week 2 continued

back to week 2

Monday:
Bumm bumm dumm dummmmmm!! we went to school! susan took P2, Mary P1 and i took the babies (aged 3-7?). insane day!! the education system here is shocking. it is all wrote learning so you have a bunch of kids who memorise things and write or say what they are told but do not think for themselves!! no critical thinking whatsoever and its affecting this nation! you have a bunch of people (generally) who will do what they are told to do but dont think about things or try and see things differently, how to make things easier and more efficient and effective for themselves. i see it everywhere. Neway ill talk more about that later i think. so teaching was interesting cuz these kids just werent getting it, had no clue!!! eek! there wasnt any discipline or order either. the kids did this really horrible thing that when someone got a question right they would say 'i love you i love you alot' but when they got it wrong they would shake their hands at the kid and say something mean in lugandan! hmm doesnt really encourage kids to participate in class, the kids themselves are lovely and they are very interested in muzungus so i had kids touching me (sometimes awkard), touching my hair, having this huge conversation with me in lugandan while i nodded and had no idea what they were talking about. my kids being little didnt have very much english at all. we taught them hockey pockey, duckduck goose and hand clapping games. was probably the longest 4 hours of my life! hmm not to keen on going back. i mean i love the kids but teaching them is insane. so glad i didnt become a teacher!!!

Tuesday
our first day in the health clinic....yay i finally think that yes i am meant to be a nurse. it was great especially after yesterday!! the morning was immunisation day so all the mums and babies line up and get their details taken and get immunised. i was recording it all in the registra. was fun! and felt like i was doing something useful. then.......we got to see a baby being borned :P!!! was a very fast birth!!! there we were in the backroom. one nurse plus us two muzungus watching and the mother (husbands here arent allowed in). it was a very different environment then what id expect in australia, for one the window was open and the curtains didnt cover the window so a person walking by could see EVERYTHING oh gosh, and the nurse did things a bit differently then we had read and knew! it was great tho! i have seen lots of animal births(farm girl) so i didnt find it gross like mary did but i was suprised at how ah similar the births were....eek probably shouldnt say that!! but it was wonderful being there seeing a new born baby entering the world!! mary held it after and just told him that he was going to grow up big and strong and have an amazing future and i just kept praying for him and his mum. he is youngest of four and the mother said 'no more!' high fertility rate here!!! not uncommon to see 10 kids in a family!! mother was grateful to us, even if we didnt do anything...well i held her hand for a bit. and we took a pic of mum and bub later. unfortunatley the next day we were told baby had to go to hospital as he had an infection so praying his is alright!! :(
the rest of our time there i helped rose(nurse/midwife) with an iv line-again different health standards to us *cringe*

Wednesday
Today we were in the health centre again, and today was antenatal care. so ladies come and get hiv tested and then have their 'appointment' and councelling. things dont run very efficiently here...africa time so most of the ladies were there all day. eek hiv testing was ah interesting. rose RECAPPED a needle filled with infected blood....ooohhh you so dont do that!!! oh my gosh the risk is soooo high! she wasnt even wearing gloves. the whole procedure was really quite unsafe so hopefully will be able to talk to her about that. but we got to assist rose in the appointments with the ladies so now i know how to tell how many weeks a baby is by feeling the mums tummy and also can kinda feel the head :P was very awesome!! time is running out but ill just leave you with some stats. i was looking thru the registar and in the last 3 months 587 ladies came in because they were pregnant 56 tested positive for hiv, 49 found out they had it for the first time!! the youngest recorded was a 14 year old pregnant girl with hiv :( oh man!! :(