Hello Everybody!
Once again the time has come for a massive update on what's been going on in my little part of South Africa.
This week has been super busy! It just flew by. This was the kids’ first week back to school, so the first few days seemed like there were hardly any kids around (preschool is taught at Rehoboth, and there’s programs for the toddlers and babies). My brain is on overload of trying to remember all there is to running the clinic since Mirande and her husband Johan are going to return to Holland for vacation for the first 3 weeks of Feb and I will be in charge of the clinic at that point. There’s a lot that goes on! So I’m trying to write down as much as possible or have Mirande talk me through the usual tasks as well as potential trouble-shooting. Many of the meds are unfamiliar to me (different standard meds for diseases/disorders) so to figure out what to ‘prescribe’ is a bit of a challenge until I become familiar to what we have and we don’t have. The most basic difference is that there is no Tylenol, no acetaminophen. So when we have a child with a fever, I was a little stumped at first, since this is just the standard back in Canada . Instead, we have Panado, a similar analgesic/antipyretic. So there’s a few minor things like that where I need to re-train my brain to think what is here instead of thinking what I would do instinctively.
This week was also my first instances of driving standard AND on the left hand side. The left hand thing didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would (mind you… I wasn’t driving on any roads that were remotely busy), except that I would look for the rear-view mirror in the wrong place. It’s just a little VW Golf that I’m learning on, which is a tiny little car (!). I have the feeling that car and I will build many funny memories together in my struggles to gear shift at appropriate times and into the correct gear slot. Yikes! Progress is being made though… hopefully to be driving in a month maybe? We shall see. That’s the best goal I can give myself so far!
All the groceries, food, supplies for the kids’ houses are managed by the clinic as well, and once a month there is a massive re-stock of non-perishable food items and cleaning supplies … that was Wednesday this past week. What a busy day! It was so so hot that day as well – at least 35 degrees, no breeze – and we were lugging around heavy boxes around the village, loading and unloading, packing and unpacking. Oh man, I was tired after that day.
Thursday was clinic day, which also happens once a month. All the current health concerns, need for new prescriptions, follow-ups required, etc are compiled and Mirande and I headed off to meet the doctor at the hospital with one of our littlest boys, Andile, who we wanted to get checked out for a lingering rash on his head. The pediatrician is a wonderful woman who genuinely listens to the concerns we have and follows usually the same directions we see for the kids. She definitely makes Rehoboth a priority – she is the only pediatrician at the hospital.
When we got back to the village after clinic, we were called to one of the houses. Aphiwe, a 4 year old blind energetic boy, has just had two seizures (he is not epileptic, this is VERY unusual for him), and has not recovered from it – having vomited and lost control of his bowels and is still not responding. So we go from the hospital, back to the hospital. Aphiwe is a special friend of mine, he was one of the first to remember my name. He explores the world very well with his fingers and by smelling people to recognize them as well – he is an amazing little guy. It was so sad to take him to hospital, and after going through the admission procress to have to leave him by himself before he woke up. Nurses in South Africa are not the same as nurses in Canada or Europe …. Nursing is a job there, with tasks to be done. That’s it. No concern for people or giving information or even being friendly to the patients or families.
The next day, Tamara and Aphiwe’s house mum went to visit in the morning at the visiting hours at that time, and he was back to his normal self. After they left, he was panicking and crying and inconsolable. The dietician we work with is wonderful, and texted Mirande to let us know what was going on, and we went a little early to see him and see what steps had been done since his admission and to give him some comfort.
When we arrived, Aphiwe was just lying in the crib they made him stay in since he’s blind and couldn’t be bothered to help him out. I went over and said ‘hello, it’s Auntie Heather!” and his little face lit up as he said ‘Auntie Heather? It’s you!” We were able to take him home after talking with the doctor about what further testing we would appreciate being done before the official diagnosis of ‘epilepsy’ was given, but basically we were refused that and now he’s on meds that he probably doesn’t need to be on. No CT Scan, no EEG, no investigation if it was anything else. Ridiculous. I’m going to keep pushing on that though – advocating is a very big role for nursing here. Fortunately, that’s something I enjoy doing. The important thing is though, he’s back and stable and happy.
After that kind of week, I was sooo happy to have a relaxing weekend! Saturday, a bunch of went to Pure Venom – the largest snake farm in Africa . Definitely a place that many would think is my ideal day trip…. (hint: sarcasm). It was actually better than I thought it would be! All the snakes were kept in very solid glass enclosures or deep outdoor protected pits, so it was actually interesting to see them all. I created a ‘wildlife survival kit’ by taking pictures of the poisonous ones that live in our area … basically, avoid all snakes as they will probably kill you. Yay? They were feeding the anacondas when we were there – very friendly staff who became unofficial tour guides decided they would go in and poke at the massive, rugby-ball thickness, 6 metre long anacondas so that we could get a better look as they swallowed whole chickens. I would definitely not poke at an anaconda. We volunteers had a braai with Yvonne and Alfons and their kids in the evening which was really nice – their little girl Yael has taken quite a liking to me, so we sit close whenever I see her.
Today is Sunday, and I’m currently drinking some nice tea to try and stay cozy warm while writing this – it’s a cool day and raining, raining, raining… a day for indoor activities. The irony is, we have no water currently. The water pump minorly broke last weekend when some workers we had coming in to do plastering left the hose on all day and night by accident and drained our tanks of water. When the people came in to check it out and remedy the situation on Monday, I guess they didn’t fix any problems that resulted as of that, so as of yesterday, we have no running water. We were a greasy-haired bunch of people coming into church today! Ha! It’s very different to have to think of water consumption when you don’t have any other than rain water… we had bits of water stored up and big rain barrels that are always out… but you still have to be careful to not overuse the little we have to work with. No laundry, no mopping, no dishwashing, no showering! You learn to make shortcuts for sure. It’s a very new sensation to be without something that is so easy to take for granted: water. No workers work on weekends here, so we have to wait until tomorrow for the guys to come in and hopefully fix our pump for good, fingers crossed.
This little computer I’ve left on Ontario time, so it’s funny to see that it’s only 8:20am back home right now! Seven hours is a good chunk of time! Hopefully I’ll find some time this afternoon to pop over to the office to drop in and fire off this message as an email before this news becomes old news J
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