Laundry-project and Africa life has started

Thursday the 11th of March: Now work has started. Monday and Tuesday has been quit. Both days I went around and was introduced to everyone at Compound – the hospital area. I had a look in the “Big Store” where there suppose to be some things that I maybe can use in the Laundry. Tuesday afternoon we (Anne Mette, Caroline and Lærke (the two medicine students)) went to an afternoon teaching of the nurse aids. It was about traditionally believes. A very interesting subject, because there is some funny believes down here, that sometimes makes it hard to run a hospital. Some of the most funny believes I will mention here (in Danish): - Mens man ammer, må man ikke have sex, da barnet vil få diarre. - Hvis en kvinde har kløe i skridtet er det fordi hun har spist for meget sukker eller fordi hun har lyst til sex. - Det er helt normalt at et barn hoster/nyser. - Hvis et barn har diarre, er det pga. et dårligt ammebryst og beskidt modermælk. - Der er intet der er farligt for et barn at spise, fordi det er et barn. Hvis et barn spiser afføring, vil det få en smuk sangstemme. - Får et barn diarre betyder det at moderen har haft sex med en anden mand end hendes ægtefælle. - Spiser et barn appelsiner, får det malaria. - Du kan få TB af at drikke komælk. - Feber skyldtes altid Malaria. Gravide kvinder: - Må/bør ikke spise rester fra dagen før (dette svarer til normal morgenmad)– da det vil sætte fødslen i gang. - Bør ikke bade udenfor, specielt om aftenen, da onde ånder kan gøre barnet handicappet. - Bør ikke spise æg, da barnet vil udvikle sig til at blive tyv. - Bør ikke udføre hårdt arbejde, som at hugge brænde eller rengøre fisk, da det vil medføre at barnet fødes med en flækket frontalis/pande. - Skal ikke blive stående for længe i en døråbning, da det vil medføre en lang fødsel. - Hvis man bærer bh, vil barnet ikke kunne bevæge sig tilstrækkeligt og det vil medføre en lang fødsel. Both Monday and Tuesday I have tried to get in contact with my laundry ladies. To meet them and find out how they do the hospital laundry, but they have not been easy to find. I might not be up early enough to find them. The laundry is getting washed and dried, but the working hours haven’t been easy for me to figure. This morning and yesterday I got up running at 7, yesterday together with the two male volunteers. The heath is not that unbearable at 6-7 o clock in the morning, so it’s has been lovely to run early. This morning I ran to the Laundry to see if there were any laundry ladies to find, after having no success I was running the same run as yesterday, together with Anja, the volunteer working in the tailor shop. It’s nice that so many are running down here, nice with company, even though it’s hard for me talking while running at the moment. Hopefully I will get use to the humidity soon. During the daytime the temperature is around 35-37oC. It’s lovely, but sometimes a little hard working. The heat makes me sleepy. But we have already had some rain and thunder, and that makes the air a little fresher. It’s difficult to believe that it’s still cold and winter-time in DK. Hopefully the spring will soon come. Yesterday, Wednesday, I joined the morning teaching at the hospital. Every Wednesday there is morning teaching from 8.15-9, somehow like on at Danish hospital. The CHOs (Community Health Officers) and Dr. Frank is on shift teaching in different medical subjects. Yesterday it was about pneumonia. It was a little difficult for me to understand everything, because of their English dialect. Then at 10 am Dr. Frank had asked me if I wanted to join my first operation – a legamputation. It was very interesting. And suddenly in the middle of the operation Frank was called to the maternity ward – there was complication in the delivery of a second twin, the arm came first. He explained that he delivered the child like a veterinary would have done it (he just put the arm back in and found the head, putted a cup on and pulled the child out…), because there was no time for a Caesarean section. I’m very impressed of our Doctor, you can tell, especially because it’s hard work to keep the people alive down here. They don’t come to the see a Doctor before it’s almost too late. In the time that I have been here now, not even one week, four people have died, two of them properly of Meningitis. That must be hard for a Doctor to experience. But somehow he manages to distance and still trying to saving lives…