tasting in the Burkinabe way as much as I did (I think her hands were a bit more sensitive to the heat).  Virginie also showed us how to make Beesap juice…it is made like a tea but the petals of a beesap flower are used…and it is soaked in room temperature water for a LOOONG time.

Beesap

Virginie adds mint (also soaking in water for a LOOONG time)…but some people add gingerroot.   We also cooked up a lot of rice.

We asked Virginie to stay and eat with us but she needed to get back to her girls.  Sarah, Jess, Kirsten and I ate the pate d’arachide for dinner with beesap juice.  The sauce was very good.  But we made soo much!!  Burkinabe usually eat one BIG meal a day…and so their serving size is double or triple what an American would eat in one sitting…so we made sauce for 4…but really probably for 8 or 10.  I liked the beesap at first…but I couldn’t drink very much of it.  We brought a HUGE plate (Burkina portion) of the meal to Gilbert (our night guard).  He was so excited and licked his plate clean!

Gilbert and the Girls

Tonight’s prayer meeting was actually a farewell to the Albrights.  Ruth and Tim have been missionaries in Burkina for a long time and they are leaving to serve with ECHO in Florida.

the Albright Family

We had cake, coffee, rootbeer floats, and coconut bars.  Tim told us about what they will be doing with ECHO.  Francis called while we were there…and I had him talk with Pete.  He was calling to see if we could come to the youth night at Central tomorrow.  We are going to present the youth with the guitar that Abe from the Appleton team left for them.  I am excited to get to hang out with the youth again!  When we got back to the Hub, Kristen, Jess and I did a dance video workout again tonight!

-JK

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