This is why I don't promise consistent blogs...
Believe me, it wasn't for a lack of trying. My promising interntet source at the local hospital was out at least half of the times that I tried to use it, and a few times I forgot to bring my plug adaptor. Add in a little laziness and forgetfulness, and there you have my poorly managed blog!
So I have a story that doesn't in the littlest bit relate to Peace Corps, but I think it's a pretty fantastic story so I'm gonna share it with you now. A while back, I was doing my dishes, scrubbing a pot of old pasta with some noodles real stuck to the bottom of the pot. After my sponge and steel wool both failed me, I decided to attack it with my finger nail. With my first attempt, I feel a seering pain in my finger nail, and was confident that I had ripped it off. When I looked at my finger though, my nail was still there, but with a little addition. Going about 3/4 of the way down my nail was a white blob. I pushed on the blob a little bit, and to my suprise, a small bit of noodle squeezed out from under my nail! Disgusted and fascinated, I kept doing this for maybe 2 hours (neglecting the rest of my dishes all the while...) and a little more pasta kept squeezing out each time, but the vast majority of the nood was still in there and my finger was absolutely throbbing.
I'm not entirely sure why, but for some reason I expected my body would just handle the situation on its own, the way it would a splinter and that this wouldn't require medical attention. After a couple of days though, this proved to not be the case, so I went to the doctor to get it looked at. The doctor quickly decided that noodle fingers were not his area of expertise, so he made the FANTASTIC decision to ship me off to Bloemfontain where I could get surgery, but more importantly, eat McDonalds!
So 2 days later (this is day 5 of noodle finger, if you were counting), Peace Corps drove me from Maseru to Bloem for my surgery. The doctor was a friendly enough guy and made me feel right proud when he told me that this was his "weirdest case all week." He started by putting some topical anesthetic around the base of noodle finger that didn't actually numb anything, just got all over my shirt. Then they took me to a surgery room, where they laid me on a table, put a sheet over me (still have no idea why), and monitored my vitals for about 20 minutes. I found this whole scene very weird, since I was surrounded by posters describing the process of a colonoscopy and the anatomy of the colon, which had me fretting that they got their patients mixed up and I was in for more than I bargained for.
Eventually the doctor came back in, and with about a 5" needle, began injecting antisthetic at the base of my finger. The needle had this cartridge kind of thing that he could pop in new tubes of antisthetic when the previous ran out. These tubes were not little, and he used 5, which swelled my finger to at least double its original size. It looked pretty awesome and gave me some entertainment while I waited for it to numb up.
After it numbed, he came back in, placed my hand in this little holder to get started. Then he took and obscenely large probe, and while carrying on a creepily casual conversation with me, started scooping the gunk. I was watching the whole time, and while it didn't hurt, it was still kind of intense to see. With his first scoop, he pulled out a big glob of white stuff. Trying to sound unphased, I said, "Guess there's the noodle! Hungry?" He then told me that that wasn't actually my noodle. My noodle had apparently been absorbed through my finger, which in turn got infected and then started producing pus. This grossed me out enough to quash any further witty remarks I might have had. He scooped away for maybe another 10 minutes, then got another ridiculously large needle and injected antibiotics under my nail. Again, I still couldn't actually feel any of this, but the whole time I kept thinking of how bad this would hurt when the antisthetic wore off, but maybe he would hook me up with some awesome pain killers.
He then finished up and gave me a big bag of ice and gave me my scrip, which I was disappointed to see was just for a large dose of advil. Which I forgot to fill. And forgot to take my ice. I left a bit dejected and grossed out, but all was right again when we stopped for McDonalds, and loaded myself up with burgers and fountain drinks, making it an OK day.
I hope I didn't bore you with too many details, but this is one of my favorite Peace Corps stories, although it has nothing to do with my Peace Corps life. On a side note, life here is good, job is going well enough, and I'm a generally happy fellow these days. Hope this finds you well, and teaches you an important lesson in dish scrubbing safety!
Khotso,
Grant
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Sorry, been a while...
Okay, Okay, so that was really bad. 3 month intervals between posts shouldn't be the norm. I would promise to be a little more attentive to the blog in the future, but seeing as I promised that back in October, let's just play it by ear...
