Update!

I am currently in Nairobi with internet that allows me to update my blog! So what has been going on the past few weeks???

I am still officially on the children’s unit but go to medical 2 a couple times of week to help out and get some experience working there. The other day back I found all of the mothers lined up outside of the bathroom. What is going on? “Someone didn’t flush the toilet.” Oh… This has happened once before. You have to use a bucket of water to flush the toilet and if a mother doesn’t flush after she or her child goes then all of the mothers have to line up and one by one fill up the bucket and flush the toilet. Everyone! I just laugh cause it gets the point across and it is the sight to see.

There are a lot of new nurses being trained right now so work seems busier on a busy ward to begin with. It is a lot of fun to teach and also nice to get to know them. Our patients are doing well with diagnoses of malaria, pneumonias and malnutrition. We will likely start to get patients with burns when it starts to get colder and families use jikos (a mini itty bitty coal grill thing) and fires more.

Lake flies have been horrible. There are usually some around but I haven’t seen them this bad. During the day you can see a big black cloud of these flies over the lake and they slowly make their way to land. In the evening and night there are billions of lake flies everywhere. I feel like a windshield when walking as they hit my face, arms and legs. Yuck. Of course they are attracted to light so you have to very strategic about when you turn on and off lights and open and close windows. Even then the first things I do in the morning is sweep. They live for three days so by the time they get to the land and spend a night buzzing around they are dead in the morning.

We keep the windows open in the ward so it doesn’t become a hot box but the lake flies are everywhere when you have to work by light at night. The patients are tucked safely away in their bed net so the biggest issue is trying to start IV lines with the use of a light so close to the patient. Anyhow, this massive amount should only last a short time. 

Hope all is well!