These past few weeks have been amazing. They have been happy, sad, frustrating, interesting and life changing. The first week Julet and Amanda worked in Lumulenga in the royal village roughly 20 minutes from Melengwa. We experienced patients suffering from malnutrition, tuberculosis, maleria, cancer and many more. We helped to assess and diagnose patients as they came into the clinic with these conditions listed above. We learned alot from this clinic and the staff there and hope that they may have learned something from us as well. We loved teaching at a girls orphanage and to the school children. We taught the school children briefly but stayed with the girls at the orphanage for hours teaching them about menstruation and pregnancy. Amy and Denee were located at the children's ward for this first week.
On the weekend we went to the Kafue Safari Lodge! It was amazing. We saw all sorts of animals such as: lions, elephants, many different kinds of birds, different kinds of trees (including the sausage tree which hippos like to eat), hippos, the national bird of Zambia, zebras, antelope, kapu, baboons and more. It was a beautiful resort and was a wonderful mini vacation.
This week, Amanda is located on the female ward at Lewanika Hospital. She is enjoying it and is surprised at how busy and acute it is. She is learning so much and hopes that the staff and students that are there are learning something from her as well. Since it is a medical and surgical ward there are a vast variety of conditions that she is seeing. Amy is located at the theatre or the Operating Room as it is called at home. Unfortunately the theatre is slow and Amy has been wandering around, helping amanada in the womens ward and with a brief stop over in ante natal (post natal). I think all of us feel frustrated at the best of times at the lack of resources and the "system" of how things are run. There is a lot of work to be done. We all agree that if we can just even make a difference with one student who is willing to learn, or one patient, than we have done our jobs well.
All of us are doing good, a few tears of frustration and definitely some excessive sweating from heat!! Laundry is being handwashed occasionally (weird), and amanda and amy are attempting to stay fit. Though this morning, Amy bailed (amanda's description would be "Go big or go home"), or we could say she ate S%#T, for sure. So at 6am, amanda cut some skin off, a very mangled pinkie finger, embedded with sand, whilst not trying to get nauseated. That nail is definitely falling off soon!!! Otherwise... every one is in fantastic shape! We miss you all at home and think of you (from time to time ;)). Hope your all well! Until next time!
~Amanda, Amy, Denee, & Julet
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