One of those days!

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We started yesterday (Sunday) with both of our doctors gone and so I started the day by making rounds and making sure all the in-patients were settled. While I was making rounds Major came and said the Chinese company putting in the cell tower behind our hospital (yes we might have a phone in 1 month!!) had extra cement they wanted to sell us from their other site at Makande about 2-3 hours drive from here. So we decided to send our lorry (yes it is up and working-finally!) for it. Of our driver and helper went.

By 7 p.m. Sunday evening I had a prior C/Section in labor and not having strong contractions to progress well and the lorry was not back! So we called our back up driver and another helper and sent them with the LandRover off to find our lorry. We had expected one of the doctors back by combi or bus but none had come by then and we kept hoping he might make it back in order to do a C/S here.

By midnight by lady was still not progressing and no doctor we thought. I had sent the guard to knock on the doctor's door and he came back and said no answer. This morning when the doctor showed up for work he said he actually came at 11 p.m. so we think the guard knocked at the wrong doctors house! So I had to send our lady in labor off to Chinhoyi for a C/Section (Karoi doesn't do C/S)--3 hours away! Woke up Major to say all the drivers are gone what do I do? He came prepared to go and then we decided it was better to send our other driver who was on leave with the patient if he would go. So Major went to his house to see and drove back with him. We got the patient off about 1 a.m. and back to sleep waiting for other trucks to come.

By 5:15 a.m. when I got up, still no lorry or LR so woke Major up and he took another person with our last vehicle here to find the other 2 . After they left I remembered we were starting a new ART clinic about 45 minutes away from here today and now i had no car and no guarantee when one would be back-yikes!
When I got to the hospital about 7 a.m. all 3 trucks were now back. Major had met them about 5 miles from the mission! The lorry had loaded the cement at Makande about noon and drove only about 45 minutes when it got stuck in mud. It waited the whole day trying to dig itself out and when the LR arrived they proceeded to unload all 70 bags of cement and pull the lorry out of the mud and then reload (in the dark!). They got through that mud hole and proceeded to get stuck 2 more times! Each time they unloaded the truck of all 70 bags of cement and pulled the lorry out and then reload each time. We saved $2 a bag by picking up ourselves--after that we felt like paying the $2! When they got here I said ok--unload again! They said NO WAY! Then they reported the company has more cement for us if we wanted it and Major and I yelled--NO!
They all went off to eat and to sleep! I am sure they dreamed of loading and unloading cement in their dreams!

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