Pembury Baptist Church

In an email received 10th August 2009, Lyndsay writes:

'Hey everyone,
 
How are you all doing!! I realised the other day that it has been ages since I last wrote!! I don’t really know where the time has gone! 
 
If I’m honest, whenever I thought about writing, I could never think of anything to put. I have found the last couple of months really hard, because I haven’t been very healthy and that has consequently made me really tired and not in a very good place in terms of emotional and spiritual stuff. But I am feeling a lot better now. Jauida came to visit for three weeks, which was so nice, and we were able to have some good chats about stuff, and my head feels much clearer!!
 
So I have a few things to tell you about about life here over the last few weeks. I can’t remember if I told you or not, but we have started up a new clinic in a community called Muchatezina.
 
The first week that we ran it, we had a team over from Australia at the same time.  A couple of the women in the team ran sewing classes alongside the clinic so there were so many people. I think I did about 36 consultations that afternoon, and most of the people had severe anaemia or sexual health problems. Being a paediatric nurse, this made me feel completely out of my depth and I was really struggling with my language that day too. Even though Jill was there helping me translate, and helping me diagnose stuff too, I felt so drained by the end of the day, and it really bothered me that I was feeling like that. There was such a contrast in working there compared to working in Manga, where the other clinic is, and the thought giving out hundreds of iron tablets and coaching people in the art of having sex, did not fill me with too much excitement.
 
A couple of weeks before, I employed my neighbour, Roda, to work with us. She is a third year medical student, and so I thought she would be handy and could be someone that I can start to train up to continue the clinics once I have left. She is lovely as well, and has been such a blessing to me!! So after this new clinic I spoke to her, and asked her to explain some of the cultural stuff in relation to the level of understanding that people have about sexual health. She explained that a lot of the younger women don’t know how to have sex and consequently run into all these problems with pain etc, but because they don’t understand, they think they are dying of a problem that is probably very simple to resolve!
 
This made me realise how basic you have to make things here. Roda suggested doing teaching sessions for the whole community about sexual health, but when I was thinking about it, I realised that if we did this it would have to be done at primary school level, but to fully grown women, which I have no clue how to address when it comes to talking about things like that. I also thought that they needed teaching about healthy eating, but again, had no clue about the kind of level that I would need to aim it at. It just completely overwhelmed me and made me question the point of this whole project. I know that any teaching or consultations would help a little, but that community needs so much input. It needs someone that is going to be dedicated to doing stuff with them for a good few years, and I am really aware that I am coming home in 4 months!! I didn’t want to start something that the people would become reliant upon, and then just stop in December.
 
It was so refreshing to go to Manga the next day and see the people that I have already formed relationships with, and know that the consultations and the advice I give will be more understood or at least taken on board. It was interesting to see the difference in the two communities as well. Although they are close together in terms of distance, they are miles apart in terms of education, level of living, hygiene etc. I think because the city of Beira is so small (kind of like the size of Tunbridge Wells town centre), it didn’t really occur to me that such vast differences would exist!
 
It was actually good timing for me to do that clinic, as the week after I had 2 weeks off so it gave me time to think up a new strategy!! When I went back this last week just gone, it was much better. We did consultations again, but the people seemed a lot more open and came with problems that were much easier to deal with!!
 
Other than that work is going well still. I am starting to think about making sure that everything is set up so that stuff can continue once I have left, so I am busy training the rest of the team in community health so that even if we have to stop giving out medications, they can still assess patients and give advice. My colleague, Raima pretty much does the whole of the nutrition programme now, and monitors all the babies that we have so far so that aspect of the project is sorted and I think the sustainability of that will be easy to maintain.
 
My holiday was so nice! Even though I was only actually away for a week, it was good to get a change of scenery and not have to be in Beira for a few days!! There was a lot of travelling but it was definitely worth it. We went to Maputo for two nights because I had to get my visa stamped again, so whilst we were there Jauida and I went across the border to Nelspruit and did a bit of shopping! Then we went back to Maputo, and my friends Heather and Jen had come too, so we all got the bus up to Tofo beach which was perfect. A little chilly this time of year, but the weather stayed sunny. We stayed there for 2 days, and ate good food and had nothing to think about!! It was lovely! Then after that we got the bus back to Beira. It was a shame as I had planned to carry on chilling on the beach here over the weekend, but both Jauida and I were sick with stomach bugs. Was nice just sleeping on the sofa though!!
 
