8 weeks @ site!

It's been awhile since my last post, but I just wanted to quickly update you all on the past few weeks here in Rwanda!

Our country director, Jen, challenged my PC health 6 group to stay at our sites for the first 8 weeks without leaving except for PC meetings or emergencies. For doing this we are invited to thanksgiving dinner at her house in Kigali! I managed to stick to this, and only left my site for meetings, so I'm envisioning turkey and mashed potatoes in the near future!

My past few weeks at site have been very busy, thanks to finally getting in a lot of my CNA interview home visits and other activities with my health center. My main problem/ pretty much only issue at work is coordinating home visits with community health workers, since they're volunteers as well they often don't have the time to accompany me to visit families or are unable to keep their "appointments" with me. Because of this I have been doing the majority of my home visits alone which was at first difficult because of the language barrier, but I would just have my tutor or a coworker help me translate what I couldn't understand into English. Last week I met a student at the catholic school next to my home that expressed interested in wanting to spend time with me to improve her English. When hearing about my work at the health center she asked if she could accompany me on home visits since she was finishing up with exams so had free time from school. The timing couldn't have been more perfect, and after talking to my titulare and ensuring the student wasn't expecting any compensation for her assistance  she started coming on visits with me, which was extremely helpful for communicating with the families and finding my way around the villages! 

Every month my counterpart, the CHW manager, leads a meeting with all CHWs to go over the monthly report of health issues that they focus on ( diarrhea, malnutrition, pneumonia, pregnancy, malaria etc) and to discuss field issues and how improvements can be made in the upcoming month. My counterpart has given me the opportunity to teach a lesson to the CHWs at each meeting on any health topic that seemed relevant so I chose HIV/AIDS for the October meeting. I prepared a PowerPoint focused on prevention and how HIV is spread, and key points to teach when communicating with people about this health problem. In addition to visiting families for my CNA, I also visit HIV positive patients that my titulare requests I visit because they  aren't taking their meds and have low adherence to visits. Although only 1.1% of my sector is HIV positive the problem is that the people that are infected often miss visits and don't take their medicines. Becuse CHW don't focus on HIV AIDS there hasn't  been a liasion between those patients and the health center as there is with the previously mentioned health concerns like malaria. Creating a program between these patients and the CHWs is something I would like to incorporate into the CHWs fieldwork. 

Last week I finally started lessons at my health center to teach my coworkers English! I've had many people come up to me asking for lessons, so I now teach every Tuesday and Thursday after work at the health center. The biggest challenge is the different levels of English. People either know none or are at around a high beginner level. To be honest I first wasn't too thrilled about teaching English but after my first class and seeing how enthusiastic everyone was I actually enjoyed it! I mock the class off of how we learned kinyarwanda during training- who knew that huge lesson book would come in handy again!  

Another activity I am going to start up at my health center is a club for the 6 or so children at my health center  who are long term patients. Most of these children have mobility issues and undergo multiple surgeries. My titulare suggested I have a weekly club for them where I can spend some time with them doing different activities that are up to me and the kids. Because these kids are unable to go to school I would defintely like to make it both educational and fun. 

This past weekend I visited Kigali for a Stomp Out Malaria meeting. I am a southern regional rep for the group, meaning I am one of 2 point people for malaria projects in the southern region. Because malaria is the biggest health problem in my sector by far I am looking forward to working on Malaira projects at my site and in my region. Another potential activity I am coordinating with my tutor  at my site is to teach health classes at the secondary school, and malaria is defintely one of my top priority topics.  Within stomp I am on the media and communication committee with my fellow Health 6  PCV Erin so look out for a twitter, Instagram, and many other stomp out malaria social media outlets in the near future! I am also part of the language committee so let's hope my kinyarwanda  is in fact improving.... 

While in Kigali I was able  to see a lot of volunteers in my group that I haven't seen since swear in which was great, and I also met  volunteers from other groups that I hadn't met before. Although I love my site it was nice getting out and seeing the other volunteers (and also eating food that isn't cabbage). 

 

I unfortunately came down with a mysterious illness before I was supposed to head to Rwamagana to visit my host family  ( don't worry it's not malaria or Ebola) so I have been stuck in Kigali longer than expected. I'm hoping to get back to site in the next day or 2 so I can finish up my CNA and get those other previously mentioned activities going! 

So far I'm loving it here, but defintely missing my family and friends back home! 

Until next time,

Vanessa 

Giving out vitamins (top). Teaching CHW about HIV/AIDS (bottom).

Teaching my coworkers English! Don't they look so thrilled?