PHEBE HOSPITAL JOURNAL

Reports #1 - 4
Reports #5-8
Reports #9-11
Report #12 - (February 10, 2004)
Report #13 - (February 10, 2004)
Report #14 - (February 12, 2004)
Report #15 - (February 12, 2004)
Reports #16-20
Reports #21-23
Reports #24-29
Report #30
Reports #31-35

Good Morning,

The night was "electrically challenging." First the Bishop's generator that power half the LCL compound at night has been broken since Friday, 06FEB06 and last night the LWF generator # 2 that powers the missionary and volunteer's wing of the LCL guest house, shut down after operating only a few minutes.

Sam and I were trying to complete work on the revised EC reforecast budget for the period of 13DEC03 to 12JUN04 and the new USAID OFDA grant application. Between 19:30 and 23:30 we had more time without electrical power than with power. It is hard to try to repair things when you can't even have power to produce the requests for assistance. Finally, the LWF financial officer agreed to start up the "big" generator for a few hours until 2 AM to assist us so we could work on our projects. Oh well, we must be flexible.

We did not hear directly from the USS [Upper Susquehanna Synod] work team at Phebe but they have the Phebe Iridium satellite phone for calling us with any requests or problems. Gary Winters should travel down from Phebe today to get supplies so we will get an update and forward any information to you.

Wednesday, 11FEB04, Dr. John Payne and Mr. Poul Bertelsen, MSAADA [a non-profit architectural service organization committed to designing churches, hospitals and educational facilities-- http://www.msaada.com/], a short-time consultant will arrive on the weekly SN Brussels flight. Paul will travel to Phebe on Thursday morning to start the assessment of the main hospital building and will give a preliminary report to the Phebe Board of Trustees and the officials of the Lutheran Church in Liberia on Friday night.

At Monday's HOC ( Humanitarian Operations Center ) meeting and security briefing, I reported the activities of the USS work team at Phebe.

More news soon, see ya, bill

top

Greetings from Urban Ministry of Lutheran Church in Liberia , under Pastor Bartholomew B. Colley.

Internet service is problematic; will send soon. Already I have visited training centers at Totota, Kakata, GayeTown, and MOHAD (Ministry of Handicapped and Disabled) on Lutheran Compound in Monrovia . Teachers have amazing accomplishments with meager resources.

I also participated in Planning Retreat and Evaluation Exercises and reviewed Ministry documents. We transported the team to Phebe last week, where they have already made 3 houses livable. All are well. 40+ Bangladeshi security there are friendly and seem competent; a tank is parked in the back yard.

Peacekeepers in Monrovia are welcome and unobtrusive. Travel to Phebe and around Monrovia is less tense than 2002. After 2 episodes of "runny belly", body is now in balance and "snug as a bug in a very warm rug" On Sun. I went to Baccalaureate Service at Methodist Univ. , which included 4 Lutheran Pastors from Gbarnga School of Theology. Graduation was Monday, delayed due to war.

We appreciate your prayers and concerns; there will be much to share when we return in 3 weeks. We will be unable to bring bullet crosses since US Govt. has declared them contraband and we would be arrested at customs.

Your partner in Service to Christ, Ruth Koble

top

Good Morning.

Poul Bertelsen, RA [Registered Architect] and John Payne, MD arrived as scheduled and with all their baggage last night in Monrovia . They were treated to dinner prepared by Ruth Kolbe and Rev. Marina at the LCL compound and then some rest. Today we will pick up some supplies Gary Winters and the USS work team requested last night via SAT phone and leave for Salala and Phebe about 10 AM .

The mission (trip) to the Phebe compound will include Poul, John, Dr. Gwenigale, a driver and me. We will stay overnight and return to Monrovia Friday afternoon for the planned Phebe Board of Trustees' meeting Friday evening. This meeting is very important for the Board share their thoughts and desires about the future role Phebe will play in delivering health care services in Central Liberia . Poul will also discuss his initial findings regarding the potential usage of the main hospital building (54,000 sq feet) and the other health care delivery buildings on the compound.

I will take my laptop and SAT phone on the mission to Phebe so the members of the USS work team will have an opportunity to communicate directly with friends and family back home.

The big project we are working on now is writing a grant to USAID / OFDA for six months of emergency disaster relief. Stephanie Sobol, Emergency Disaster Relief Coordinator, USAID OFDA , US Embassy in Sierra Leone , Corner of Walpole & Siaka Stevens Streets, Freetown is our principal contact and told Dr. Sandoe, Dr. G and me in a meeting last week to request up to $800,000 USD for this one-time funding. This will be in addition to our current request ($103,000 USD) from OFDA for generators and water pumps. We have requested assistance in this project from LWR in Baltimore , MD as our USA partner.

More news soon, see ya, bill

top

Bill has arrived to stay overnight, accompanied by an architect who specializes in tropical hospitals, Dr. Gwenigale, and Dr. Payne. So we have access to e-mail for tonight and maybe tomorrow morning. We're running on the computer battery right now, so I'll write until it runs out.

Little notes from the time when we had no e-mail capability:

Tuesday and Wednesday I spent cleaning up the mess left in the New Phebe Workshop. All of the tools were taken, but we knew that. The saddest losses were the bandsaw, which had belonged to my grandfather, and the ShopSmith, which was the first power tool I ever bought myself -- for $25 from an estate sale. All of the portable tools are gone; we had not been able to rescue them to Monrovia . The big set of DeWalt battery-driven tools, and a whole lot of "corded" power tools -- electric drills, impact wrench, router, sander, etc. The welder is gone. Everything.

