January 29,2009 will not go down in history as one of my great days. I woke up in the morning with high hopes. I was almost finished with my work in the lowlands and was looking forward to an early departure of about 11:00 am,  that would make it possible to be home in time for my daughter Jilin's 15th birthday celebration.  Not until I got out to the truck did I realize that my schedule of events would be a bit different.  The front tire was flat. Well, that is not too surprising here, as flat tires are about as common as carabaos and mosquitoes.

Although the tire was practically new, upon removing it I found wire sticking out everywhere: wire out of the side walls, wires out of the tread. It became evident that my nice new $150 tire was history; the National Highway ( which should be called the national disgrace) had managed to destroy another tire.  Well, I accepted the fact that I would have to scrape up another $150 for a new tire but at least for the time being I thought I had a spare tire. By this time the sweat was running into my eyes and dripping off my nose, as I dislodged the spare tire out from under the mud encrusted underbody of the truck, but alas, it also was flat. So I pulled out the trusty hand pump (mandatory equipment for all vehicle owners here).  No need for multi-million dollar fitness centers here. Pumping up a flat spare is enough to give you a good dose of exercise and the sauna is throne in for free, but sad to say the air was exiting the about as fast as it went in.  Yep, the good trusty vulcanizing shop employee had not tightened the valve stem, which meant a trip back to the house to find the correct tool to finish the job that should have been done before. Tool in hand, I advanced on the tire.  Oops, before this job could be done I had to haul the tire over to the local well and clean up the tire: there was so much mud that the socket would not even fit onto the base of the valve stem. At the well there is no hose or faucet, just a creaky hand pump.  Just a minute, where is the can to prime the pump?! Finally I splash some water into the top of the pump and begin to crank the handle.  Pretty cool. You can hear the water gurgling it's way to the surface with each stroke of the handle. Finally it came pouring out in a fitful stream. By splashing water onto the tire and clawing at the mud with my fingers I was able to remove most of the skin off of my knuckles and a lot of the mud off of the tire....“Lets get this baby over to the truck and we will hit the road soon,” I thought to myself. I was in my efficiency mode now as I hoisted the tire to my shoulders and made my push off for the sprint to the truck. Oops, bad move, for you see, this is where everyone washes their clothes by hand, and so the cement is usually wet, and therefore, due to the high humidity here, a luxuriant garden of slime also grows. Now mind you, this is not your ordinary garden variety slime, this is, you might say, a super-duper, slick-as-slug-slime variety, that has an even better slipperiness coefficient than Teflon. Well you can imagine the results.  There I was sprawled on the  green cement with a 75-pound tire and wheel on top of me. “Well no big deal.” (I can say that now but it was not what I said at that moment.)  More skin donated from my ankle bones. I crawled out of the slime garden pushing the tire ahead of me and so proceeded to the truck. Bleeding, but close to victory, I then discovered that the valve stem was still leaking.  But this time it was the little gizmo inside the stem that was causing problems.  Well that could also be solved.  I rummaged around for a valve cap but then found that the valve cap would not go on.  The threads were messed up. However, each time I would try to put it on I would be able to turn it about a millimeter further.  Ok the problem can be solved, no special tools needed.  Twist on, twist off, on, off, on, off. Yes we're making progress. Fifteen minutes later I am still sitting there, on, off, on, off.  I am glad to report I finally got it fixed. (I know that it is getting boring reading about this, so can you imagine what it was like doing it.)

15 hurdles finished, we are on the home-stretch...or at least I thought we were.  I jockey the tire into place. It is all downhill from here.  Two hands to lift the tire a quarter inch off the ground while my third hand fits a lug bolt into place and my forth hand grabs the lug wrench.  A piece of cake.  It was no big deal anyway.  As I happily tighten the lug bolts there does seem to be a minor glitch.  From past experience it seemed as if a normal lug bolt should be turned maybe 15 or 16 times before it was tight.  Funny thing, these lug bolts only take two turns and they are ready to snug down.  I want to get the job done but on the other hand a small voice in my head says. “Remember that day when you were driving down the national highway and suddenly your front wheel was rolling on ahead of you, off the road and into the ditch? A bit embarrassing sitting there in the middle of the road with a three wheeled vehicle.” Yep, I remember well and with a sigh of frustration proceed to remove the tire.. Maybe the threads on the studs are messed up. On, off, on, off, on, off, on. off, on, off, on, off.  Nope all the threads seem OK.  Maybe the hole in the aluminum rim is messed up. I take a lug bolt and insert it into a hole...but find it fits just fine. Well maybe it was just my imagination, I think. I once again install the tire and start tightening the lug bolts. Wow it is working. I am so smart.  Hot dog we are on a roll! I get four lug bolts snugged down loosely. Two more to go. Whoops, what do we have here?`. Number five does not want to go on... well let's try number 6. Maybe we can get by with only five. But number 6 does not go on either.  Anyway before I bore all you folks to death.  I removed the tire again. After scratching my head enough times I eventually ascertained that although the lug bolts all looked exactly the same, the outside diameter of some were just a a couple thousandths bigger than the others. Some would work and some would not. Pretty simple but it took an hour or so to figure it all out.  By this time the sun was high in the sky beating down with merciless vengeance.

