Saturday, March 12, 2011

The Best Job There Ever Was

I had a minor computer tragedy last week, plugged in my laptop and heard one of those creepy, ominous sounds, and I got this creepy, ominous feeling. Kind of like hearing your plastic surgeon go Whoops during a breast augmentation. Anyway, there was  some snapping, a few crackles, and a pop or two and that was it. My power cord blew up. So I was musicless for a week, which is a sad, sad place for me.

Then, Brad sent a computer to Ruth, the wife of the hospital director, and since she just had a baby (cute baby), she's not using her computer much so I borrowed her power cord and now I'm back in business.  I knew I should have brought a walkman.

Last week I was talking to James and Elly, the lab guys at the hospital, and they were telling me about the HIV outreach for the outlying villages. They  go to different villages and draw blood to check CD4 counts on identified patients and offer HIV rapid tests. Anyone who turns up positive then goes to the hospital to start treatment.  I expressed an interest and got my usual reply, "You can go, lets go".

The next Wednesday we got on the pikipikis (motorbikes) and headed out on the road from hell to a village called Makubike. It was more of an oversized dirt path, but I had complete faith in the driver that I had just met (I mean why not, I'm already on the bike). In the end it was a fun ride over beautiful country with the wind in my hair and all that.





This was actually a pretty good stretch of road, pretty
 smooth and no oncoming traffic. Couldn't focus on the bad parts.


Magubike is a medium sized village, which probably means nothing to most of you, but it has some shops, a few food huts, a couple of bike repair shops, and all the rest. We got to our destination and were greeted by Kellen, a local lady, and apparent leader of The Group.

We went into Kellens house and there were about 9 people there. We spent some time in greetings (a major part of any African conversation), then they started telling me about The Group. I was a little confused, as I thought I was here for the HIV outreach.


Kellen, leader of The Group






So after about 45 minutes of general chit chat about life, The Group, and the usual village problems, a man stood up and walked over to James and rolled up his shirt. Unbeknownst to me, I was sitting in the middle of the HIV group. So  Nilishangaa (I was shocked). These folks were very healthy and fit looking. So while all the members of The Group are part of the HIV outreach, all the people in the HIV outreach are not members of The Group. 


The 9 members of The Group are all shop owners, teachers, farmers...and they each put 200/= into the pot each week (about 20 cents). When someone has an emergency, they use the money. Cool. But I was still waiting for the outreach to start, and for the HIV patients to come.


Inside Kellens house during blood draws


What I have found out over the years is that  when I'm not sure whats going on, its because I didn't ask the right questions. It turns out that this group was started by these mostly HIV positive friends to assist each other and their families in medical emergencies. And it's apparently working well.
Magubike Clinic Lab

I asked if everyone in the group is positive and Kellen said not all, I asked if she is pos and she said 'not yet.' So anyway, everyone got their blood drawn, as well as the random Magubikians  (Magubikites??) who straggled in over the next hour, including a few kids.
One ancient bibi (grandmother) came in with her granddaughter, about 7. Her mom had died a few years ago, of HIV, and her father was gone. She asked me if I could help her because she was in dire straits, which I could already see. I try to avoid giving money outright, it's never enough and it just doesn't fix anything.  So I approached the group and asked if I could join. I am now an official (and the only mzungu), member of Kiikundi Cha Chenaigwa (The Group). I have an official paper signed by Kellen, the group leader.  


I decided to pay 15 USD/mo and the group will use it to assist some of the bibis and orphans with extra food and such.
Lab

What  like about this group is that it's homegrown, and self sustaining. They've been at it for a while, without any outside support from the govt, or NGOs, and are not seeking outside support.They didn't solicit me. Other villagers are seeing how well this is working and are starting to ask to enroll. So its a locally developed health insurance plan and its very, very wonderful. I'm generally not much of a joiner, but I'm pretty excited about this.









