Day 6

Monday May 6^th, 2013

Today was such an incredible day.  We were up early and headed over to the Aninwah hospital.  We took a tour of the hospital. The let us in rooms that would be completely off limits in America.  We went into the lab, records, patients rooms, everywhere.  It was really cool.  We set up our units outside and started teaching.  In the beginning not many people came but eventually they started piling in.  We saw 150 in 4 hours.  It was so insane.  There were kids everywhere! The teaching was so much fun, I really enjoyed it.  The people were very interested and had such great questions regarding HIV.  Even after we explained how you can contract it, we had to do it all over again.  We had translators and they did incredible; Richard helped us as well.  The nurse Abinaw remembered my name so she kept calling me over all the time.  It was so hot and sweaty but I loved every second of it.  It was so incredibly fast.  People kept coming and eventually we had to turn them away because we were out of items and time.  An old man with his son approached me and asked me to check his sons vitals.  Everything was put away so I was able to round up a couple tooth brushes and toothpaste for him.   He kept saying “God Bless you.”  He was so grateful.  I had fun giving out condoms to the people as well.  They were so sheepish about it but took them anyway. We then had a break for lunch.  The lunch was delicious.  They do a lot of spaghetti here.  Kids were sitting outside the building yelling at us saying they want our food.  So Kevin and I scraped everything from our plates and gave it to them and they freaking cleaned the plate clean.  Bones and all.  Starving people in Africa has become so real.  The other night I almost told the cook I was starving but I really had to check myself with that.  I truly have no idea what that means.  When I say I am Hot, I check myself.  Because Utah is nothing compared to what they get here.  The cook was flirting with me and kept asking ‘where were you last night? I was waiting!’  Ah they are hilarious!! We were able to go into the hospital so Abinaw came and translated my interviews for me.  She was such a big help.  The ladies I interviewed seemed a bit bugged at first but they opened up and I think I got a lot of great information.  The nurses then kept asking us for condoms.  Many they must have sex a lot.  Some of the men too kept saying they needed more and that they weren’t big enough.  Oh Africa.  We sat outside for a bit while the other people from our group got to see a few procedures.  Some of the kids kept singing for us; especially Richards daughter.  I went back in and interviewed Kofi about all of the healthcare challenges happening at the moment and man it is so crazy.  I am really excited that I decided to do this topic.  It is so interesting to me.  I am learning so much and am getting excited to write the paper.  Tasha saw a boy come in whose foot got ran over and she slowly passed out.  Then Kayla and Kevin got to scrub in on two surgeries.  One was to remove ovarian cysts on a lady who only had an epidural the second was on a 7 year old who’s penis whole was blocked so they cut it open for him.  He was only under general anesthesia.  They seriously are just not clean like we are in America.  There is virtually no HPPA or laws regarding anything with it.  It almost seems like you get better health care—from a standpoint of care, not necessarily quality.  It’s just less bull crap to jump through and less bureaucracy.  So incredible that they can live this way and be so happy.  Kevin said that some of the utensils they used in the surgery were rinsed off and used on the second boy.  Heavenly Father really is looking out for these people and protecting them as best as he and they know how.  I freaking love this trip! I love that I get to experience it and make a difference in lives again.  My basic everyday knowledge I have grown up with is such new information to the people here.  Even basics as washing hands, brushing, and eating fruits and veggies isn’t known here and we get to make an impact and help and answer questions.  It’s so incredible.