It was already well past time to go to the hospital and talk to the doctor about our in-patients. But I need to clean up first, not wanting to arrive and have the whole ward go running away holding their noses and yelling, “ Here comes another stinky Americano!” By the time I was ready to leave, it was 11:00 am. The doctors had long ago made their rounds, so I would have to go in search of them at their various hospitals (Most doctors here run their own hospitals as well as seeing patients at the general hosptial.).

Well, things pretty much went the same way they'd been going, when I arrived at the general hospital. 

“I need to pick up the x-ray.”

“Whose x-ray?”

“Lebin's x-ray.”

“What's her last name?'

“Muntu.”

“That's not the name we have.”

“That's because their last names do not work the same way as last names in the lowlands. Just because they get married their last name does not necessarily change.”

“What is their problem? Why don't they do things the right way?”

“Well it's their culture.”

“No, it's the wrong way.”

“Anyway, even though you have a different name, where is the x-ray?"

“She had no x-ray.”

“But I was sure she had an x-ray taken.”

“No she didn't.”

“But it says right here on this piece of paper that an x-ray had been requested.”

“ We do not have an x-ray.”

“So why did the billing department charge me for an x-ray?”

“ That's the billing departments problem.”

“But she had a shoulder problem and needed an x-ray.”

“No we were treating her for a UTI.”

“But she had shoulder problems...  Okay, what about the other patient?  I need the results of the ultrasound.”

“I am sorry but we have no results for the ultrasound.”

“But she had an ultrasound taken.”

“Yep”

“So what are the results?”

“We have no results, we only take ultrasounds, but there is nobody here to tell us what they mean.”

“Well, can I have the picture?”

“Sure it is right there.”

“That's it?”

“Yeah.”

“But that is just a black piece of paper. I can't see anything but black.”

“Well I guess you can't read ultrasounds either.”

“But there is no image, it is just black.”

“You will have to ask the doctor. Sit there and the doctor will be in in an hour or two.”

“Well thanks for your help.”

An hour and a half later...

“Well doc, thanks for the ultrasound. By the way, could you tell me what this prescription says that you wrote?”

"Why do you need me to tell you? It's written right there.”

“Well you see, nobody in the mountains was able to read it either.”

“So what is their problem?”

“I don't know, they just could not read it.”

“OK, I will write it again. “

“Thanks Doc.”

Fortunately I was able to go to the person who runs the pharmacy and after looking at the prescription she was able to write it out in a legible manner.  I really felt as if I had accomplished something. It was now after 1:00 pm and I had a black piece of paper and a legible prescription.

By 4:00 that afternoon, I was back at the hospital trying to explain to a mother that her baby who weighed 3 pounds and was on the brink of death five days ago was not ready for discharge. The mother an old weathered mountain woman who had been as sick as the baby just a couple days ago,  was loudly proclaiming that she would not stay in the hospital another day. Her husband was trying to calm her down. The married daughter, the only one who seemed responsible, was nursing her little brother, because the mother couldn't. Everyone was jabbering away at once. As the whole situation was about ready to boil over., I ran to the doctor and asked if the mother could be released. The doctor grudgingly agreed when I explained that the mother's attitude was infecting all the others in her family and that the baby's doctor had said that if the baby was released immediately it would be almost certain death.  I obtained the release and went back with the happy news. I had worked out a deal: the mother could go to the village of Kabanga`an and the father and daughter would stay with the baby until it weighed a whopping 4 pounds. I felt so proud of myself.  I told them the plan and then everyone went bananas. The daughter was crying, the mother was weeping.  Boy, had I ever come to the end of my rope! All I could do was sit there and say, “Hey God, this is Your problem, I sure don't have any solutions.” Finally the daughter went back to the pediatric ward to be with her tiny baby brother. The father seemed rational and I brokered a truce with him. He agreed to the former plan and I left to get ready to take his wife home and then head for the mountains and home.

