So 3 very good things happened yesterday that I would like to share with you all:
#1. I got a job! I real honest-to-goodness job! I am going to be a volunteer/teaching coordinator. I am even getting paid, which I was not expecting at all! I will be making $200 a month, and will have a lot more responsibility than last year. I am not sure exactly what it is at the moment, but as soon as I find out I will let you know. I am so excited! So now family and friends...now that I know I am going to be sticking around for while...COME VISIT ME! Anytime, just let me know!
#2. I had a chance to play with the lion cubs (see previous post). Tiny, angry, meat-eating lion cubs. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life. I really think this one can only be explained by pictures....My pictures wont download! Look at my facebook to see the pics.
#3. To make this one clear to you all, I need to explain the backstory. Be warned: The backstory is sad.
Last Monday, I was working in the clinic and this little boy came in with his mother. He was two years old, but did not look like the chubby little butter balls I have become quite used to (Rubes). He basically was a skeleton with skin, and his eyes were severely sunken in. He sat there clinging to his mother moaning...not crying, but moaning. It was clear when looking at him and his chart that he was severely malnourished--like the kind of thing you only read about. According to the chart, he had weighed 9.5 kg. The day I saw him, he weighed 7.3 kg. It was also clear that his mother had checked out...basically, given up. She seemed detached to what was going on with her son. When they went in to see the clinical advisor, I couldn't stop thinking about them. So when they came out, I made them come see me again. They had been referred to the hospital, but I was worried about if they would go or not, due to what I had witnessed with the mom earlier. I got the name and the address, and later that day, I told my project manager what I'd seen. The next day, we sent our medical liason to the house. The mother had taken Castro (the baby) to the hospital, but we found out that this family was starving. It turned out that the mother was sixteen and that she she had been raped and left pregnant. Both her parents had died from AIDS and she was being looked after by her grandmother. The grandmother was not working due to illness, so there was no money for food. Rosie, one of the coordinators, and the med. liason went to visit Castro at the hospital and took milk, fruit, vegetables and multivitamins. He was not allowed to eat them yet because they had to give high nutrients-formula, but the nurses set it aside for the family.
Yesterday, I had a chance to go visit him at the hospital with Rosie and the change that had occured in one week was astounding! He was not healthy by anymeans, but his face had gained a bit of weight and his eyes were not sunken in anymore. He was still ridiculously malnourished, but they were starting to put him on solid foods.
Everyday, I work in these clinics and I take these sick patients' vitals. I never get a chance to see how and if these people get well. I know that I had little to do with Castro's weight gain or the fact that he was doing a little bit better, but it was still amazing to be able to witness the difference.
So all in all. A good day.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
MY FIRST WEEK!
(First, let me apologize for there not being any pictures. My computer is not allowing them to be downloaded. I will try to post them in the next couple of days.)
I have officially been here one week! It's so weird to me, because I feel like I've been here for years. It's also been a long week...with a TON of rain. And not not normal rain...African rain, with golf ball sized drops. And there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. It will be sunny without a cloud in the sky, and then all of a sudden a gust of wind and it starts.
Anyway, I moved into the house last Thursday and started work Monday. Working in the medical clinics working with Home Based Care is definitely different from anything I have ever done in my life. I give a huge shout out to my mom for dealing with the sick everyday. It is emotional and draining, I have never felt so awful and so good at the same time. Many of you who read my blog last year remember I wrote about a girl I met while doing Home Based Care. That event traumatized me for life, and I have not encountered anything like that thus far. This week has been a very good way to practice my BP machine (sphegmomonometer...I hope that impressed you all that I knew that) skills, and ease in to the stuff that I will encounter.
I feel like the best way to go through my week is to first describe where I am living and how I live. Then describe my day-to-day work.
My house is very different from where I lived last year. The set up is that there is one house for the volunteers and one house for the project managers. Interesting little story about the manager's house--if I may digress: African Impact has many projects ranging from community projects to animal projects. As of right now, they are trying to start up a lion conservation project here in Livingstone, but are having a couple of problems with the property. So what do you do you do in Africa if you have lions with no home? Well, the big ones you put in the closest lion conservation. The baby lions?? You have them live at the managers house with four dogs and five cats. You keep them in an enclosed area, but every once in awhile you let them out to play with all the other animals (I swear I am not making this up). It's one big happy family! Sadly, I have not had the chance to play with these cute little baby LIONS, but I have had the privilege to smell there rotting meals. As we all know lions to not eat kitty chow, but they do eat cows, donkeys or the closest dead animal you can find. They need a way to transport the kitties' dinner, so they use our volunteer buses to get them there meals. The other day I got in a bus to go to a project and I almost vomited. It was the rankest odors I have ever smelled. Apparently the night before the kitties were hungry and they needed to transport a half a dead donkey to the manager's house so they used our bus. SICK! Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of them! I haven't gotten to see them yet, but the minute I do, I will post some.
