Carnival!

We started off this morning with another nice oatmeal breakfast and got an early start at the handicap center. Today the handicap center hosted a carnival for 250 – 300 kids and students of the center. There were 30 “stands” set up around the compound, each with a different attraction or game. Our team ran three games found around the carnival: throwing tennis balls at a pyramid of tin cans, launching objects out of catapults at targets and shooting BB guns at tin cans stacked across a wall. (These were the only games that involved “shooting things”, the rest of the games ranged from opening a book to a certain page while wearing boxing gloves to filling balloons full of water.)

Alex John and I ran the BB gun stand at the carnival and had a great time. I will note a couple interesting experiences, though. The handicap center offers a school for blind children and they of course wanted a turn at each station. So we had many blind children coming up and asking to take part, while we guided their hands and helped them aim toward the stacked tin cans and let a few shots go. (A couple of the blind students were great shots!) We had to convince the kids not to shoot the lizards running behind our set up of cans a lot of times too. Other than that, keeping lines full of excited children who don’t speak English organized kept us busy all morning.

After lunch, the Mobility team had a great opportunity to go out into the bush and see a man who could potentially use an electric tricycle. We had about a 30 minute trek out into the villages with a truck full of a mixture of therapists, translators, students, Yempabou (an African man who uses an electric trike now and has been a great help giving us feedback and updates with the tricycles), and his big electric trike.

We arrived at a small compound of a man who was in his 30’s and got in a motorcycle accident. When people found him, they threw him in a truck and drove him to the nearest “city” (the roads are very very bumpy). When they got there, they pronounced him paralyzed and sent him home without taking any x-rays or anything of that nature. He was left to sit at home with his family, unable to eat or move or do anything by himself. He has now regained some movement in his legs and can move his arms pretty well, but still cannot walk or even crawl on his own.
The therapists we traveled with have been working with this man for quite some time now, and we were brought out to see if he would like an electric tricycle of his own. After a lot of talking in French and Gourma (the native language), Yempabou let this man try out his trike and ride it around the compound for a little bit. The man’s house is about 30 yards from the road with a dirt path serving as a drive way of sorts. The man road up and back a few times with a huge smile on his face. After some time, one of the translators told us that he had not been to the edge of this road in 3 years.

After some more talking and logistics of taking down measurements for the man’s trike, we headed back to the handicap center to call it a day. This experience was just amazing to me, to see that one small project can make a complete change in this man’s life. Without mobility, he was left to sit around his house with no purpose. That trip out to the bush was just a real encouragement and was very inspiring.

Other than that, Dr. Fish joined us for dinner tonight and is feeling a little bit better (though still not back to full health yet) so thank you for all your prayers. We ask for continued prayer for our clients, working through the language barrier, and continuing our work throughout the trip.

-Justin