In the three months since my last post, I've had plenty to post about and even the occasional opportunity to post, but something has always seemed to stop me. Whether it be internet failure, flooded bridges (more on that later), being lazy, being in a mood that wasn't conducive to posting in a public forum (this is an upbeat blog!), or otherwise, something has always stopped me (laziness being problem #1). So to make up for all my time off, I thought a double post might be a nice way to catch up. The obvious way to divide this up was work and play, so let's get started with my worklife, shall we?
What your tax dollars are funding:
As you know, my primary assignment is working to increase the outreach capacity of my local clinic here in Sebetia. I described in my last post, way back when, that I had recently received funding to hold HIV testing events at three primary schools, and if I remember correctly, I was really excited about it back then. But as the project started to get its legs under it, it dawned on me just how much work and just how many obstacles were ahead of me.
To begin, I had to firm everything up with the schools, local shopkeeper, village health workers, and clinic staff to coordinate who was doing what, and how the events would actually run. Without reliable cell signals or good roads, that meant I would be doing a lot of walking. But more than that, it meant that any progress would be made increeeeedibly slowly. In the States, I could probably confirm all the details with schools in about 30 minutes of phone calls. Here? I had to hike to each of these schools, which was about 6 hours of walking for three straight days. (On one visit, my shorts split wide open when I was about 2 hours from home. Since there was no way I was turning back, I visited a massive school, filled with small children, with my boxers/thighs dangerously exposed despite my best efforts to keep everything hidden. That's not really relevant, but I thought it was funny).
This is when I started running into problems. Apparently, during planning, the schools and I had not totally understood one another. We were offering to pay them a small amount to hold the event at the schools and help a little. They thought we would be paying MUCH more than we were prepared to as an endowment to the school. We nearly had to cancel the event at that school, but after a few more talks, they grudgingly agreed to go forward.
Toward the end of October, about a week before the events were going to go through, I found out that government approval was required for holding testing events at a school setting. I proceeded to gather all the documentation that they required, but permission was ultimately denied. At this point, we could either cancel entirely, or reschedule for when schools were out of session. Because we were already so invested and had the funding, we decided that rescheduling for December was our best move.
One thing I didn't know about Lesotho, December-February is raaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiny season.
My village is fairly rural, and is seperated from the rest of the country by multiple rivers. But until the rains came, I thought this would be no problem because each river had fairly decent bridges across them, and I had only seen the rivers when they're dry. In retrospect, I completely underestimated rain here. The river leading to my site goes well over a meter above the bridge during heavy rains, and are completely unpassable. And as my luck would have it, the first HEAVY rains came the week of my event. This meant that food couln't be shipped and the sports organization from Maseru couldn't make it.
Another cancellation. Another reschedule.
This time we rescheduled for early January, and prayed that rain wouldn't wash us out. We also moved the events to three schools much closer to Sebetia. We figured, the fewer rivers, the better our chances. And we lucked out.
On January 10, we held our first event in the field in front of the clinic (right beside Sebetia Primary). The event wasn't without its snags, as most people came about 4 hours late, but in the end, the kids played and learned, everybody ate, and we tested a lot of people. On Wednesday we did the same at Majoe Matso, with a similar result, and Thursday at Mamatebele. And I'm happy to say that we saved the best for last. At Mamatebele, we had a massive turnout thanks to a very proactive chief and principle, great weather, and a lot of education. Unfortunately, we ran out of testing kits about halfway through the events. More were delivered later in the day, but I think it probably decreased our overall testing numbers.
In the end, we tested about 300 people, approximately 200 of them being school kids and younger. And altogether, only one of those children came out positive. All things considered, I'll take it.
Now, we're working with the village health workers to track down HIV+ women of child-bearing age to see if their children have been tested. We hope that this will help lead us to more of the at risk kids in the area.
I'm also working at the schools to develop a Life Skills curriculum, with an HIV/AIDS support groups to generate income through a candle making project, starting a volleyball club, and am going to start coaching track next week (those last two are mostly because I'm bored). These projects are just now getting their legs under them, so I'll include more about them once there's more to tell.
For now though, I think that should just about cover it. Sorry for being so long winded. If I don't take another 3 month break, I promise the next will be more concise!
Khotso!
