The first two days of this week were great for engineering,
which meant they were also really boring for blogging. More exciting things
have happened since though so I have to get this one out of the way. I’ll try
to keep it spicy.
First a note: life at Annie’s is significantly different
than it was before Liwonde for some reason. I have no idea why some of these
changes have occurred. 1) The power is out about 50% of the time now. It was
almost never out during the first part of the trip but is very unpredictable
now. So that keeps things interesting! 2) The weather is much colder, it causes
me pain to put on a skirt in the morning because pants are the only thing warm
enough to save me 3) the shower, once consistently steamy and delightful, is
often tepid and trickly. But that’s really not so bad showers are for the weak
and 4) where I used to eat peanut butter none of the time, I now eat it all of
the time. Jess got a jar from a T&L girl and we now eat it on everything.
Tuesday peanut butter was the center of every meal.
As this was our last week of work we knew we had to get
straight to business getting the remaining feedback on the devices and I needed
to record Bluetooth signal data for my sensors in the hospitals. So Monday,
Penny and I hopped on the bus with everyone else but I was laden with my
thermistor stuff, two tablets, the infuse IV drip stand, and all the infuse
pieces. I felt a little silly walking around with all that but it’s not as if
people wouldn’t stare at me if my hands were empty so I shrugged it off.
Penny and I were dropped off at Zomba Central while Jess and
everyone else continued to Domasi. We went to an administrative office to check
where Hendrina was, the pediatric nurse that I had attempted meeting with twice
unsuccessfully. When we arrived the assistant told us “feel free.” That’s a
really common English quirk that I love here, “feel free” is like a greeting to
visitors, they literally want us to feel some freedom! The assistant told us
she was in ward 9 so we hustled over there before she vanished. When she saw me
from behind the nurses’ station she lit up and ran over saying “I’M SO SORRY I’M
SO GLAD YOU’RE HERE” which was so nice because I really like her. I feel like
if we met at Virginia Tech or something we would be good friends.
She took us back into the malnutrition bay of pediatrics and
was really excited to see the devices. I showed her the thermistors first, and
she had me try it on a patient. The little girl had a MUAC (mid-upper arm
circumference) of 110 mm, which is categorized as Severe Acute Malnutrition.
Holding her arm felt very delicate and precious, I felt really nervous. She was
older, so the bones in her hands were longer and made the device a little
tricky to slip on, but she didn’t fuss while wearing it and it fit. I showed
Hendrina the app I wrote to simulate the display of temperatures (since we don’t
have approval to actually take these babies temperatures). She was so excited,
and she said they need the technology and all this other great praise. She even
loved the app and said she could use it and teach others how to use it which is
huge because one of the most important parts of all this is integration to the
hospitals, so acceptance by the staff.
Next I showed her the infuse device. She thought it was
pretty cool. It is, it works a bit like one of those Rube Goldberg machines so
it’s pretty fun to play with. She gave some feedback on it and wanted to
practice setting it up and tripping the cut off, which was great because she
completely understood it and was excited about using it.
Last I asked her if I could put the armbands around ward 9
and walk around recording signal strength from each one. She got REALLY excited
about that, and went around with me choosing places to place the sensors that
would be high-likelihood for a patient being. I had drawn a map of ward 9 in my
notebook so we recorded on that all the spots we placed sensors. Then, with
Hendrina holding the tablet and me writing in my notebook, we walked to
different places in the ward recording the signal strength from each sensor.
She would read them out to me. It was so collaborative and she totally
understood what we were doing. It was like a strange fun scavenger hunt in a
hospital.
After we were all done she and I just talked about school and
we exchanged contact information. Penny told her about how some Malawians have
been sponsored to come to VT to get masters of public health degrees, and her
eyes lit up. I promised to email that night so that we could keep in touch and
I could help her investigate the possibility of becoming a Hokie!
