Rwanda-- Week 2

Update: We are spending our second week at the hospital in the C-section unit. This unit has twenty-four beds, and it usually stays full, sometimes two women having to share a bed. This week we have been taking vitals as we did in the pediatric unit last week, but we also are taking blood pressure which we could not do last week since they do not have child-sized blood pressure cuffs. We are also learning how to clean the incision wound of the post-op mothers and how to check if it is infected or healing properly. The head nurse is very good at teaching us how the nursing care in this unit works, and one nursing students, Vincent, has been particularly kind in showing us what to do and explaining to us what he doing, whether writing a report, drawing blood, starting and IV, or giving an injection.

Highlights of the week: I’ve learned many Kinyarwanda words now! Well, I know thirty-five words/phrases, which is not enough to really communicate, but I can do such things as greet and thank people and ask the bus man where the bus is going. I began learning when I came in December and since then have been practicing. Babu has been my faithful teacher and Mama, Emily, or Shami help when we are confused with spelling and such (yes, it’s a hard language that even fluent speakers can’t always spell it…). But each new word learned is great excitement for me.

Leslie is also a highlight of the week. She is a midwife from the US who has been here in Rwamagana for a year now, working as part of a team doing a seven year program to bring better education and care for the mothers and babies of Rwanda. She has taught us a lot about the conditions of the medical care in Rwanda and how she is working to improve them.

Challenges of the week: Getting on the bus. Yes, just the act of getting on it! Local buses which remain in the same city or town are no problem. However, buses that go from city to city are another story. For the weekend, Claire and I took a bus from Rwamagana to Kigali, and the problem is that the bus companies sell more tickets than seats. I did not realize this, nor that the seating is not a first come, first serve. It’s a crowd of people literally pushing and shoving each other over in order to get into the bus. I’ve never intentionally pushed a stranger out of my way before, and at first I was conflicted. As I saw Claire disappear onto the bus, I knew I had to push as hard as I could or I wasn’t getting on. I don’t know why they do it this way, but they do, and it only took me one time to learn how it’s done. I’m now becoming an expert at stranger-shoving at the bus stations, while being conscious of my backpack due to the fact that bus stations are the prime location for pick-pocketing.

My watch. In order to hold the stethoscope with my right hand and look at my watch at the same time, I have to wear my watch on my left hand. Even though I’m right handed, I’m a weirdo and have always worn my watch on my right hand. A minor change, but I am not quickly becoming used to it.

Our water bottles reek! Something in the water here in Rwamagana makes them smell so badly that I have to hold my breath while I drink, and this is with washing it with bleach regularly. At least we’re not getting sick from whatever it is that is making them smell so badly.

Humor of the week: this is actually something that happened last week, but it is a story that we are still laughing about. The first day of work it was pouring rain, but we had no choice other than to walk, so out in the rain we went. Not five minutes later, we heard someone running up behind us but we attempted to ignore him. He came up to the left of Claire and it seemed as though he was grabbing for her bag. Claire jumped towards me and shouted very sternly at him. He stepped back quickly and began explaining to us something in Kinyarwanda and he was pointing towards the house. We smiled and told him that we are fine to walk in the rain and that we are just going down the road to the hospital. All three of us were confused but Claire and I assumed that he was offering us a bike taxi or an umbrella or raincoat and went on walking.

Later on that day when the house boy let us in, it was he who was the one chasing us that morning! Our host mother, Odette, had sent him after us to let us know that she could give us a ride.

Odette owns a restaurant in town and she took us there for lunch that day. We were walking from there to the house before going back to the hospital, and on our way we noticed someone chasing us down again. This person knew English and told us that we have gone too far and pointed to the road we had just passed. He was a server at the restaurant and told us that Odette had seen us walking the wrong way and sent him to redirect us. These poor people chasing us around, being so kind and caring for our wellbeing!

Last Friday after morning rounds, one of the med students told us we were going to a “nursing ceremony” and that Claire and I were to come… we tried to inquire what this ceremony was about, but we didn’t get any clear answers. So we walked for about thirty minutes to the health center, which we found full of doctors, nurses, and midwives. We saw Leslie there, and she told us this was a gathering to celebrate nurses and midwives, and to talk about the history and future of their roles in Rwanda. We sat through speech after speech (all in Kinyarwanda) which were each separated by a few minutes of traditional Rwandan dancing. They had told us the ceremony wouldn’t last long… the room was hot and crowded, and we had not a clue of anything being said. About three hours later it was finally finished, and we got to walk all the way home in the mid-day heat. At the time it was not comical, but looking back now it’s quite funny!

     Our walk to the hospital from the house. The buildings ahead on both sides of the road are bilingual schools, and the children like to shout greetings to us each time we pass

 The center courtyard of the hospital. the wards surround this area in a circular configuration 

The bright sun shining into the pediatric ward. I am in the back half of the ward, looking into the first half, with the nurses office behind the yellow walls on either side

 The medical students we worked with during the first week. From left to right: Francis, Everest, Claire, Leonet, myself, and Franc. We learned so much from these students and enjoyed working alongside them

 

 Operation Laundry

Once a week we are becoming better and better at hand washing our clothes.

The picture on the bottom right is of Claire pretending to have to beat her white uniform "clean" against the dirty rocks... it was a joke with a friend before we left that we would have no way to clean our clothes properly so our white scrubs would be brown when we returned