Grant
In the three months since my last post, I've had plenty to post about and even the occasional opportunity to post, but something has always seemed to stop me. Whether it be internet failure, flooded bridges (more on that later), being lazy, being in a mood that wasn't conducive to posting in a public forum (this is an upbeat blog!), or otherwise, something has always stopped me (laziness being problem #1). So to make up for all my time off, I thought a double post might be a nice way to catch up. The obvious way to divide this up was work and play, so let's get started with my worklife, shall we?
What your tax dollars are funding:
As you know, my primary assignment is working to increase the outreach capacity of my local clinic here in Sebetia. I described in my last post, way back when, that I had recently received funding to hold HIV testing events at three primary schools, and if I remember correctly, I was really excited about it back then. But as the project started to get its legs under it, it dawned on me just how much work and just how many obstacles were ahead of me.
To begin, I had to firm everything up with the schools, local shopkeeper, village health workers, and clinic staff to coordinate who was doing what, and how the events would actually run. Without reliable cell signals or good roads, that meant I would be doing a lot of walking. But more than that, it meant that any progress would be made increeeeedibly slowly. In the States, I could probably confirm all the details with schools in about 30 minutes of phone calls. Here? I had to hike to each of these schools, which was about 6 hours of walking for three straight days. (On one visit, my shorts split wide open when I was about 2 hours from home. Since there was no way I was turning back, I visited a massive school, filled with small children, with my boxers/thighs dangerously exposed despite my best efforts to keep everything hidden. That's not really relevant, but I thought it was funny).
This is when I started running into problems. Apparently, during planning, the schools and I had not totally understood one another. We were offering to pay them a small amount to hold the event at the schools and help a little. They thought we would be paying MUCH more than we were prepared to as an endowment to the school. We nearly had to cancel the event at that school, but after a few more talks, they grudgingly agreed to go forward.
Toward the end of October, about a week before the events were going to go through, I found out that government approval was required for holding testing events at a school setting. I proceeded to gather all the documentation that they required, but permission was ultimately denied. At this point, we could either cancel entirely, or reschedule for when schools were out of session. Because we were already so invested and had the funding, we decided that rescheduling for December was our best move.
One thing I didn't know about Lesotho, December-February is raaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiny season.
My village is fairly rural, and is seperated from the rest of the country by multiple rivers. But until the rains came, I thought this would be no problem because each river had fairly decent bridges across them, and I had only seen the rivers when they're dry. In retrospect, I completely underestimated rain here. The river leading to my site goes well over a meter above the bridge during heavy rains, and are completely unpassable. And as my luck would have it, the first HEAVY rains came the week of my event. This meant that food couln't be shipped and the sports organization from Maseru couldn't make it.
Another cancellation. Another reschedule.
This time we rescheduled for early January, and prayed that rain wouldn't wash us out. We also moved the events to three schools much closer to Sebetia. We figured, the fewer rivers, the better our chances. And we lucked out.
On January 10, we held our first event in the field in front of the clinic (right beside Sebetia Primary). The event wasn't without its snags, as most people came about 4 hours late, but in the end, the kids played and learned, everybody ate, and we tested a lot of people. On Wednesday we did the same at Majoe Matso, with a similar result, and Thursday at Mamatebele. And I'm happy to say that we saved the best for last. At Mamatebele, we had a massive turnout thanks to a very proactive chief and principle, great weather, and a lot of education. Unfortunately, we ran out of testing kits about halfway through the events. More were delivered later in the day, but I think it probably decreased our overall testing numbers.
In the end, we tested about 300 people, approximately 200 of them being school kids and younger. And altogether, only one of those children came out positive. All things considered, I'll take it.
Now, we're working with the village health workers to track down HIV+ women of child-bearing age to see if their children have been tested. We hope that this will help lead us to more of the at risk kids in the area.
I'm also working at the schools to develop a Life Skills curriculum, with an HIV/AIDS support groups to generate income through a candle making project, starting a volleyball club, and am going to start coaching track next week (those last two are mostly because I'm bored). These projects are just now getting their legs under them, so I'll include more about them once there's more to tell.
For now though, I think that should just about cover it. Sorry for being so long winded. If I don't take another 3 month break, I promise the next will be more concise!
Khotso!
Grant
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