Penny and I had some time to kill before Jess would be
dropped off so we got a cab and went to Tasty Bites. Tasty Bites can take a
long time though so I told our server, who is the same every time, that we were
in a rush and what followed was the world record for service at tasty bites. We
had finished eating within 15 minutes of arriving. It was awesome. We also
treated our cab driver to lunch and he was nice and happy.
oh Tasty Bites
Then Felix turned up at ZCH with Jess. He picked her up a
little late though so when we popped next door to the District Health Office
for our meeting with the District Health Officer, he was gone. That was a big
bummer, but the administrators called in the deputy DHO and she arrived about
an hour later. We drank tea in the meantime. She was great to meet with and was
excited about our work and answered a bunch of questions.
Then we went home because we were pooped. When we walked in
the door to our room, my big bed was gone and my little bed was back!!! I was
so happy. I didn’t want to complain but the big bed was pretty hard, but my
perfect soft little bed had come home to me and I could have cried. I’m a
little surprised I didn’t actually.
sweet, sweet tiny bed
I was by myself in the room for a little while and lit a
candle so I could see and read. Then I realized I had no way of telling when
the power was back on so I plugged in my phone and it made the little bling
sound to signal it was charging. So I had probably been sitting in the dark for
a long time for no reason. I think I worked on my AMCAS that night and then hit
the hay.
Tuesday morning was lovely because I was trying to make a
phone call using facebook so I was awake when the world was still misty and
nice.
We had about 3 hours of meetings with the DHO which were
informative and important but not exciting to blog about. The point was the DHO really liked the devices, he even called the thermistors "brilliant" which made me really happy.
Infuse at the DHO
Showing Eunice (far left) and others the app
The only thing was that the group I was helping could not
stop laughing at me. I thought maybe they were just nervously giggling because
they didn’t know my name yet, so when they asked I was relieved and told them.
That’s always interesting because my name is probably the hardest combination
of sounds for the Malawian tongue. No one except the extremely fluent in
English can get anywhere close. So that was more laughter. But then even after
we were all acquainted, they kept looking at me and saying stuff in Chichewa
and then all 8 of them would laugh like crazy people. I checked and there was
nothing in my teeth. Maybe they were just tickled by how great they thought I
was.
After school we stopped at tasty bites to get dinner to go
for our last tasty bites meal. Problem was that their power was out too so
their menu was really limited. We just got some snacks from there and then
headed home. Oh and while they were cooking we hauled booty up the hill to the
Wall and Shoprite. THEN we headed home. We ate our Tasty Bites on the porch because
Jess had gone to the tailor with my key accidentally and the T&L girls kept
me company. That’s when we saw the cat gang roll in. There’s tons of stray cats
and dogs around Annie’s lodge, in addition to the monkeys. The dogs all howl
periodically at night, but the cats just run around outside like they own the
place.
I’ve discerned that their leader is this cat with one ear I’ve
named No-Ear Scotty. This is him with one of the entourage.
N.E.S. mean mugging
When Jess got back I showed Abby and Emily the pictures from
the hike since they didn’t get to do it. We were enjoying some passion fruits
while I showed them the photos and accidentally made one explode everywhere. I
had a peanut butter sandwich for dinner because peanut butter is free! I tried
to work on AMCAS that night too but the wifi wasn’t working so I napped until
midnight and then worked really late.
this is a drawing of me at night
Not gripping days but necessary days, with lots of peanut
butter.
With love and the cat gang,
Lauren
June 13
I am grateful for…
Talking to mom and dad last night
The howling dogs
Peanut butter
What will I do to make
today great?
Get stuff done at Zomba Central
Write good AMCAS stuff
Shoprite?!
Daily affirmations. I
am…
Fun!
3 Amazing things that
happened today…
Signal scavenger hunt with Hendrina
My bed is back!
Fastest Tasty Bites service ever
How could I have made
today even better?
Stop caring about the schedule
June 14
I am grateful for…
The Christian music I downloaded before coming
Birdsong
Foggy mornings
What will I do to make
today great?
Finish my engineering work
Go to Tasty Bites with Jess (?)
Eat a passion fruit
Daily affirmations. I
am…
Thoughtful
3 Amazing things that
happened today…
Meeting No-Ear Scotty
A bunch of 7th graders laughed at me
I bonded with friends while exploding a passion fruit
How could I have made
today even better?
Less
napping
No comments:
Post a Comment