Surgery for John Baptiste

Last week I added yet another amazing experience to my list of amazing experiences in Rwanda. I was privileged to take a 12 year-old Rwandan boy from a remote village to have a life-changing surgery in the big city hospital. John Baptiste, an energetic, brilliant, and wide-eyed boy from my favorite village, stole my heart about a year ago. He showed me his hand when I met him, which had a large and slowly growing “lump” on his right metacarpal. It appeared to be a cyst, and I made sure that his family was seeing a doctor at the local hospital in Musanze. A couple of months ago, we had a visiting veterinarian who looked at the supposed cyst and informed us that it was definitely not a cyst but probably a growing bone tumor, one which was too serious for local doctors to treat. We also found out that John Baptiste had lost most function of his right hand, including the inability to write or take notes in school. In a culture where note-taking is the fundamental skill in the educational system, this also greatly affected his performance in school. I just happened to have the perfect connection at the best hospital in Rwanda (which just happens to be my new employer…I’ll write about that next!).

I met Dr. Alex Butera when I first arrived in Rwanda at visiting day at Sonrise High School where I teach his oldest son. I became friends with this brilliant doctor, as he welcomed me into his family and helped get me connected for a Speech Pathology job at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali. Dr. Butera is the Medical Director of the hospital and is considered one of the best orthopedic surgeons in East Africa. So, I knew just who to contact when I found out that John Baptiste had a bone tumor and needed surgery quickly before the tumor could completely eat away at his hand. Within a couple of weeks, Dr. Butera worked John Baptiste into his overbooked schedule for a surgical removal of the tumor.
Here comes the fun part….along with Tom Allen (B2R Country Director and my dear friend), I got to be right alongside John Baptiste through the whole experience. We asked for permission from his parents, who gladly granted, to take him to the big city of Kigali and care for him while he had the procedure. John Baptiste lives in a very remote village on the top of a mountain and has never been outside of the small local town of Musanze. So the journey began as I drove him on the two hour trip from Musanze to Kigali….definitely the longest car ride he has ever been on, as proved by the sudden carsickness that fell upon him. He could not quite understand why the car was making him sick. Every ten minutes he asked “Are we there yet?” and every small town we passed through he asked “Is this Kigali?”, as he had no concept of a long car ride and definitely no concept of a big city. When we finally arrived in Kigali, his eyes widened and jaw dropped at the towering buildings, honking cars, and sights of a modern, busy African city. He marveled at the shooting water fountain in the town center as he questioned: “What is THAT?”…”But where does the water come from?” The only water source he is familiar with is the large lake that surrounds his village. More “novelties” came as we explained to him how to use a toilet, the purpose of ice, and the comfort of a real bed. Tom and I laughed and cried as we experienced all of these painfully familiar things with John Baptiste for the first time.
We checked him in to the pediatric ward of the hospital, where he met several new friends and played in a playroom with real toys for the first time in his life (and watched movies for the first time!). Two special friends…Imable and Marie…had both been in and out of the hospital for years with chronic heart conditions. They all took great joy in trying to teach the muzungu girl Kinyarwanda!














Tom, Blayne, and I hanging out with John Baptiste and his new friends at the hospital.

Early the next morning we wheeled him into surgery. Since Dr. Butera is a friend, he allowed Tom and me to scrub in and observe the surgery. Dr. Butera worked carefully and precisely to remove the tumor (which is most likely benign), protect the muscles and nerves, and restore the use of John Baptiste’s hand….all while explaining every detail to the onlookers peering over his shoulder. The surgery was a great success, and John Baptiste woke up in high spirits, greeting and thanking every nurse, doctor, and passerby as the anesthesia wore off. There is one particular thing that I love about John Baptiste….he has the most expressive face I have ever seen. Many Rwandans hide expression and emotion well behind serious faces. Not John Baptiste. His eyes and facial expressions say it all. And when he woke up from surgery, his face was full of pure joy. At several points during this whole process there were tears of gratitude in this young boy’s eyes, as he knew that this surgery would allow him to continue to succeed in school (by being able to write again) and gave him hope for his future once more.




Getting ready for the surgery.














Wheeling off to surgery in the elevator...another novelty!
The tumor exposed...I know this is a gross picture, but kind of cool!

Dr. Butera and I after surgery.

Waking up after surgery.

John Baptiste spent a total of three days in the big city of Kigali. He experienced many things for the first time and probably ate better than he ever had in his life. Now, he will go back to life in his village. He will probably continue to live in complete poverty for a while. But, now he will have a little of something that we call hope. He has seen a whole new world and the possibilities that are out there. He knows that education and hard work are his opportunities to that outside world. He promised us that one day in the future, when he has completed college and has a good job, that he, too, will reach out and help a child in need.

One happy boy!
Many thanks to Dr. Butera for his kindness and medical expertise in treating John Baptiste and to Tom’s friend who helped to cover the cost of the surgery.

A Whole New World

These words of the famous “Aladdin” song kept running through my head this last week as I experienced the Middle East for the first time. Not just because I was reminded of the familiar movie scenes where Aladdin runs through the market or flies on a magic carpet or rides a camel in the desert…but because it truly was a whole new world. Kelly and I were on a break from school and decided to visit the luxurious Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, also known as the center of commercialism and industry in the Middle East. We both dropped our jaws in culture shock as we took in the over-the-top luxury and wealth in this city. The city is filled with skyscrapers of intriguing architecture, mosques outlined in gold and jewels, massive shopping malls with pricey designer stores…quite a stark contrast from our life in Rwanda. Dubai has basically been built in the last 15 years, so everything is brand new and nice. Not to get on a soap box…but it is also somewhat disturbing coming from a place where there are starving children surrounding you. Someone told us that around 2/3 of the population in Dubai has diabetes because of the rich foods they overindulge in and the capabilities of getting literally anything they want at any time. In Rwanda, I’m sure around 2/3 of the population suffers from malnutrition.

