Change of Plans

As we had expected, our original plans for what we would do here have changed. After several days of shadowing at the hospital, we started to realize that we were probably getting more in the way than we were helping. Patient traffic is not overwhelming, and so the hospital really just needs trained doctors and money. It’s a humbling experience when you travel abroad, expecting to change the world, only to find that you yourself are very limited in what you can offer. We had originally planned on creating a method for taking patient information by creating a computer system for the hospital to operate on. But unfortunately, or fortunately (however you look at it), the hospital already has a fairly complex computer system in place.

And so we looked for someplace we could make a real difference. For the next four weeks, we will be working at Marangu Hills Academy, a boarding school in Marangu. Here we will mainly be teaching physical education and providing counseling for the older girls several times a week. We are trying to create room in their education to learn about healthy behaviors and inform them about health-related issues they may not have heard about before. The challenge will be to inform and engage these students, especially within such a rigid and conservative education system. In our free time, we will be assisting in the classroom, teaching English, Computer, and Mathematics.

After four weeks, we will be working with the ABSN nurses at a hospital in Kilema for one week and assisting with Marangu Hospital’s home-based care project for the final two weeks.