Butare-mazing

Howdy!

These have been an eventful past couple of days. I’ve been adjusting to life in Butare so I haven’t had much time to blog. Also, I couldn’t blog without some funny picture material… here we go!

But first, it's Butare. Boo tar ray. The title makes sense.

Muhima Hospital

Last Thursday, I was among a small group of EWH students who visited this hospital in Kigali. This was the smallest hospital we visited, and it did not own much equipment. That being said, we were shown the maintenance workshop (a shed) and the several pieces of broken equipment it contained. There were several lights, patient monitors, and a lot of infant incubators.

The maintenance office. Everyone prefers the outdoors here anyway...

Story time:

Our workstation was located right beside the morgue. While we were working, a car pulled up to the morgue and bodies were moved from the building into the vehicle. I noticed that several very small caskets were among the transported. I presume these caskets held babies, and witnessing this was a morbid reminder that healthcare in developing countries is not at all what most of us are used to in America. I do not know if the incubators we were working on could have helped, but nevertheless, the importance of a technician’s work in Rwanda is more significant than I could have imagined.

On a lighter note, our group was able to fix multiple incubators, Richard and I fixed a couple lights and a suction machine, and Savannah and Grace found a dead (very dead) rat!!

Richard and I with our friend, Joseph.
What you can't see is the other side of this light. It's 90% tape.

I'm trying to look like I've done this before.

If you look closely, you'll find our late rodent friend.
Not Jeff. Look closer.

Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village

On Saturday, our EWH team volunteered at this village by building heart rate monitors with the kids. This village was home to some of the “most vulnerable” youth in Rwanda, and the atmosphere it creates is quite incredible. I encourage you to read more about it here: asyv.org

The students were extremely kind and enthusiastic, and many of them became my Facebook friends :]

Obligatory "make a stranger Gig 'Em" picture

Moving

Again! Much farther this time, though. This past weekend marked the end of our first month and the end of classes. To kick off the second month, all of the participants were paired off and sent to various cities around Rwanda. Richard and I were sent to the great town of Butare. If you're reading this Claudine, I'd like to thank you and your family again for being amazing hosts during my first month.

My roommates, host family, and I - minus Augustin.
Miss y'all already!

Butare is a much calmer town than Kigali. It contains the University of Rwanda, and is thus very similar to a “college town” back in America. The people are young, the restaurants are amazing, and everything is much cheaper. I am eating better than I ever could have imagined, and I love the town so far! In fact, just today I ate a hot dog and drank a mocha latte. What is ethnic food?

We are staying in Mere De Verbe Catholic Center. It is a really nice place (running water for showers¹, soft beds, and free breakfast)! The breakfasts are amazing; usually we have bread, coffee, milk, omelets, and a plate of passionfruit and oranges. If you didn’t know, I like food.

Kibilizi Hospital

During our month in Butare, Richard and I will be working in hospitals every weekday. We were lucky enough to be assigned to two different hospitals: Kibilizi (M, T, TH) and Kabutare (W, F).

Kibilizi is a small hospital with some amazing staff. The biomedical equipment technician (BMET) is named Vincent, and he helps us out every day. I will introduce our other new friends as necessary. We’ve only worked at Kibilizi for three days, but Richard and I have already managed to repair:

·         Infant Incubators (x3)

·         Ultrasound

·         Anesthesia Ventilator

·         Dental Chair (so many issues)

Side note – if anyone² wants to know about my equipment repairs in more technical detail, just let me know! I would be more than happy to share.

Kibilizi Hospital.
I have 34 of these pictures on my phone from trying to catch
the flag while it was blowing in the wind. Appreciate it.

Kibilizi Ambulance.
Safaris? Saving lives? Get you a vehicle that can do both.

Emile (“eh meal”) is the anesthetist at Kibilizi whom³ Richard and I met while repairing his ventilator. He speaks very good English, and he was very excited to work with us. In fact, we exchanged contact information, and he has invited to come watch his surgeries⁴ whenever we are working.

Working Anesthesia Ventilator.
The Crocs were for sanitation. Also manliness.

Now for the dental chair. Diana is the dentist. She’s great. Her dental chair is not great. When Richard and I arrived on Day 1, the issues were numerous:

·         The chair movement controls were broken – Diana was unable to properly position her patients while she was working.