Despite the outlandish luxury, this really was an incredible place to visit for vacation. We saw the tallest building in the world and the most expensive hotel ever built. We visited a sheiks palace, an indoor ski resort in a shopping mall, a restaurant made of ice, and manmade islands in the shape of a palm tree and the world. We enjoyed the relative comforts of home, including McDonalds, Chili’s, Starbucks, and a movie theatre (keep in mind all of these are luxuries for us living in remote Africa). We ate Lebonese food, Thai food, Japanese food, Mexican food, Indian food, Arabic food…pretty much a tour of the world. The most authentic experience was the desert safari, where we went sandbashing (quite an adventurous ride in an SUV through the sand dunes in the middle of the desert), rode a camel, decorated ourselves with henna tattoos, and ate a local flavor barbeque while being entertained by belly dancers and other Arabian cultural dancers. Overall it was a great vacation and a new cultural experience!

Kelly and I on a Dhow Cruise.

Dubai Creek
Indoor ski resort...crazy!

Getting a henna tatoo at an Arabian barbeque.

Camel ride in the desert.

My new friends....and our sandbashing driver!

Trying on the traditional wear....it was quite hot in there.

At Chill Out, the ice restaurant...literally everything made of ice!

The tallest building in the world!

The gold souk (market).

Visiting one of the largest mosques in the world.

At the mosque...I kept getting in trouble for my hair showing:)

"To live is to be marked. To live is to change." The Poisonwood Bible

People always ask me to tell them about my life in Africa. And I usually have the same response….I just can’t explain it in words. I fumble over my words realizing I cannot give the experience justice. I have read countless books on the subject of Africa, and there is one thought that is often mentioned. Africa changes you. It is an undeniable fact if you spend any considerable amount of time here. Whether you love it or hate it, it gets in your blood and changes the way you perceive the world. It changes the way you view people and the way you view God.
Today is the anniversary of me being in Africa for one year. One year has flown by. It has changed me beyond what I can even describe, but I will try. At first, of course, everything seems so foreign. But just like everything in life, you learn to adjust. And then one day you wake up and realize that it is just normal. So now this foreign land of Rwanda is my reality.

I have also read that there is something about Africa that brings you to life. The natural breathtaking beauty of the land; the brilliant white smiles of the people that greet you every morning; the vivacious colors of the fabrics, art, and culture; the energy of the traditional dance and the power in the beat of the drums; the hustle and bustle of the thousands of people walking the streets of town and working the local shops; the welcome open arms of friends who take you into their home as their own family; the various smells and sounds of the chaotic but lively market; the grand volcanoes that tower over the untouched terrain; the contentment in a leisure afternoon tea and rich conversation with a friend, not constrained by time limits; the joy and sparkle in the eyes of a beautiful child untainted by the desire for earthly possessions; the thrill of riding on the back of a motorcycle through a lush mountainous land; the hope of a young boy who has a fearless determination to change the world; the strength of a country to move past their dark history and into a bright future… these are the things that bring me to life in Africa. The people enjoy life not for the possessions they may obtain or the ladders they may climb, but just for the simple fact that there is a life to be lived. There is such a raw beauty about this continent. It is simple yet profound. Life presents a new adventure every day.

But Africa, as we all well know, is not all joy and color and beauty and contentment. It is a continent that has suffered greatly for many years. Suffering beyond what most of us can imagine. Rwanda, in particular, is a place where pain and horror are familiar acquaintances of the people. It is a place where millions of children still bear hunger pains everyday and where easily treatable diseases claim the lives of innocent people everyday.

One of the hardest things for me to find is my response to this all. I wish I could say that I am always perfectly compassionate and respond in the most sensitive and appropriate ways. However, there are days when I am completely annoyed by the beggar who follows me around town wanting my change, days when I feel overwhelmingly guilty that I have white skin and was born into a family of privilege in the United States of America, days where I am extremely infuriated by the social injustices of this world, and days where I am just hopelessly heartbroken by the devastating need around me. But each day, just like in the US, I have to choose to face the day. No matter what I may be feeling that day, I have to get out of bed and face the challenges. Whether that is facing the boy on the streets who shows up at my house every morning because he has no one else to turn to, a student who is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress from the horrendous memories of watching her parents die 16 years ago in a genocide, or a 5 year old orphaned girl who was born with AIDS and will never know the love of her mother… I can’t any longer just pretend these things don’t exist or that they only exist in a far away land. They are reality. They are here at my doorstep, and I must face them head-on.

But each day as I face these challenges, I also feel blessed beyond belief. There are countless stories of hope and success. There are people who have rocked my world teaching me about the capabilities of the human heart and the limitless boundaries of the human strength. There are instances everyday where my faith is strengthened through a simple conversation and where I am awestruck by the beauty of the scenery that surrounds me. The bubble of my narrow world has been burst, and I now relish in the freedom that comes from escaping a life of comfort, security, and familiarity. I came to Africa with an overwhelming sense of needing to save the world and these poor children of Africa. Oh, how wrong I was in my thinking. Now I know that God does not need me to be in Africa, but rather I need to be here.

And so I can no longer go through life overlooking the simple joys and abundant blessings OR ignoring the disturbing injustices and cruelties of this world. I must face both realities and gracefully learn to balance the two. And so here I am, this white skinned, blonde haired Southern belle in a foreign land learning to do just that.

So that is how I can sum up my year in Africa. It has changed me.