It all started with getting locked in a bathroom and pushing out a window. Who knew the series of events soon to follow.
Day two in Zambia we finished ministry early so I decided to sit on the front porch under the window and have my quiet time with Jesus. I was reading my bible, learning great things, and having my mind blown by our Lord. When my back started to hurt (because it has been about 6 months since I sat in a solid chair with back support) and I asked “Katherine, would you crack my back?” She replied with “Yes, but you will have to show me how.” So, me being the overly excited person I am, I jump up without a care in the world.
BANG! I hit my head on the edge of the window.
My next comment is “Katherine, forget my back I might need you to check my head” and I walked into our house. Where I started to notice that now I am bleeding, so I say “Katherine I am bleeding, I will be outside.” This made perfect since at the time….don’t judge me. So, Katherine comes outside tells me she has a lovely “world race clean” cloth that she can use to apply pressure to my head. When she comes back we begin to laugh as she applies pressure to my head for me.
During this time of, I’ll call bonding, Ruby was in the shower and a chicken and a rooster tried to join her in it. (Ruby hates chickens) First I asked Katherine if she also saw the chicken and rooster trying to shower with Ruby or if I had a concussion. When she agreed to seeing them, I felt better and then we warned Ruby to the Chicken and rooster trying to attack her. Ruby groaned in displeasure about the chicken and rooster attack.
Ruby comes out of the shower and expects to find Katherine and I having some lovely bonding time (because of all the laughing we are producing at the moment) instead she walks out to see me covered in blood and Katherine applying pressure to my head. We quickly inform her that the window is evil and to not go near it. We finally get the bleeding to stop.
So, we all go into our separate tents to continue our individual introvert times. I am thinking oh thank you Jesus that the bleeding stopped and I won’t have to get stitches for the first time in my life while in Zambia. Well after some relaxing intorvert time in my tent it is time to go to dinner, but when I stand up the bleeding starts up again. I then find some gauze down at the bottom of my pack…that I totally forgot I had and apply it to my head and walk over to our ministry hosts house (this is also where our kitchen was, because we did not have one in our house).
As I am sitting on the couch waiting for dinner, Haley and Rashidat show up at the house for dinner. The first question they ask is “What happened to your head?”. So, I tell them the story of how I bumped my head on the window sill and Haley decided that I needed stitches and asked our ministry host to please get someone that can take me to the hospital. Only, the thing is in Chongwe you can’t just go to the hospital….you first have to go to the clinic and get referred to the hospital. After my team prayed over me, the neighbor takes Katherine and I to the free clinic to get my head examined.
Oh, the free clinic. It was what you would expect from an African free clinic. There were people all around, beds for overnight patients, and lots of crying babies. I didn’t wait long before I got called back into the one exam room, where they saw three patients at a time. After I sat down thought they kicked everyone out of the room and shut the door…I thought “OH NO! Oh goodness they just shut me off for the world, Katherine is no longer in sight…I am alone in a foreign free clinic getting stitches in my head.”
The man then grads a freshly wrapped stitching kit out of the closet for me…PTL on that one. After sterilizing all the stuff he then will be putting near my head he comes at me with a razor…..I think “excuse me sir but I already have a gash and don’t need another one!” instead I say “ummm what are you doing with that?” He says “ I must shave part of your head to give you stitches.” My reaction is “WHAT!?!?!?! NO, no , no, no, no! There has to be another way.” He says “No, I must shave your head.” The nurse in the room says “don’t worry hair grows back.” After I questioned if stitches are really that important and if I could possibly survive without stitches in my head, I let the man shave the part of my head around my wound.
He shaved so much of my head!!!!!…………Not really but my dramatic self-felt bald
He did give me local anesthetic before putting the stitches in my head. Then he saw me praying and I guess he thought I was just talking to myself because my mouth was moving and asked “what are you doing?” When I said praying over him and that he has a steady hand as he puts the stitches in my head…he gave me a weird look. Then he and I got into a small talk about prayer and how I believe in praying for everything because God should be a part of everything, and everyone likes an invite; even God.
So, after I get my 4 stitches I walk out of the room and look at Katherine with tears welling up in my eyes and say “he shaved me head!”.
Best part about a free clinic is everything is free! I got stitches for free.
The next couple days I wore a lot of hats to ministry because African children are fascinated by our hair here and I did not want them to mess with the stitches.
After a week I went back to the free clinic to get my stitches out with Rashidat….only issue is the free clinic was out of razor blades and if I wanted my stitches out then I would have to buy razor blades. The only instructions she gives me is that the store in town sells razor blades.
Okay, let me explain Chongwe is not a tiny village. This is a big province in Zambia. On the main road there is probably 60 shops all selling various items. So I look Rashidat and I am already feeling defeated and say “if we don’t find these razor blades in the first 5 stores then I give up and will wait to get them out at a hospital in Lusaka (the capital)”. But Rashidat just encourages me to at least try looking in these few stores across the main road from the clinic and in the third store they had razor blades, 5 for 25 kwatcha (or $2.50).
I go back to the free clinic with my razor blades in hand and sit down on the waiting bench for them to call me back in. The nurses ask me 5 times if I am sure I want my stitches out. I ask “do they fall out on their own or do they dissolve?”. The nurse says “No, they must be taken out.”. Politely as I can I say “yes I would like to have them taken out of my head then.”.
The nurse quickly gets my stitches out of my head, complements me on my fantastic hair. I tell her “thank you I get it from my mom.”.
Once they were out I said thank you to the nurses and met back up with Rashidat to walk home.
All in all I got stitches in Africa for the low price of $2.50. It was an experience and now I know to not sit under the windows in Africa.
