The van was pretty claustrophobic, but I survived and we made it here in one piece. I went to the MTN store and bought airtime for my Ugandan cell phone (you can call me or text me and it is FREE for me to receive anything, you can not go broke calling by using Skype or Rebtel online, my number is +256 775 785512). It really is all those numbers... my dad thought I must have mistyped it when I sent it to them!
So the rest of this week was the last 3 days of the VHT training. Wednesday we got into some of the danger signs that if they see they need to refer people to the clinic. We also went over basic life-saving like the heimlich:
That is Doug teaching some of the women how to do it. Here is me with the women from the VHT group:
And now with the whole group:
I taught every day of the week except for Monday, so I got a feel for the "Ugandan style" of teaching. Much more repetitive and interactive than it is in the US. Of course we were doing health concepts in English, which is at best a weak second language for most of them, so it was understandably difficult at times.
My lecture on Friday was pretty fun, it was an HIV/ART (anti retroviral treatment) "game" where you moved through the spaces and learned about HIV and living with it, and how to use the ART drugs.
This morning I was supposed to meet with the "Girls' Group" - which is a group that Joyce Wanda, one of AAH's founders really wanted to take flight and it hasn't really yet, mainly because it doesn't have a specific mission the way some of the other groups (microfinance, pregnant women's group, etc) do. So three of the girls showed up and I had a fairly difficult time communicating with them so I had Patrick (one of our community outreach workers) translate for me. Turns out they go to school until about 5, so between homework and getting home before dark, it will be difficult for them to meet on weekdays. Then Saturdays, most people don't really want to come up to the clinic, and I'll be traveling a lot of my Saturdays! So we need to figure out what to do about the group, one idea I have is maybe trying to meet with the girls during their lunch hour at school (since the school is maybe 15 minutes or so walking from the clinic, I could get there easily), but we'll see how that works out.
We haven't had power at the guesthouse for... I guess about 3 days now. Surprisingly, you actually DO get used to it. We have solar lights in each room of the guesthouse (but not the bathrooms... so you do need a flashlight or headlamp to brave the bathroom at night) so at least there's light for a few hours at night to read or whatever. I've been watching South Park with Doug and Lisa most of the nights this week, which I haven't seen much of before but have been really enjoying. They have a TON of TV shows and movies on a bunch of external hard drives, that unfortunately do not work with the iPad, so I will have to depend on watching with them to get any good ol' US media fixes.
In other news, my malaria medicine, Malarone, has made me EXTREMELY sun-sensitive, so Lisa had me change to another medicine that I just bought here in Mbale... 100 pills for $3 US! Ridiculous. So hopefully this one won't have me all red and bumpy on the face (I Face Timed with Rich and Deb this afternoon, and they saw it so you can ask them for a report, or zoom in on me in the picture of the boda boda), and I'll start feeling a little better. Luckily that has been my only sickness so far... knock on wood! My main worry at the moment is centered around getting back my MCAT score, which should be on Tuesday the 28th. Word on the street is that even though they say by 5 PM EST, its usually by 3 PM, so 11 PM for me. I am definitely planning to stay up for that, although I may not be able to sleep after depending on the results (good or bad!).
This week we continue with VHT training, but now that they are VHT's, they get to be "VHT Plus". This just means we are going to teach them some extra skills. Monday's workshop will be on how to make reusable menstrual pads ( a project developed by a Peace Corps volunteer who'd been in this area) for the women, and Tuesday will be learning to do vital signs (which will also be good for me, since I don't know how to do them either!). I'll also be doing shadowing in the clinic in the mornings. The Clinic is set up as 5 Stations and on Friday I shadowed at Station 1 and 2. So I'll write more about all of the stations after I get through the whole thing.
Then the residents from Wisconsin arrive on Thursday for their three weeks here, and we are scheduled to go to Sipi Falls over the weekend for my first "excursion" other than this trip to Mbale. Sipi is supposed to be cool, have some nice hikes and waterfalls. I'll obviously try to post some pics.
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