Limol #10

Another early morning run in before the heat. It's been higher than 90 degrees every day and well into the evening. It was a good way to start the day - much better than yesterday. 

Yesterday I thought I might go on a run, but stayed in instead. I'm glad I did because the young boy with burns over half of his body came over again. He had fallen into a fire at the washing place. I had put a loose cloth over the burn gel the previous night to try to keep it clean but when he came in the morning, the third degree burns had stuck to the cloth, the second degree burns had all grown blisters and the first degree were more visible. I cried because I knew I couldn't help him. Grace helped take the bandages off. We gave him some more pain medicine and sent him with his mom to Upiara. It really tore me up inside, especially because I don't know if Upiara can care for him and his mom doesn't have a way to get to Daru. Grace and I comforted one another and sent some messages on the satellite phone. Sweet Warama came by to ask why I was crying. So then we started work. 

I orchestrated a picture book about health for Grace's health project. Andrew Dobola is doing the artwork, and they are so good. Last night Kauga (the school teacher) and Manaleato (my favorite woman in the village) invited us over for dinner. I had never been inside their huge house - they have nine children! They fed us a huge meal of yams, sweet potatoes, up sana, and greens. When I couldn't eat anymore, their oldest son Andrew said, "If your stomach is full, you give me the rest" in a sweet kind of brotherly way. We told funny stories.

Linguistic work is progressing. I get more verbs every day - my big problem is I have more information than I can adequately organize and too many volunteers to give tasks so I can't organize it throughout the day. Luckily we have been doing fewer chores than in years past and with my new shower (I hung up the tarp under the house and hooked up a dry bag with shower nozzle over the enclosure), my evenings are pretty free to type up work.

A few new projects are burgeoning... Warama and Tonny want to start translating the book of Acts in January. People have come forward to be trained as community health workers by Grace. The chicken project is in full swing. And Lauren is working on getting some sawmill parts in Australia so that the men can cut stronger timber for their houses. All in all, things are looking up. 

Until next run. Not tomorrow because we didn't have dinner tonight,

Kate