Senga Bay, Malawi … “As I enter I can see her sitting on a mat near the back of the house. I can’t believe what I am seeing. How can this have happened, and how can she sit so still, in such hot weather, with her leg propped up as it is. I ask what happened,” recalls Samatha Ludick. Ludick owns the Cool Runnings Lake Resort and Tom’s Campgrounds, just down the beach in Senga Bay. With the cooperation of the Malawi Project, and a number of guests from her Cool Runnings Lake Resort, Ludick has established Clinic at the Gate, a medical outreach program for the hundreds of residents who live in fishing villages along the western shore of Lake Malawi.
Ludick continues, “She shyly tells me she was in the fields cutting grass to re-thatch their house, when the sickle slipped, cutting deep into her skin. As I look closer it is obvious the sickle had cut very deep, and the rest of her leg has developed tropical ulcers. What do I do next?”
The first thing Ludick does for Kamwendo’s wife, Jane, is to give her a proper painkiller. She continues her narrative, “She has been using Hedex, and I know this is only for a “mild to moderate” pain. She needs much more in the way of pain relief. After giving her a stronger painkiller, we take her to Tom’s, my other business, where we have more space and lots of hot water. We clean her up, soak her leg in warm salt water, and remove the dead skin on her foot, trying as hard as we can to not cause her too much pain. Kamwendo assures us she trusts us, so she will accept whatever we need to do to help her, but this does not make it an easy thing to do.”
Caring for this injured woman is all in a day’s work for the owner of this lake resort. In spite of the pressing needs of two businesses, Ludick spends much of her time overseeing a number of assistance programs for the Senga Bay residents.
As she finishes with Jane, she concludes, “All the time I was working on her I was saying, ‘Thank you Lord, thank you for the Malawi Project and the medical supplies they send me. Without them I could not help her.’”