By Saturday, we had almost all of the prosthetic legs finished. Melvin's was still in fabrication since he had just come on Friday for casting, but everything else was ready for fitting.
The couch of legs. :)
Here is the man that had come for a prosthetic eye that the nurse from Choma had contacted. He was back for fitting today.
I love this picture and the one below. Such a great example of the wonderful work John does. Before and after. John's talent for making these eyes is just amazing!
This is another man (closest to Esther) who came for a prosthetic eye with the other two guys. John didn't have time to make him a custom one but did have an eye already made that he could be fit with.
After fitting picture.
And a group picture. The two guys do look very solemn in this picture, but they were thankful for John's work. Not many of the people seem to smile for pictures.
This is Luyando. She was bitten by a snake in November 2013, which is how she lost her leg above the knee. Her father brought her to see if we could give her a prosthetic leg. She was casted, and we told them to bring her back on Tuesday for fitting. We would be leaving New Day on Wednesday, so they had to come Tuesday.
After the eye fittings and casting Luyando, plus Chris and I had been working on fabrication for Melvin's prosthesis...we set out to Luckson's village to fit him with his new prosthesis. Luckson's village is about 25 km off the main road on a very narrow, winding dirt road with many holes...something akin to driving through a cow pasture here in Texas on the little dirt tracks road. This whole trip is what I have since labeled as "driving by faith". We took the Nissan truck, which is new, dependable on running and has 4 wheel drive. However, the truck had very little fuel and there wasn't any in gas cans at New Day. Oh well, we'll just stop at a little village before we get off the main road to see if a man Blu knows had any fuel...he usually has a little that Blu can buy.
Pictures at the place we stopped to check for fuel to buy. You can see the large amount of maize in the background, which is a major crop in Zambia.
The man had no fuel to buy, so we set off towards Luckson's village with below a 1/4 tank of fuel. We'd just trust that we had enough fuel to get there and back.
John and Blu sat up front. Here's a look at the backseat passengers. (Jason looks way too enthusiastic...we were all wondering whether we had enough fuel.)
And along the road, it started raining. And this wasn't just a small shower...torrential downpour. All the water seemed to flow on the road, so it sort of seemed like we were driving on a small river. So we were driving in the rain, on a super bumpy road, with little fuel, to a village that we weren't completely sure how to get to.
Here's a video of our drive. I was trying to hold the camera as still as possible but the road was so bumpy!
We made it to Luckson's village (the rain cleared up while we were there). Everyone gathered around to watch as we fit Luckson.
Luckson was wearing some of the clothes that Chris had given him when he came to New Day for casting.
Everyone standing and watching us.
They were so hospitable and got a chair for John to sit in.
Luckson's family was so thankful for us making him a prosthesis that they gave us 3 pumpkins, a sack of peanuts (they call them ground nuts) and a live chicken. Here they are giving the chicken to Blu. Apparently giving a chicken is a very nice gift, but a live chicken is even more of a special gift.
The rain had cleared off for our trip back to New Day. Maybe halfway back to the main road the low fuel light came on, but thankfully we made it all the way back to New Day without running out of fuel. Whew!
Obedient was waiting for us when we returned for fitting of his prosthesis.
He did really well with the instructions on how to walk with the prosthesis. He didn't feel comfortable enough to go without crutches yet, but he probably will be soon.
Obedient was really excited to get his prosthesis. He was one of the people who actually smiled a lot when he got his prosthesis.
Another beautiful day in Zambia.
*Next post is Day 12: Church, baptisms and prosthetics
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