last of october

Last Wednesday, I helped out with the pregnant ladies and there was one who was on her 12th pregnancy! I told the nun I was shocked and she said “I told her she needs to close her…” but couldn’t think of the word and all I could think was “close her legs” so I started giggling. She meant that she needed to have her tubes tied, but I thought it was hilarious. Every once in a while the language barrier is so funny.

I am now teaching the beginning English class for staff at the clinic. I usually only have 3 students or less; the two drivers and the oldest nun. I get funny calls from one of the driver every once in a while when he wants to practice his English. He will call and say “hello! How are you?” and then giggle and hang up. It’s so funny. Last Saturday was the second kids club. Way less children came. Last time we had about 50 and this time probably 20. Only a few kids were there on time and more trickled in after we started. We played games, and I taught about the importance of taking the ARV medication correctly. We taught them the hokey pokey.
Monday I went to work and was asked if I wanted to go into the village and visit the community health workers. We had to do an evaluation and look at their record keeping. The first house we went to was down almost in the valley about a 25 minute walk from the health center. When we got there, in true rwandese fashion, the guy wasn’t home and wasn’t answering his phone. His kids were there and one left to find his mom who was in the field farming. The little girl brought out some stools for us to sit on while we waited. The kid came back and told us that he couldn’t find his mom, so we just left without evaluating that guy. It was a pretty walk in a part of the village that I haven’t been to yet, so I was excited to be going that way, but the shoes I was wearing were not proper shoes to be hiking up and down the hills of Mwezi, so I got some nice blisters! The next house was on the way back to the clinic, behind the primary school and the lady was home, so she let us in and we looked over her records. When she saw us coming she came out of her house and came up to me and greeted me. She knew my name! She called me Alice, but I get that a lot. I respond to Alice, Alina, Alisa, Alicia, Ali, pretty much anything that sounds close to my name, because not many people can say my name. The record keeping is extremely fancy. Not at all what I was expecting. There are referral forms, sheets to mark down the diseases and medications given out and in what quantity and she even has an ARI timer to diagnose pneumonia. Rwanda is definitely ahead of the game when it comes to community health workers. She even showed us her container of boiled water that she drinks from. When we left she gave me a pineapple and asked me to visit again. She is a relative of one of my favorite teachers at the primary school.