June 10th Torogo, Cote d' Ivoire

This morning we woke up early and got ready to work our frist day in the Dispensary. Diane made us French Toast for breakfast. The french actually call it unwanted bread...it was good none the less! We joined the workers for their devotional mainly so we could be inroduced because we had no idea what they were saying. For my first roation I was in the injection room with Sudamon. I couldn't understand him, actually didn't know his name until a few days later, and for most of the time he would leave me alone in the room with patients and I just sat there and stared...it was awkward. It was slow at first, but then it began to pick up. The injection room has a main room where people come to get their injections and then a smaller room with 4 beds in it where people would get IV's. We had one little girl who was tehre with a very high fever and dehydration. She had malaria. At one point we had to give her anti-seizure drugs because her fever was so high we were afraid she was going to start seizing, thankfully she never did. To cool her off I would take a rag get it wet with "cold" water and rub it all over her body, she hated that.

Here is part of the injection room....the toilet wasn't used

Here is looking from the main room into the room with beds....the little girl laying with her mom is the one with malaria

Here are all the injections....

Along with the girl being there all day, we had a man who had come and was just lying outside and couldn't move...honestly I thought he was dead until they brought him into the room. We hooked him up to an IV gave him fluids and some medications and by the end of the day he was a lot better. Throughout the day we had a bunch of kids come in with fevers and other just to get routine medication administration. They would bring us a bag with their injections from the pharmacy, hand us their "chart" which were actually just index cards, and we would give them an injection. Most of the medication came in ampules and I never knew how much to give so I would just draw it all up...look over at Sudamon for the nod and administer it. It felt weird because in school we check at least 3 times and our instructors are hoovering over us in case we did something wrong...that was not the case. The only time we measured it was if we gave Penicillin and we would keep the remains of that and use it on somone else.

The language at this point was still hard. I knew how to greet which was a big thing..always shake hands no matter what! They love shaking hands and if you don't, its considered rude. You also only shake, hand, and recieve things with your right hand..you're left hand is considered unclean for reasons I will let your imagination take you.

Health care is so different. Rarely would they wash their hands between patients, they have limited supplies...but one relief was that they do NOT reuse needles. I was glad to see that! When someone comes to the dispensary it is an all day event. They get there hours before it opens and stay until they get seen.

After the work day was over we went into town, Korhogo, to the market to buy material for our scrubs from Africa! Every $1 is 500 Francs. We drew quite a large crowd of followers...a bunch of new white people not knowing what they were doing, I would have stared too. We then went to a gas station and got this delicious ice cream that came in plastic bags. Everything is in plastic bags. This ice cream was made from coconut milk and it was the best EVER! It's called Star ice cream..if you ever go to Africa it's a must! For dinner we went to La Bonne Cuisine (The good food). We had rice with a pureed peanut sauce and a chicken leg. It was really good, especially the peanut sauce! The sleep aragements aren't bad. I sleep on an air matress and have a ceiling fan which makes all the difference! Tomorrow will be another exciting day in the Dispensary!

Walking through the market...

The resturant...

The team plus Christie. Christie is in the top left (she was there on her own as an apprentice and was there a total of 8 weeks). The next is Sarah and then me. Bottom left to right is Emily, Kait, and Mindy. We have our cokes and OK tip top which is a coffee tasting soda...so delicious!