One of those days...

Wow, what a day we had yesterday.  We had planned a full day of activities, visits and interviews but almost nothing went as we planned.

We had arranged with President Ntholowa to do some visits in the morning and we thought he had said he wanted to start at 8:00.  When we got to his house, he was not ready and was thinking our appointment was for 9.  While we were waiting, one of the Elders phoned and told us Sister Reedie and her baby were at the chapel looking for a ride to the hospital because the baby was sick so we told the President we would be back and off we went to fetch the Reedies.

We got back to the President's house just at 9 and headed to the chapel to meet with the Zone Leaders.  President Ntholowa had been walking across the Lilongwe River on a rickety foot bridge while talking on his phone and had slipped and dropped his phone in the river.  A new phone costs several days wages so we were going to get a spare phone the ZLs had.  When we got the phone he realized it was with a different network than his old phone and wanted to keep the same number because he could download all his stored numbers from the network so we headed into town to get a new sim card. First he had to stop at a bank to withdraw some cash.  At the ATM, the lineup was a mile long and we ended up waiting over an hour and a half.  By that time it was too late to do the visits the President wanted and he asked us to take him and his family across the city to his in-laws. Taxi anyone?

By now it was almost one o'clock so we headed back across the city for a bite of lunch then down to the Kauma Chapel for our Saturday priesthood lesson.  When we arrived, there was no one there except a couple of girls waiting for Seminary time.  The Saturday cleaning crew had been there but had left the floor drying and no chairs set up for Sunday.  Sister Prete and I then set up everything and got the building ready for Sunday.

At 4, I had an appointment to do a Baptismal interview for a couple who had been taught by the Sister Missionaries.  We picked up the Sisters and headed to the interview. While driving, Brother Duma called and asked if we could come over after the interview to his house and answer some gospel questions for his visiting non-member sister.  While I was doing the interview, Sister Prete and the Sister missionaries went to another member's house who was close by.  They found that three days before, the sister had stepped on a nail and her foot was now inflamed and swollen and they felt she needed to go to the hospital to have it checked.

By this time it was about 5:00.  We went to the closest hospital but there were no doctors on duty so they sent us across the city to the central hospital which is always very busy.  We had to wait almost 2 hours before a doctor could see our sister. On examination, they determined she needed antibiotics and a tetanus shot, but said they had no drugs to give her.  They suggested we find a pharmacy to buy the drugs and then come back and they would give her the shot.  They suggested a pharmacy that might be open late that was across town.  We had no money with us so we had to drive in the opposite direction to our house to get cash then back across town to the pharmacy.  We remembered that there was a member living close to that area and we decided to call them to see if she knew if the pharmacy would be open.  It was not, but she thought that there might be one open in a mall in the other direction.  We headed there but it was closed as well.

We finally decided that our only option, other than waiting until Monday was to try one of the private hospitals.  The closest was the Seventh Day Adventist hospital.  When we got there with our prescription, they had the antibiotics but not the tetanus vaccine.  They phoned around for us and found a clinic still open that had one dose left. Back across town, get the shot, than back to the village to take our sister home.  By now it was 9:30.

We got home at 9:45 and decided on just a bowl of soup and bed.  We called the Dumas and rescheduled that appointment for Sunday.  We were just eating when the phone rang again. It was our Relief Society President from the Kauma branch.  She has a 17 year old girl living with her that had gotten pregnant and was now in labor.  Off to the village again, pick up this girl whose pains were down to less than a minute apart, and back across the city to the main maternity hospital. We were a little afraid for the back seat of our brand new truck. Baby girl born a short time later.  By the time we got home it was midnight, and other than the baptism interview, nothing went as planned.  Crazy day!!!