Thankful for my good Samaritan today….

Thankful for my good Samaritan today….

…..and many other Zambians who helped so much today.

Today didn’t go quite as planned! It started well with a run around the neighbourhood where I am staying in the home of Charity, one of the GNG Zambian team. I’m up here in Chingola town in the Copper Belt of Zambia at the invitation of GNG to deliver the 360Life workshop to a range of participants, but more of that another day.

There was I was enjoying a run, until I somehow slipped off a concrete slab that was crossing a culvert, hit the ground very hard, and had such pain in one ankle that I couldn’t walk. The elbow on that side also hurt enough that I wouldn’t let anyone near it. Many locals gathered round (not surprisingly – it’s not every day a white runner crashes to the ground in front of them), and there were lots of hands to help me up etc. That was no good as I couldn’t stand. So I sat, and one lovely lady brought me some water to help me recover.

Having tried again to walk, and totally failed, I was starting to wonder how on earth to get back to the home where I was staying. I didn’t have a phone as I figure that makes me more vulnerable to a ‘snatch and grab’, a theory I might review after today! And that’s when my good Samaritan appeared. Having determined in broken English where I was staying, he lifted me up and started giving me a piggy-back. He was strong, but maybe not enough to get me the whole way there, so when he said that he had a truck nearby, I persuaded him to put me down to wait whilst he went and got it.

Having reappeared, he then gathered me up and lifted me into the cab, with me trying to help with my one good leg and good arm. This wonderful guy, and his co-driver who had appeared along the way, then drove me to my accommodation. Along the way he called work and told them he would be late as he was helping a mzungu. I got the sense that he might be financially penalised for not turning up on time, but he wasn’t bothered.

At the house he waited until he knew whether we needed him to take me to the hospital, but once it was confirmed that one of the GNG team was coming to get me, he drove off without a word. Frustratingly I didn’t get his name, or his number, as I’d really like to give him a thank you gift. The family here are trying to trace him, but so far no luck. He truly was my good Samaritan though as I’d have been a lot more stuck without him.

The rest of the morning included a lot of hours spent at the hospital, getting checked by the nurse, then by the doctor, then having x-rays, then confirmation of a small fracture to my left ankle, and then having a POP back slab put on. With a very sore left elbow, it’s proving very hard to be non-weight bearing, but I’m doing my best and hopefully the elbow will settle down soon and I can take some weight through it.

All of the staff at the hospital were so very lovely. On this international women’s day, it might have been coincidental that all the staff who inputted to me were women, but they really were wonderful, and I am so very grateful to them all.

I did deliver the workshop in the afternoon, from a seated position not surprisingly, and it did go very well. Tomorrow is the last day, so I’ll do a photo blog then, but for now I just want to raise up my good Samaritan and all those who stopped to help in any way, most of whom were women living in the area. At no time did I feel unsafe, and as a result I knew that somehow it would all be OK, as the community were clearly not going to abandon me. God was there throughout, sending the right people to help me at the time I needed it most.

This will certainly be an International Women’s Day that I won’t forget in a hurry!