wednesday

We set off on our visit in the hospital transport as no private taxi would take us, only 1 hour later than planned, not bad for African time . We are going to use the money the taxi would have cost us to have Joseph's (the hospital soc worker) motor bike repaired as he has been unable to do visits for 2 mths waiting for it to be repaired! The journey started off smoothly enough and we had with us the physio, soc worker , Dr Alphonse ( who didnt want to miss out on the team outing!) , driver and a 'chap who knew the way', Rwamagana's answer to a sat nav! however this small counrty is not called the land of a 1000 hills for nothing  and as we left the main road we were soon  up and down with steep gradients on red earth pot holed tracks, side sitting in the back of the ambulance . The scenary was beautiful, views of the lake , contrasting foliage , smell of eucalyptus trees, goats , mud houses and groups of Africans sat under trees. On route we crossed into another district and had to stop and get paperwork permission to take a working vehicle through! Our destination was to 23 year old  Agnes. She lives in a mud house with her father and step mother. 3 years ago she had a caesarean section from which she woke up paralysed from the waist down , doubly incontinent and unable to sit other than for a few minutes to eat. her husband left and has a new wife but he does let the 3 year old daughter visit. For 3 years Agnes has lain on the floor being cared for by her stepmother and has not moved from there. Her smile was amazing , she was so pleased to see us and loved the English sweets I had and the perfume stick I gave her that was in my bag ,we took the food  for her parents. We were able to check that all her pressure sores were healed and managed to pull her to a sitting position although her waist and hips are v stiff. we asked her if she would like a wheel chair to be pushed outside her eyes lit up. A wheel chair is too expensive for the family. Ruth has some money that has been donated and I measured the door frome and while we are in Kigali we are going to the church firm that makes wheel chairs and hopefully buy one. This afternoon was an entertaining if not exhausting session on communication skills. at one point I was lying on the table in role play !