Back to the vol. house. It's actually less like a house and more like a compound. There are three different sections, all detached from one another (does not help with dealing with the mutant rain), and each one has 2-4 rooms with 2 bunk beds. Technically,I have my own room, but recently two daddy long-legs spiders have taken residence in my bathroom. When go to the bathroom I have to constantly look up to make sure they haven't decided to fall on my head.
The passed week I have been alternating between the Libuyu Clinic, and Home Based Care in various villages. The Clinic is...not good. It consistently smells of urine and the waiting room is the size of the average person's living room. The filing system is awful. Each person's "file" is actually a small notebook. They all are numbered from 1 to 14873. No joke, that is the highest number. A hundred books are bunched together and thrown in the pile. Luckily, African Impact has been working on a better filing system in order to get the clinic to run more efficiently. Here are a couple pictures from the clinic. Obviously, there are no pictures of patients.
Home Based Care is a little more intense. Basically, you meet with some local volunteers and the group of you go to the patient's house. The people we visit are either too poor or to sick to make it to the clinic. The people I have visited so far have been TB patients, HIV patients, and Diabetics. Some are doing better than others, but all are intense. You walk into these people's houses (which are usually mud huts) and they are so glad for you to be there. If there is one chair, they give it to you, and they sit on the floor. They look at you, expecting you to give them comfort, support, advice. It's at this point that I wish I could take my mom's brain and insert it into my body. This whole medical thing is new to me, and they look at me like I will have the answers. It's pretty heavy stuff. The weirdest thing I've encountered was today. It was this young mother with TB. I was looking at her chart (which again is a notebook), and it said that in the last visit she told the volunteers that she had been throwing up worms....WORMS! Can you imagine?! These people drink water from some gross well in the middle of town without boiling it, and then they get worms! It blew my mind. But a lot of it is things that result from something that would be common sense to us, like boiling water if you get it from a bad source. Another one I run into is moms will bring in there sick baby and the baby will be in a winter cap, a long sleeve shirt, a heavy jacket, and booties (It's summer here, by the way). I will take their temp. and it will be 102! Hey, lady f your baby feels hot, and it's crying, take off the freaking layers! I don't say it exactly like that. I am much nicer.
I will post again soon. Hopefully, with pictures.
I am sorry about not having pictures! I don't know what's going on! I will try to post them later.
I have officially been here one week! It's so weird to me, because I feel like I've been here for years. It's also been a long week...with a TON of rain. And not not normal rain...African rain, with golf ball sized drops. And there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. It will be sunny without a cloud in the sky, and then all of a sudden a gust of wind and it starts.
Anyway, I moved into the house last Thursday and started work Monday. Working in the medical clinics working with Home Based Care is definitely different from anything I have ever done in my life. I give a huge shout out to my mom for dealing with the sick everyday. It is emotional and draining, I have never felt so awful and so good at the same time. Many of you who read my blog last year remember I wrote about a girl I met while doing Home Based Care. That event traumatized me for life, and I have not encountered anything like that thus far. This week has been a very good way to practice my BP machine (sphegmomonometer...I hope that impressed you all that I knew that) skills, and ease in to the stuff that I will encounter.
I feel like the best way to go through my week is to first describe where I am living and how I live. Then describe my day-to-day work.
My house is very different from where I lived last year. The set up is that there is one house for the volunteers and one house for the project managers. Interesting little story about the manager's house--if I may digress: African Impact has many projects ranging from community projects to animal projects. As of right now, they are trying to start up a lion conservation project here in Livingstone, but are having a couple of problems with the property. So what do you do you do in Africa if you have lions with no home? Well, the big ones you put in the closest lion conservation. The baby lions?? You have them live at the managers house with four dogs and five cats. You keep them in an enclosed area, but every once in awhile you let them out to play with all the other animals (I swear I am not making this up). It's one big happy family! Sadly, I have not had the chance to play with these cute little baby LIONS, but I have had the privilege to smell there rotting meals. As we all know lions to not eat kitty chow, but they do eat cows, donkeys or the closest dead animal you can find. They need a way to transport the kitties' dinner, so they use our volunteer buses to get them there meals. The other day I got in a bus to go to a project and I almost vomited. It was the rankest odors I have ever smelled. Apparently the night before the kitties were hungry and they needed to transport a half a dead donkey to the manager's house so they used our bus. SICK! Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of them! I haven't gotten to see them yet, but the minute I do, I will post some.
