A few life updates

I haven’t been keeping up with this blog enough! My apologies to anyone who might be reading this. A lot of has happened in the last couple of months and sometimes it has been too much to put into words. I’m currently on vacation with my parents and have a bit of down time to process and write a few blog posts.

The projects that I have managed to get started are going well, as for the others, they’re still works in progress. I am still working on my organizational system for my clinic’s pharmacy and dispensary. Since it’s the end of the fiscal year, we ran out of printer ink about a month ago and won’t be getting any more for another few weeks. Nonetheless, the parts of the system I have implemented so far seem to work. I have mostly been working on making the dispensary match the pharmacy. I want to eventually gather enough data on how much we dispense every week so that we can just refill the dispensary once a week, instead of daily, and that would make the process of keeping stock counts much simpler. It doesn’t sound like the most exciting work, but when I think about the issues we have with stock outs or wasted drugs due to expiry, I think it’s some of the most important work I do.

Furthermore, I finally managed to install Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing on one of the clinic computers!! I started going through the lessons with our Health Education Assistant (Mma Lenyatso) and it has been so much fun. Mma Lenyatso started out not knowing how to use a mouse or type her name. Now she has progressed to using half the letter keys on the keyboard and has managed to double her typing speed! I’m hoping that her success and progress will inspire others to want to take lessons as well. In fact, I think this program is so useful that I hope to install it on the computers at the primary school so that the students can have a chance to learn as well. I figure, the younger you start with typing, the easier it is.

The other day I had my first morning health talk at the clinic. The subject was malaria since world malaria day is coming up. I managed to get some pamphlets to hand out and clinic staff helped me put together a poster in Setswana about the symptoms and prevention methods for malaria. I think the talk went really well! Fortunately, Mma Lenyatso and one of our ambulance drivers were there to lead the discussion, since it was all in Setswana. Our clinic actually received several hundred mosquito nets from UNICEF and in the month leading up to world malaria day, we handed them out to pregnant women, women with children under 5, and the elderly. I am considering doing a project to monitor the usage of the nets and possibly map out my village to pinpoint areas that malaria cases occur. (Big dreams, we’ll see how that goes).

Mosquito nets

At the primary school, I have started a World Map Project! I really love geography, and I thought that the best way to start getting involved at the school would be this project. We are drawing a 1.68 meters by 3.36 meters world map on the side of one of the buildings at the school. Once the project is done, we’ll be able to play geography games with the kids and I have already started quizzing them on the different countries of the world. I also just like the idea of adding something colorful and beautiful to the school. We plan to write ‘Welcome to Gobojango Primary School’ over the map and it will be the first thing people see when they enter school grounds. But I won’t lie, it’s also a lot of fun and deeply satisfying to be able to look at a physical accomplishment at the end of the day. As an added bonus, some of the teachers have gotten very involved with the project and it has been great getting to know them.

A work in progress!

Sadly, I am still working on getting a GrassRoot Soccer team going, but that was in part due to the school break and my traveling around for trainings and holidays. I plan to step up my efforts when I get home.

I also feel that I should mention a sad occurrence. A few weeks ago, a woman I worked with at the clinic passed away. Her name was Lentho and she was a lovely person. She became too sick to work by November, so I didn’t get a chance to get to know her well, but I know that she was funny and she was kind. She was the first person to invite me to a party when I arrived in Gobojango. She was also the first person to try to find me a pet cat when she found out how much I wanted one. She loved to garden and dance. She was very close to many of my friends and neighbors, so I would accompany them sometimes and visit Lentho at home. Her passing was very difficult and impacted almost everyone I know in Gobojango. She is really missed.

That’s all for now, I promise to post again soon.