After all the lab draws and some soda, we got the grand tour, Its a pretty little village, they do a lot of brickmaking for the area. We had a small meeting with the village executives, as well as a local man who was clearly deranged. He appeared to have a myriad of physical and psychological issues, and kept coming into our meeting and sitting down to talk to me. Even with my limited Kiswahihi, I knew he didn't make any sense. I only bring this up because I was so entranced by the attitude of the village execs and wanted to tell you about it.

He would walk in and take a seat, chat with me for a bit about who knows what, and after a few minutes one of the execs would gently lead him out, and then he would return. This went on throughout the visit, they treated him softly, and never lost patience with him. Nice village. There's not many places in America where blatantly insane people can just walk into a meeting and take a seat.
Dental chair at Magubike clinic

We finished the tour with a walkthrough of Magubike Clinic. Its a good place in spite of being so understaffed.Theres a labor area, dental office (extractions only), lab, and a men's and women's ward. I spent some time in the dentist office, and took pictures of the dental tools. Which leads me to my first shameless plea for funds (for this trip). You can see by the picture I have provided that the dentist needs some new forceps. We wouldn't use them in America, we wouldn't even give them to the third world. So anyone interested in sending money please contact me and I will tell you how to get it to us here.







Dental tools. Note rust and salt deposits on the instruments. 
The water is chumvy chumvy here (salty) and leaves a film.
There is no autoclave so they boil.



Labor suite, Makubike Clinic


Preschool painting is moving along, slowly. I have adult students who come when they can (all the women work and I have no adult men students), so they show up at the classroom and we work there while I paint. It's really kind of cool, we've been using the walls to teach shapes and colors...Sometimes I'm just painting and listening to music and watching the village go by and I think that this is the best job ever.

Waziri comes Mon thru Fri evenings. He's a wonderful kid, I plan to spend some time telling you about him in a later email. But he's a star, that's for sure.

Christina, the girl with the infected leg, is doing fine. I've been doing the dressing changes myself, it's cheaper for me and less time consuming for her. Folks here can wait hours to see a doctor or nurse. The boy I told you about last time, with the ileus, is fine. The doc said that if you just put down an NG tube and insert a rectal tube then you just have to wait till the toxins leave the system and viola! good as new.

Martha, and I have switched groups for a few weeks. So now I have more advanced group, and we're moving right along. Martha, on the other hand, has my old group and I can look over at her while she tries so hard to teach them. There they are all bright and shiny and smiling, saying their ABCs. Only it comes out A,B,4,shoes...I offered to switch back this week but she's determined to teach them something. And she will, I did, but it took me a while.

Her group is mostly girls, and although I know that girls are just as bright, if not brighter than boys at this age, the fact is in the village more time and effort is put into the boys. The girls know from early on just what their role is and will be. So they to hang back and let the boys take over. We're working hard trying to get them to stand up straight and speak up. Slowly, slowly.

Bought a 10 dollar chicken the other day, when I went to Morogoro. I can buy meat right up the road, but village meat is tough and chewy, and there's usually a black cloud of flies buzzing on and around it. I hear if you go real early you can get more or less clean meat. But I guess I've got a phobia about flies on my food. I think that's how I got typhoid in Ghana, and I just can't seem to get past it. So it's been a couple of months since I'd last ingested flesh of any type and I really wanted some. The store in Morogoro has a frozen food bin, and the meat is halal (arabic for kosher), so I figured I might be safe. And there may have been a thousand flies at the halal butchery, but if I dont see it, I can pretend it didnt happen.

So I bought this 9000/- bird and it was wonderful. Halal is the way to go, It was tender and meaty. And I can't believe I've just devoted 2 paragraphs to a frozen chicken, tasty though it was.

Hope you enjoy the pictures, it was fun taking them.Take care, I wish you all afya bora (good health), maisha mzuri (good life), and tender chickens. Nakupenda.


Liz


Magubike brickmaking industry


One of my student's teeth. Yikes!


A hairy and apparently extremely
dangerous caterpillar we found on our walk






Teacher Martha and most of our class

Wheelchair at Berega Hospital