I am afraid that bubble burst quickly. At the truck I wearily reached into my pocket and there was no key. I peered through the window and there dangled the key from the ignition switch. No big deal; I was prepared because I always had a spare key hidden in the truck. While I surreptitiously inspected the tire, my hand ran to the location of the hidden key. What?  NOTHING?  Where was the key? It was gone! .I crawled under and looked and sure enough, no key! I chipped away at the dried mud, hoping it was just covered over, but the key was gone for good and so were my hopes of getting into the truck.

By this time there was no reason to rush. Night would be closing in soon. So much for any birthday celebration.  I know the Bible says that in all things we should give thanks. Well at that moment I can say that I was not feeling highly thankful.  I decided that I would have to be thankful by faith.  At that moment it is only a theoretical thankfulness; feelings had nothing to do with it.  It was not the kind of day I had been hoping for or expecting. By now I had been home for a total of 4 days in the whole month of January and I couldn't even get home for my daughter's birthday.

But there was one glimmer of hope. I believed that I had an extra set of keys at home so I walked on home and sure enough there they were.  The day had now become sort of like running a marathon.  At the beginning of the race you are thinking about the time you will run it in but by the end of the race all you can think about is finishing.  I had no idea when I would get into those mountains but I had determined no matter what I would get there sometime.

So I returned to the hospital to take the lady to her village, but had to slam the door before the husband also squeezed in! I'd thought he understood the plan, but I had to remind him that his place was at the hospital with his infant. As I wheeled onto the road I was greeted by a loud wail from the back seat. What now?! I don't know what the problem was, perhaps just her way of adding to the enjoyment of the day. As we bumped and banged over the rutted road the shadows lengthened and darkness had fallen when we arrived at Kabanga`an.  The lady insisted that we drive up to a particular house, so I shifted into 4-wheel drive and slithered and slid and bumped our way up the steep trail.  We were greeted by a large crowd of curious folks. I sat down on the front step of the house with a flashlight clenched between my teeth and proceeded to write out the directions for taking the medications. A slow and laborious process. A picture of a rising sun for a morning medicine, a full sun for medicines to be taken at noon, and a setting sun for an evening medicine, and a moon for a medicine to be taken at night med. Every package had to be marked. By the time I was finished everyone in the village could repeat exactly what pill should be taken when.....that is, everyone except the lady who was supposed to be taking the pills! She would laugh and giggle and look the other direction and refused to learn what she was supposed to do. Finally I just told someone to be in charge of the medicines and make sure she took them and climbed in the truck and left.

8:30 pm and I was finally pulling into the sleepy little village of Bingbilang, where I usually leave the truck for my hike home.  Most of the people were bedded down and nobody came out to see what crazy thing I was up to now.  So I gathered all my belongings, threw the extra stuff that didn't fit into my backpack into a gunny sack that I slung over my shoulder and head up the trail.

It was a long hike. At night it always takes longer. There are always more animals on the trail. Frogs, poisonous centipedes and snakes. In the feeble beam of the flashlight it is hard too to tell the angle of the rock or trail that you will be stepping onto. At one point, coming down a perpendicular rock outcropping, I was over balanced and began to fall the wrong direction: that means the direction where one would fall a long way before hitting anything. I am not sure what halted my fall. I thought I was a goner but something pushed me in the other direction and I did not fall. Perhaps it was the hand of my angel.

The hike gives one a lot of time to think and pray. For a long while I hiked with only the sounds of the multitude of insects and toads and frogs, alone with my thoughts and with my God. As I hiked through the occasional village all was quiet except for an occasional bark of a dog. It was closing in on midnight when I finally came down the slippery path that leads to our house.  I cannot express my feeling of delight when the house came into view in the moonlight and there on the grass in front were Jilin and her friends still awake and still celebrating. I had not missed the party after all. Yes it is true it was winding down and soon everyone would be into bed. But it was so good to be home. So good to be with Leonda again. So good to have a place called home. So good to have so many blessings and so good to know that in spite of the trials and tribulations that the most wonderful place to be on earth is where God wants you to be.