This month is going to be sad, as both Jill and Jen are leaving. Jen is actually leaving the country in 3 weeks. Jill is here until the beginning of October, but is finishing work at the end of this month. It will be so strange not having them around! I will miss having them to talk to about the ridiculous things that seem to happen most days, and being able to laugh about stuff together, which I think is what holds us all together!! The new girl, Jo, arrives in the middle of September, so it will be good to meet her and get to know her. I’m slightly worried about her orientation stuff. I remember how much the other girls did for me in terms of getting around, and language etc and it feels a little overwhelming that I need to do the same for her after only being here for 6 months! I can get myself around with Portuguese, but it might be a different story when it comes to doing it for someone else!! I will miss Sunday afternoons at the beach club too! We have had many happy times sitting there playing speed scrabble and putting the world to rights! Oh well. Lets hope Jo likes scrabble!!
 
God has been cool too. The last few weeks have been a bit hard as I said before. I have just felt completely drained and was really struggling to find any energy to give out to people. I felt like I needed to hibernate for a few weeks and I lost all motivation to do anything. I thought that a couple of quiet weekends would help, but it didn’t really help that much. However, it was really good to be able to talk about stuff with Jauida and let go of some of my emotions. I feel a lot better now, and God has been really faithful and has spent the last couple of weeks showing me that these feelings are completely normal and giving me loads of encouragement through the people that we have been spending time with. I feel a lot more motivated to finish the last few months that I have here, although I still cannot wait until Decemeber.
 
I went through a stage of feeling like I don’t know where I fit in anymore. I feel settled here, but there is always going to be the language barrier and the cultural differences, and I’m never going to completely understand Mozambique, no matter how long I’m here for. And then as well, I feel like I’ve been away from home for ages now, and I feel a bit out of touch with stuff that is happening there. I don’t really know where these feelings came from, or whether it was since Jauida came, and I was reminded of home, or whether I was just being a bit over sensitive! I think it was probably the latter, but I feel so much better about that stuff now.
 
A few weeks ago, Jen and I bumped into a missionary couple in the supermarket and they told us they were leaving and selling all their furniture. The best part was that they were selling their 3-piece suite!! In our house we had the most uncomfortable and smallest 2 seat couch. It was made out of wicker and we quite often had scratches all over our backs just from sitting on it for half and hour.
 
So we went to see this couch, sat on it, discovered it it quite possibly the comfiest couch ever, even though it is the ugliest 70’s retro style I have ever seen, and bought it!! We took it home that afternoon, and it has provided us with the best therapy time ever!!
 
When we first had it, it was so nice to get home from work and relax in front of the TV. We used to watch TV before, but it was never comfortable so I don’t think we aactually ever unwound after work. Jen was also feeling quite similar to me, and so for the last week or so, we decided we were going to counsel each other through this. We have talked about so much stuff, and most of it has been stuff that we didn’t even realise was bothering us, and we have had amazing prayer times together, and we’ve cried together, and had ridiculous funny times, which we’ve not really had before in our friendship. It is such a shame that it has only happened now, just before she leaves, as I think things would have been a lot easier if we had talked about stuff before. It has definitely given me more understanding about stuff out here, and I hope its helped her!
 
I love that all this came about just because we had a sofa, so thanks God for blessing us with it I say! Its amazing what the small things can do!!
 
Yesterday, we had a team arrive from England to help us out for two weeks with building a  new community tap, and running kids clubs at the same times as clinics. It is exciting to have new people here.  They are all just out of university, and are very excitable about being in Africa!! It should be a fun couple of weeks!! We also have a clean-up day on Saturday. Every year, the city celebrates Beira day and so we are targeting an area in the middle of town and inviting all the pastors, communities and churches that we work with as a whole organisation to help clean the city!! We will do it for three hours in the morning before the sun gets too hot and then celebrate on the beach!! Then, because this will be classed as work, that means I get a day off next Monday so me and Jen will take the team to Savane for  the day, which I am quite excited about!!!
 
I am also planning a trip to Zimbabwe with Jill, as she needs to pick a friend up, and I need to do my visa, so we thought we could go for a couple of days and have some quality Jill and Lyndsay time before she leaves. We are going to try and go to Victoria Falls as there is a photo competition in town here and the prizes are quite good!! We are planning on taking some good snaps of the waterfalls and winning myself a water bed!!! I know I only have 3 and half months left, but I’m all for the comfort these days!!
 
Anyway, I best do some work and stop waffling! Hope you are all well, and I will try and get better at writing more regularly again!!
 
Lots of Love,
Lyndsay xxxx'