·         The chair’s sink did not work – when the appropriate buttons were pressed, no water flowed out of the sink spout.

·         The suction tools did not suck⁵ – the suction motor never turned on.

·         The compressed air was not strong enough – self explanatory.

·         The light was covered with a very thick layer of dirt – this probably doesn’t deserve to make the list of issues, but I wanted 5 bullet points.

I am happy to report that Richard and I are awesome and we fixed everything. Whoop. The repairs were as follows:

·         We found that the connection was ripped out of the motor. We re-soldered the wires back into a plug and tied it in place so it would not be torn out.

·         We reprogrammed the chair buttons (this took extensive instruction-manual-reading)

·         We found more wires ripped from a circuit board. These didn’t require soldering though.

·         We tightened an internal connection between a tube and the chair instruments.

·         We… cleaned it.

Diana is very happy.

Vincent and I.
Ironic how a dental chair can make you
want to pull your teeth out.

While Richard and I have had a successful week, there is much more to accomplish in this hospital. The constant line of patients (aka people who benefit from our work) outside Diana’s office is extremely rewarding and motivation for us to continue our efforts.

Kabutare Hospital

Compared to Kibilizi, Kabutare is much bigger and has much more medical equipment. Richard and I have only worked here for a day, but the opportunities are numerous. The BMET at Kabutare is John, and he remembers the EWH participants from last year (shout-out to OTGC Maddy) which is nice. John is really cool, and he loves to take pictures with us. We spent most of our day touring the hospital, but we still had time to fix an oxygen concentrator and a surgical lamp!

John and I.
This picture made the blog because it makes my arm
look big and like I have muscles.

An interesting note about this hospital: almost everyone speaks French??? Thankfully, Richard is the best ever and can speak French pretty well. I mostly sit around while Richard handles all the translating, but my hand-gesture communication is becoming stellar.

Not much else to say here, except that I am excited about the opportunities at Kabutare, and y’all should expect updates on all the equipment we repair!

An Inspirational Note

Toward the end of my stay in Kigali, I became acquainted with the guard who would open the campus gate for me in the morning. His name is Gallican. He spoke English pretty well, and would wait for my roommates and I to walk through the gate so he could talk to us for a while. When he found out we were leaving, he was sad. One of the last conversations I had with Gallican involved him telling me about his life. He explained to me that “life is not good for a young person suffering from poverty” whom⁶ he identified as. I wrote down this next quote on my phone as I was walking away:

“I stay here from morning until evening because I am patient. I have patience and I wait because I have a job and an objective to complete.”

I’ve noticed that the African work ethic is very strong, and I think this quote is evidence of that and applicable to my own life. So, stay in school kids. Set goals for yourself and stay patient and determined until you succeed⁷.

Spades Update

Refer to the last blog post if you don’t know what this is…

G&P - 2378

B&S - 3015

Told y’all a comeback was in the makin’.

Peter, Gaby, Sav, and I - the Spades Squad.
Gaby and Savannah have to read my blog now
because I included a picture of them.

The Last Paragraph

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted! I am doing well, and this trip is more incredible that I could’ve hoped. As always, feel free to message me over the internet. Friday, Monday, and Tuesday are actually all public holidays here in Rwanda, so I plan to travel this weekend! Undoubtedly, I’ll have more adventures and equipment repairs to update y’all on next week. ‘Till next time!

“By definition, Faith is not talking or thinking about or even celebrating god’s truth. It is the process of adapting your behavior, your decisions, and ultimately, your whole lifestyle so that it accords with what god has asked you to do – without needing to see the evidence that it will all work out in the end.” – my friend Kelly’s bible study⁸

-Bryan

¹Also, it’s a precisely-measured -680 degrees Celsius.

²Future employers? Please? I have a nice resume?

³Yes, that is the correct usage of “whom.”

⁴Mom, I’ll use gloves even though I don’t touch anything…

⁵So they did suck… because they didn’t… they sucked by not sucking. But now they do suck.

⁶I’m much less confident on this one.

⁷Insert Shia Lebouf’s “Just Do It.”

⁸Not the best MLA-citation, but y’all should ask Kelly for more information!