But "they" -- the famous "they" who do everything -- were not so careful with the hardware. The floor in the workshop was covered with hardware. So for several days I crawled around on my hands and knees gathering up stuff, and then in the evening I would sort my finds into the filing cabinet that Grace Church gave me. Now I have a nice collection of screws, nails, bolts, hinges, washers - - 27 drawers of hardware. Mike refers to it as Cone Depot. In the absence of any other source of supply, this has become the central source for all the reconstruction work that is going on here. The boss carpenter, Amos, was after me this morning for a handful of 1 1/2 inch brads. Jim Foster was after me for three stove bolts. It's like that all day.

My little room in House 5 is also the workshop, and I have moved in a workbench, made from salvaged parts of four benches left in the ransacked shop. I also have a big shelf unit, and two red Craftsman rolling tool chests that had been rescued and taken to Monrovia for safe keeping. The tools are getting a bit less rusty each night, as I go after them with WD-40 and crocus cloth and rags.

On Wednesday I added a bed! Before that I had been sleeping on the floor, but the carpenters have been making beds, and on Wednesday I got one of them! It is a simple platform bed, but it sure beats sleeping on the floor with the cockroaches. Now the roaches have to work to get up the legs before they can annoy me.

On Tuesday and Wednesday Gary and Marlene went to Monrovia to buy supplies and food. Gary brought garbage cans for water, because water management is our biggest single problem (aside from security). Richard and Stephen, two Liberians who work in the two houses that we are occupying, spend hours every day hauling water in wheelbarrows from the well to the houses. We have 5 - 6 people living in each house, and we have to carry water for cleaning, laundry, flushing toilets, cooking, bathing, brushing teeth, etc.

Although we are living in the only two occupied houses on the compound, a few more people walk around the grounds each day. We take this as a good sign. There has not been a single day when we have not heard shooting. The more people we have on the grounds, the safer we will be.

On Wednesday there was a lot of shooting at the east end of the swamp that forms the center of the U-shaped hospital compound. Strangely, in the evening the U.N. troops across the road from our house had set up a volleyball net, and were playing volleyball with a LURD team! Each evening, after dinner, we have a little "mini church" service for the missionaries. I have conducted some, based on our BCP, and Butch Foster did one. On Wednesday nobody had signed up, so Gary suggested that we tell things for which we are thankful at the end of the day. Most of the things that people related were thanks to God for safety.

On Tuesday we thought that a French NGO, Action Against Famine, was getting ready to move in. Sadly, they were taking their stuff away; they are going to set up at Gbarnga, about eight miles farther along the road. But Bill has rented their compound to Save the Children U.K., and we can hope they will move in soon to provide some presence on the compound.

There is a large group of Liberians working with the U.S. volunteers on cleaning up the buildings that we will use for the small-scale resumption of medical work here. The eye clinic, eye surgery center, outpatient department, and community health building will be used as the first stage of the resumption of work. They are being cleaned and refurbished by the crew, with the Liberians paid through two grants given through Grace Church.

At about midnight last night some of the Bangladeshi soldiers came to the house where "the women and married couples" live. Everybody was asleep. Richard was sleeping on the porch as the advance guard in case of trouble. The soldiers woke him up, and he was terrified by the sight of flashlights and guns in the night. But they had only come to get Dr. Elaine. They had a woman who was about to deliver a baby, and according to their cultural rules they needed a woman attendant for her. We have nothing at all here to work with, so Dr. Elaine suggested that they go to Salala, where there are trained midwives and good equipment. The local troops used their U.N. radio to call the people in the truck bringing the woman to Phebe, and they got the truck turned around and sent it to Salala.

Mike has been doing water testing on the hand-pumped wells. The tests use five tubes for the water samples. In its simplest form, if the tubes turn red, the water is OK. If the tube turns yellow, the water has e-coli in it. The worst is if the tube turns yellow and froths. One tube = modest infestation. Two tubes = worse. Three tubes = quite bad, etc. The water from the well that we are using turned all five tubes yellow, with thick froth.

A few days later, Mike tested the water that comes out of our Katadyn filter for drinking water. It is red! YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!! Those filters cost an arm and a leg, but they're worth it! No boiling, so we save a whole lot of money on propane.

Now Mike is testing the other wells on the compound, although not really with any great hope that one will be materially better than the others.

Today Bill and Dr. Gwenigale are taking the African hospital architect around the hospital. The architect feels that just restoring the present hospital would be poor stewardship, and that we should at least consider taking down some parts and making the building more open to light and breezes. The original hospital, built in 1964, was designed on the premise that there would be virtually unlimited electricity 24 hours a day. It envisioned central air conditioning, electric lighting, and all the amenities of a U.S. hospital. But the economic reality is that we simply cannot afford the Diesel fuel to do that. So large areas of the hospital are dark and airless. The building was not designed as an African hospital, and it doesn't serve its intended purpose very well for that reason.

We shall see what the architect recommends for the future. For the short-term present, we shall function in the eye center, OPD and community health facility. This will give us time to get started on doing something to the big old building - - and particularly on raising money so that we can do something. So far there is no money; potential donors seem to be tired of pouring huge sums of money into Liberia .

This much should go out tonight, Thursday. I'll see if there is an opportunity to do more later. Kit

top

Reports #1-4      Reports #5-8        Reports #9-11

Reports #16-20       Reports #21-23      Reports #24-29

Download .doc version of Reports #12-15 (1KB)