village life has begun....

'Tubob!!!' is all I hear as I walk through the dusty roads of our village. the kids here have become accoustomed to the occasional 'tubob' (white person) roaming around the village, helping out in the clinic and the school. They get very excited at even the sight of a camera, which leads to terrible pictures of squished faces as they all vie for the closest spot to the lense. but they are so great and loving and i have had so much fun getting to know them this past week in the school, and the tough little ones who come in for dressings in the clinic. i clean and dress their wounds with alcohol, knowing full well that if i was in their seat i would be screaming bloody murder....but they just look up at me silently with an occasional single tear rolling down their cheecks. tough little guys!
so....the village life is quite different than anything i've really experienced. we have no electricity, no transportation, but cold running water, which is key in this heat!! when we want to get to town to use the internet, buy anything, charge our camera or phone batteries, attend school classes that we are assisting our peace corp buddies with, or anything of the sort...we have to walk for an hour to the next village where we wait until the bus to town is full (anywhere from 1-4 hours) and then take the bus into town...and it's the same in reverse. So, although we ventured into town 2 times last week, the trips have left us exhausted and so think we may be hankering down into village life a bit more and leaving behind the amenities we have grown so accustomed to.
last week we laid out the plan of the work we hope to do during our time in the village. we proposed a number of health classes we would like to hold and met with the leaders of the NGO and the village council to discuss. many of our ideas were turned down or we had to compromise on our talk because they didn't want us to come into their village and try to 'empower women' or 'make their boys more promiscuous' by offering condoms. the great thing about the latter was that after we left the meeting and went back to the clinic a number of the boys who work with the organization and had heard about what was spoken about snuck into our compound and asked for hand-fulls of condoms!! guess we didn't have to make a public announcement of it after all!!
so we agreed on 2 classes and training the health worker in the clinic. this means that every morning we are in the clinic...which is great fun! we mostly clean and dress various wounds and spend our free time training Yusafa (who runs the clinic but is only trained as an assistant pharmacist). the highlights of last weeks clinic are as follows...
1. boy came in with very bad cut on his toe, and toe nail has to be pulled out and would cleaned and dressed as the child kicked and screamed! i got the fun job of cleaning and dressing the wound while the 4 other workers present held him down
2. 8 year old girl sticks bead all the way in her ear. i tried to flush it out with a syringe, but was too careful and ginger and the bead would not budge. so we all climbed in the ambulance and drove her to the closest hospital where the doc did the exact same things as i did, and out came the bead! i guess i need more practice in ear flushing....
so...other than that, we held our first class of the week!! it was a mother's and toddler's group where all the mom's come and bring their little ones to play. we taught them some fun games to play with their kids, which they all thought we hilarious!! and then we did a little shpeal on health issues in children and when to bring your child into the clinic, when to give oral rehydration syrup, and when to get medication. all the women seemed to be listening intently, but i believe some of the message may have been lost in the triple translation (in our village, some speak mandika while others speak woloff). we offered boaboa juice as a refreshment afterwards, which they all loved...so all in all i would say it was a success. our next class is monday, where we are teaching the mothers about nutrition, when they can tell a child is dehydrated, and how to make oral rehydration syrup at home for a dehydrated child.
the other class we helped out with this week is the peace corps class on 'current events in the world' at the local city high school. it was a fantastic class! all the students were very involved, bright, eager to learn. both males and females voiced their opinions vehemently about democracy, the corruption in the government, what the people of zimbabwe are going through and what can be done, and the violence in south africa. it was great to see the students, especially the girls, speak out with such confidence about what they believed was right and wrong and what they could do about it.
so...that wraps up our first week in Madina Salaam...stay tuned to hear about our terrible disaster of a weekend next blog...
much love.