End of Week 4

Africa Blog Week 4

My gosh how the time here has flown by. Just 4 weeks ago I landed in this country wondering how I was going to be able to make it 2 months. Kigali has become a true home to me. The big city feel and hanging out with all the students has made it feel like home. On Sunday I will be traveling to work in Bushenge. I am extremely nervous as to what the city will bring us. I have heard nothing but negative from the Rwandans living in Kigali. But who knows what that city will have in store for us. My partner has been a true blessing in this area. No matter how much flack we get for working in this city, Adam has had a very positive outlook on it and is genuinely excited to work there. To my understanding, it is a small, rural city and we will be working in two hospitals near the area. Adam and I will be staying in a guest house this round that is right across the street from one of our hospitals. That is about as much information as I have right now, I will update when I can. I have herd the hospital has internet so I will be able to continue blogging while working there.

Last weekend the group went on a safari! How blessed am I to be able to experience such an event at 21. We drove 2.5hrs to Akagera National Park. 7hrs through the park and 2.5hrs home. Some background about the park, before the genocide there was no park. The animals inhabited most of the land without much confrontation from the people. After the genocide, the refugees who escaped to Tanzania came back to Rwanda and inhabited in Akagera. The animals would eat their crops and livestock so they began to kill the animals to protect their crops. I herd they would poison the cows so that when the lions ate them they would die. Therefore there were no lions. The government decided to move all the animals into a gated park and the people could inhabit the rest of the land. We saw warthogs, eagles, deer/antelope, wildebeests, giraffes, hippos, tons of birds, zebras, crocodile, baboons and some other monkey that looked like a lemur. I cannot remember the name however. Pics are up on facebook and I will try to upload them here!

We are staying near the third national park in Rwanda known for its jungle tours. There are monkey tours, canopy walks, camping and incredible hiking trails. You will most likely be hearing more about this national park next weekend.  

We worked in Kinombe hospital for one day this week and CHUK (Community Hospital of Kigali) for one day as well. Nothing too exciting happened at Kinombe, we just performed simple preventive maintenance on a few machines. (This means we just cleaned for hours). At CHUK we had a lot of fun. We fixed an incubator, 2 vacuum pumps and an O2 concentrator as a team. I personally worked on an Autoclave machine. We were unable to fix the machine but we were able to pinpoint the problem. The door locking motor was not working and the user manual told us to check the connections and the grime in the motor. We did both with no success but we informed the staff of the problem. Next I was given 3 light generators. All 3 did not have power chords. That was easy to pinpoint the problem and It would be a simple fix but we did not have the time to finish the project. Last I grabbed a vacuum pump, did the exact same procedure we did last week and got it to work again.  

This trip thus far has been filled with memorable experiences and I am trying my best to document them all on here but there are too many to count. Just today as I was walking to get wifi, there was a man sitting on the ground missing a leg. Who knows what happened to this man but I decided to sit down next to him and start a conversation. I start of with Watamutse (I am glad you have survived the night/good morning). A huge smile appears on his face as we then begin to talk in Kinyarwanda. We hit a few walls as he did not speak any English but I was able to explain what I am doing here. I told him I was going to leave and he muttered something I didn’t understand. So I said Subyumva (I don’t understand) and he stared at the ground thinking. At this time we were also holding hands witch is a symbol of brotherly friendship/love. After a minute or two he looks back up to me and says “I love you, Thankyou”. Im going to miss Kigali, but I am excited for this next month!

Again I cannot get the photos up today. They are on facebook and I will try to upload them here soon! 

Prayer Request: Smooth transition into the new city and workplace. That the local doctors/nurses will accept us and help us start out. We wont get depression. Continued wisdom and discernment on areas in my life ( this part is pretty cool, stuff I dont want to put on a blog but shoot me an email and I will share).