Back to the vol. house. It's actually less like a house and more like a compound. There are three different sections, all detached from one another (does not help with dealing with the mutant rain), and each one has 2-4 rooms with 2 bunk beds. Technically,I have my own room, but recently two daddy long-legs spiders have taken residence in my bathroom. When go to the bathroom I have to constantly look up to make sure they haven't decided to fall on my head.
The passed week I have been alternating between the Libuyu Clinic, and Home Based Care in various villages. The Clinic is...not good. It consistently smells of urine and the waiting room is the size of the average person's living room. The filing system is awful. Each person's "file" is actually a small notebook. They all are numbered from 1 to 14873. No joke, that is the highest number. A hundred books are bunched together and thrown in the pile. Luckily, African Impact has been working on a better filing system in order to get the clinic to run more efficiently. Here are a couple pictures from the clinic. Obviously, there are no pictures of patients.
Home Based Care is a little more intense. Basically, you meet with some local volunteers and the group of you go to the patient's house. The people we visit are either too poor or to sick to make it to the clinic. The people I have visited so far have been TB patients, HIV patients, and Diabetics. Some are doing better than others, but all are intense. You walk into these people's houses (which are usually mud huts) and they are so glad for you to be there. If there is one chair, they give it to you, and they sit on the floor. They look at you, expecting you to give them comfort, support, advice. It's at this point that I wish I could take my mom's brain and insert it into my body. This whole medical thing is new to me, and they look at me like I will have the answers. It's pretty heavy stuff. The weirdest thing I've encountered was today. It was this young mother with TB. I was looking at her chart (which again is a notebook), and it said that in the last visit she told the volunteers that she had been throwing up worms....WORMS! Can you imagine?! These people drink water from some gross well in the middle of town without boiling it, and then they get worms! It blew my mind. But a lot of it is things that result from something that would be common sense to us, like boiling water if you get it from a bad source. Another one I run into is moms will bring in there sick baby and the baby will be in a winter cap, a long sleeve shirt, a heavy jacket, and booties (It's summer here, by the way). I will take their temp. and it will be 102! Hey, lady f your baby feels hot, and it's crying, take off the freaking layers! I don't say it exactly like that. I am much nicer.
I will post again soon. Hopefully, with pictures.
I am sorry about not having pictures! I don't know what's going on! I will try to post them later.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
I am here...Finally!
Quick post, the internet is not working so well.
I arrived in Zambia yesterday, after a very long, very uncomfortable (my butt was asleep the whole time) 26 hour flight. Getting off the plane, I was pretty much delirious, but after a few minutes it hit me that I was finally here! It felt so good to be in the city that I fell in love with last year.
After a smooth transition off the plane (no baggage or visa issues), my friend picked me up and we headed to the Waterfront, which is my happy place here. We sat by the river, had a couple of Mosis
saw some monkeys (pics to come) and just caught up. Later that night, we had a barbeque and I got to hang out with some more friends. My night didn't last very long considering I had only gotten 2 hours of sleep on the plane.
All in all, it was an awesome first day. The only complaint...the spiders!! Due to the down pour of rain, I now have to worry about giant spiders (turanchela size) coming into the house. I was extremely paranoid last night, and so I fell asleep with the covers tucked in all around my head.
I move in to the African Impact house today, start induction tomorrow, and volunteering Monday. I cant wait to start!nSo expect more exciting stories to come...
I arrived in Zambia yesterday, after a very long, very uncomfortable (my butt was asleep the whole time) 26 hour flight. Getting off the plane, I was pretty much delirious, but after a few minutes it hit me that I was finally here! It felt so good to be in the city that I fell in love with last year.
After a smooth transition off the plane (no baggage or visa issues), my friend picked me up and we headed to the Waterfront, which is my happy place here. We sat by the river, had a couple of Mosis
saw some monkeys (pics to come) and just caught up. Later that night, we had a barbeque and I got to hang out with some more friends. My night didn't last very long considering I had only gotten 2 hours of sleep on the plane.
All in all, it was an awesome first day. The only complaint...the spiders!! Due to the down pour of rain, I now have to worry about giant spiders (turanchela size) coming into the house. I was extremely paranoid last night, and so I fell asleep with the covers tucked in all around my head.
I move in to the African Impact house today, start induction tomorrow, and volunteering Monday. I cant wait to start!nSo expect more exciting stories to come...
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