week twenty seven

this week has been a mish mash of a little bit of everything. it been another week of transferring over into a new phase. technically this BAS school is two schools in one, with two lecture phases. we have now entered the ‘applied lecture phase’ meaning that onceish a week we will have a day completely devoted to lectures. our lectures this time around are dealing with the problems in pregnancy and labour. our first day was this past tuesday, and we learnt about administering drugs, the different kinds of drugs and went through a case study of a women who died during labour and we were to figure out the causes leading up to her death. its different getting back into a ‘classroom’ setting, but also i feel its a nice change. we still go to the hospital on the days that we’re not in lectures and the exciting thing is that because of lectures we’ll also start getting to work in the ICU helping women who are at greater risk. i’m looking forward to being able to fully care for the women instead of when problems arise having to have a doctor intervene.

our ‘first half’ staff left tuesday around noon. it was sad to watch them leave but partly exciting to be entering this new phase of the school. i think all of us, students we’re ready for change, but we’re missing them for sure. especially after having them speak into our lives and be sharing a room with a two of them as well.

wednesday we went to the hospital, my first time with the new staff. i was in ANC (antenatal) and it went amazing. nothing crazy or out of ordinary happened but i got lots of practice in VE’s and i can actually understand what it is i’m feeling now! (i’m sure for sum you didn’t need to know that information but for me its big, because thats been something that has been very difficult to understand so the fact that now i get it! woo hoo!) i was also sent on an errand of taking two women to ultrasound. i’m now convinced they send us white girls to do these errands because the ultrasound technicians don’t like it when we come. i had to fight a little for the women to get seen. the problem being that they told me was, the machine is tired, and they were tired and they didn’t want wrong information to be found, also that we already sent six women earlier that day and there was a line up of people. i tried to tell them that we could not find the heartbeats for their babies and we needed to make sure that they were alive it was very important. they finally agreed to seeing the women but i could tell they were not happy. that wore off as they started joking around with me that the one technician ‘loved me and wanted my contact information.’ i explained that i had no phone and then he asked for my email. i said ‘umm i ‘don't think so’. they then read my name tag and made some comments about my last name, the one knocked on the wall and said ‘wall?’ and i was like, ‘yes wall as in wall’ they thought that was pretty funny! it gets a little frustrating when there is such a lack of professionalism. a few things like, lack of privacy for the patients and them making comments like ‘he loves you’ while a women is on the table having an ultrasound done is just not proper, especially coming from doctors. but this is normal here.

something i have been thinking about lately is the lack of human value that is expressed here. and what that means for a nation/country. if there is a lack of value on human life, what does that mean for a country? it means you can shove as many people as you can into a bus and drive away while someone is trying to get off. it means that women with babies and elderly have to stand in the middle of that bus while the capable people around them sit. it means that instead of calling each other by name its okay to poke and shout ‘hey you’ at someone to get there attention. it means that there is no such thing as privacy and anyone can walk in while your in the middle of a doctors appointment, no matter how personal the topic of the appointment may be. it means there is no concept of time and you can show up for things whenever you feel like it. it means women in labour can be yelled at if there being too loud. it means you can ignore a women who’s pushing her child out just because she is HIV positive. it means a lot for a country. it spurs on selfishness and people taking their eyes off the needs around them and focusing only on the needs of themselves. i can not write this and say it is true of ‘everyone’ here, but it something that i have noticed, the scary thing is, this mentality is not just here in a third world nation but its heading into our western world as well. where people care more about the money they make then how they make it. where they want to get to ‘the top’ and don’t care how they get there. where their own pride and stubbornness keep them from having a relationship with family and friends. this happens when we take Jesus out of a nation. ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and all your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself’ this is what he asked.... are we doing it? its a little scary to hear how laws are changing and how corruption is taking the place of integrity and honesty in our country. in Canada and the US. it doesn’t just happen here, in Tanzania.

yes its corrupt here, the government can control the electricity and businesses can determine that they can charge a ‘white’ person more than a Tanzanian based on the idea that ‘white people are rich’. i’ve been asked many times ‘what is poverty like in your country?’ people want to know. they know what poverty is and they believe that no ‘white’ person has any clue what it is. the the truth is that poverty is everywhere. we have homeless people in Winnipeg, we have families that can’t buy enough food for their children to have adequate nutrition. and on the opposite side of things i have seen places downtown where there are citizens here who have huge houses, who can afford the proper food and they don’t have to watch their families go hungary or be sick because they can’t get the right foods. it double sided everywhere we go...

as a school we have discussed lately how we make a change. how can we go into the hospital, a group of foreigners who are only students, and make a lasting difference there? we’ve discussed this and thought about what it means to make a change, and i believe that we can’t go thinking we’re gonna change the whole world, but we can go and change lives. we can be a support for the women who normally wouldn’t get the support. we can do the checkups in ANC and see which women need immediate care and which ones can wait a little. the doctors we have worked with truly do have these women’s best interest at heart. they are there just as we are, to save lives. but the system they have is not always the best. women are seen as they come, not necessarily based on how much an emergency their situation is. they are not always checked up upon after they deliver either. its amazing to see how many situations where because of one us checking women and babies, lives were saved. fevers in babies have been taken under control, bleeding in women has been stopped because we have checked them and been able to determine the cause and stop it. women who were abandoned by family and had no food for two days while in labour, were able to eat because we saw them and were able to provide some food for them. the doctors are simply not enough to be able to spot these things, once they know they are usually helpful in offering their advice in how to care for the women. but its the diagnoses that usually goes unnoticed. if we can take notice of them and stop problems before they escalate further, than thats a change worth making in those women's lives.

yes, focusing on the person. letting them know they are valued. that they and their child and lives worth saving. and hope that by our actions it spurs others to do the same. that is how we create change. that is my little rant for the week!

thursday i spent at the clinic, working in the lab, i got to do blood group tests, (i’m A+ as i found out!), lots of urine tests and some testing for malaria and other parasites. then i spent the remainder of the morning doing antenatal check ups. friday i went to the labour ward at the hospital and delivered my seventh baby! another healthy little boy. the delivery was a little slow and the doctors kept pressing for me to do an episitomy, we stalled as long as possible to give the women a chance for stretching but the doctors would have no more of it. so an episiotomy was done. and i got to do it, a little nerve-racking and those are not fun things to do, but i’m enjoying taking more responsibility in midwifery care. just a little one was done, and with the next contraction, he was born. mom and baby we’re both doing well and another delivery was happening that was my job to be the ‘second’ in. meaning i help the person doing the delivery (first person) and then take the baby to be checked over. in this case the baby came out with no heartbeat. we immediately rushed him over to the table and started doing compressions with bag and mask on him. i squeezed the bag while my staff started the compressions. one, two, three, squeeze and repeat. others surrounded us and began praying desperately for this little life. within seconds he had a slow heartbeat. we continued, after five minuets his heart rate grew stronger but he was only taking about 8 breaths per a minute. we continued praying and pumping air into his little lungs. a nurse came and took over the bag and mask, she pumped air into him so fast i thought his lungs for sure would explode, but instead he began taking more breathes. we continued in prayer. in less than an hour this little guy went from no heartbeat to breathing with the help of oxygen tubes, to laying in the hands of his mother crying and breathing as any normal newborn! thank you Jesus!!! we saw the mighty hand of God that day, a miracle in the life of this little baby boy!

well as you have read, lots has been on my mind this week, many things have taken place that helps being here all worth it. its been a challenging week with the power going off every single day, and the change of many things in our school but God has been with us through it all and i know he’ll continue to guide us as we go from here. thanks for your prayers for me and our school. they are greatly appreciated!

till next time....