Wednesday 23 March 2011

Life in Likoni





So, two days ago I was eating breakfast outside. Two of the monkeys surrounded me..Tom, the alpha male, walked up and out of nowhere jumped and pushed the table right into me! My water bottle flew off the table, I jumped back, and yelled at Tom, throwing the bottle right back at him. The water bottle did not deter Tom from his ultimate goal. He did not move, and stared directly at the piece of bread. I ran, bread in hand, to pick up stones as the younger monkey (not named yet) jumped onto the table and ate some left over scraps. Tom was waiting for me when I came back. Once he saw the stones in my hand, he darted off, up the tree and away from harm. These monkeys are getting a little to comfortable….


Besides the on-going monkey problem, I still love living at Pungu.


- Gabi and Wangari are slowly becoming my two older sisters…even if they don't want to admit it .


-Looking over the Indian Ocean, and waking up early to watch the sunrise never gets old.


-Going out and dancing after a long, hard week is great way to relieve stress..


So, I have been enjoying my time here. Life has been busy, and busy means good! After working on the league, it is now a must to visit the orphanage everyday. I love the kids, and have gotten to know them pretty well..especially one of them named Ali.


Ali is a great soccer player at the orphanage, who broke his toe three weeks ago and it wasn't just a normal, everyday, fracture. The broken bone was dislocated and punctured the skin. He went to the hospital, had it put back into place (as best as possible), and was sent back home, with his foot lightly wrapped.


I helped out.. The doctor, who took care of Ali, wanted to see him in three weeks. The doctor said to redress the foot after those three weeks. This was mind boggling because when you think about it, the dressing becomes dirty everyday, and with just a light wrap the open wound would become infected..

A couple of days passed and I took him back to the hospital. The doctor was unavailable and nurses told us we should redress it everyday. So, with the materials I purchased at a local pharmacy, Catherine, who works at the orphanage, and I cleaned and redressed his foot day after day. The wound was looking better for a short time, and it looked like it was healing. We decided to take him back to the hospital to make sure the toe was healing correctly. The doctor was not there to see him, so we had it cleaned and wrapped by the nurses and went back home.


Later on, I was not able to clean and wrap his foot over the weekend due to training and running league errands. The wound started to look worse and the toe became infected… (I would like to think that my cleaning and redressing was not the cause of this..but, maybe it was.) So, I took him back to the hospital, and met with the doctor who saw him earlier..All he did was write a prescription for antibiotics, told us to cut-off the dead skin ourselves (I was thinking.."Are you serious?"), and to redress the wound two times a day.


Two days later, I could not take it anymore. The wound was not healing correctly and the toe was severely infected. I took a picture, and sent it home to Dr. Levey (my dad :) )..He told me I should get him to the hospital the next day. I decided to take him that night (I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep) to what is known as one of the best hospitals in Mombasa.


The doctors there were much better and they said that Ali needed to go into surgery. Catherine and I stayed with him for three nights in the hospital..He watched movies on my laptop, ate, and laid in bed..I called him "King Ali", due to the fact that he had all the food he wanted, and all the love anyone could endure (people from the orphanage and many friends came to visit him everyday).


Now, he will go back to the hospital to get his foot redressed (not a light wrap like before) twice a week. Everything should be fine. The infection did not reach the bone, so the toes and the foot are going to be okay :). Don't want to jinx it though..The infection could come back..I will keep you guys updated!


Life is good and the league is still moving forward in the right direction..

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