Friday, May 27, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Babies and more babies
Once again, a busy week has past at Kalene. The hospital is suffering for a shortage of both Zambian staff and missionaries as many are away on meetings, language training or furlough. This has meant that we've done some shuffling around the hospital. I spent Saturday helpng out on the Paediatric ward...it was utter chaos. There are nearly 50 admitted children and there was only one nurse scheduled. Thankfully, the parents are expected to take care of the cleaning, toileting and feeding, however, doing observations or medications and a nursing round on 50 patients takes hours! It didn't help that the day began with a mama rushing in with an unconscious toddler in arms. The little girl, Annie, had begun to seize an hour before and was still in status epilepticus (constant seizures) when they arrived. Her blood sugar was 1.3 (norm is 4-6) and even with glucose and anti-epilepsy infusions she did not wake up, though her seizures less frequent. She is negative for malaria (which can often go cerebral) so we're still working on a diagnosis. It could just be that this is her first presentation of epilepsy. Please pray for her and the healthcare team involved!
Well, enough about medicine. Lots has been happening around the mission, too. A few new arrivals have meant that there are more people to drag up Kalene Hill with me (I got lost again on the way down, and ended up in one of the maternity staff's backyards! oops) With so many short-term workers and visitors, 2 couples and 6 singles, we've started Bible studies on Friday evenings and pizza/movie nights on Saturdays. Its been great to have a place to unwind and hang out, outside of the OR!
I'm still struggling with the length of time I am to stay here, please pray that I will get direction of whether to stay until August as originally planned, or to stay to cover other missionaries' furloughs.
I only know that Psalm 16:11 says" You make known to me the path of life and in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" I am trusting the Lord to guide me in the decision, but please pray!
Well, it's 6 days now until I fly out for my Safari, will have to post photos of the trip once I get back!
Thanks for reading and Thanks for praying! Keep in touch, R
Well, enough about medicine. Lots has been happening around the mission, too. A few new arrivals have meant that there are more people to drag up Kalene Hill with me (I got lost again on the way down, and ended up in one of the maternity staff's backyards! oops) With so many short-term workers and visitors, 2 couples and 6 singles, we've started Bible studies on Friday evenings and pizza/movie nights on Saturdays. Its been great to have a place to unwind and hang out, outside of the OR!
I'm still struggling with the length of time I am to stay here, please pray that I will get direction of whether to stay until August as originally planned, or to stay to cover other missionaries' furloughs.
I only know that Psalm 16:11 says" You make known to me the path of life and in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" I am trusting the Lord to guide me in the decision, but please pray!
Well, it's 6 days now until I fly out for my Safari, will have to post photos of the trip once I get back!
Thanks for reading and Thanks for praying! Keep in touch, R
Saturday, April 30, 2011
DKA
This week has past in a blur of chaos. The first year nursing students arrived on the wards on Tuesday. Although this is there second hospital placement, they are still only allowed to do day rotations on Men's and Women's ward, instead of spreading throughout the wards including Peds, Outpatients and Maternity. Although this makes sense, considering they have not covered the speciality areas in theory, it causes quite the congestion on the wards. We have 30-35 patients, 3 staff + 2 missionary RNs and 6 students. This ratio may not be strange in the hospitals back home, but considering the size of the nursing office and the limited resources, we're having trouble not tripping over ourselves.
Amid the staff chaos, we have had to deal with some difficult medical conditions. On Wednesday, the transfer vehicle from the outpost clinic dropped off a lady. She was unresponsive on the trolley as they ran past my office to Women's ward. I chased them into the room and grabbed the transfer letter. The words "diabetic with no insulin" jump off the page. The patient is a young mother, whose previous admissions have been complicated by seriously unstable diabetes. I tell the staff member in the office to get the doctor and the RN who are in the ward...the patient had died prior to arriving at the hospital. Our blood sugar machine was "HI", which means a recording higher than 33!
The news was given to the young husband and the patient's mother. The reaction was not what I expected. The mother started to wail and scream. She began to flail and colapsed to the ground. Thankfully, I was able to grab the 3 month old baby off her back just before she landed on him.
I stood in the middle of the large crowd that gathered, holding a baby whose mother just died, whose father was running away screaming and whose grandmother was sprawled out on the ground screaming.
In utter shock, I realized that we'd have a baby to take care off again. So for the next 48h baby Stanley was shuffled around the maternity unit until I took pity on the only nurse there and took him home for the afternoon.
Its hard to wrap your head around a death of this nature. At home, her high blood sugar levels would have been better controled through accurate monitoring with home glucoscans and sliding scales of insulin. But here, in resource poor Africa, the clinics don't even have glucoscans let alone the individual patient as the sticks required for blood sampling are so expensive. There is also a shortage of insulin and no one has fridges in the village to store it, anyway. The only reason Kalene Hospital has supplies is that the people from the home countries of the missionaries donate it.
It was a rough one to absorb, but thankfully, baby Stanley is doing okay, aside from having a slight cold which he's now passed on to me!
The week was not all bad, however. There are quite a few Brits here at the moment and we were able to organize a "Tea and Scones" party (complete with clotted cream). Gathered around the only satelite TV in the area, we watched the Royal Wedding!
Only 15 days until Amy and Julianne arrive...I'm looking forward to a short time away from the mission to catch up on sleep and news from home!
Amid the staff chaos, we have had to deal with some difficult medical conditions. On Wednesday, the transfer vehicle from the outpost clinic dropped off a lady. She was unresponsive on the trolley as they ran past my office to Women's ward. I chased them into the room and grabbed the transfer letter. The words "diabetic with no insulin" jump off the page. The patient is a young mother, whose previous admissions have been complicated by seriously unstable diabetes. I tell the staff member in the office to get the doctor and the RN who are in the ward...the patient had died prior to arriving at the hospital. Our blood sugar machine was "HI", which means a recording higher than 33!
The news was given to the young husband and the patient's mother. The reaction was not what I expected. The mother started to wail and scream. She began to flail and colapsed to the ground. Thankfully, I was able to grab the 3 month old baby off her back just before she landed on him.
I stood in the middle of the large crowd that gathered, holding a baby whose mother just died, whose father was running away screaming and whose grandmother was sprawled out on the ground screaming.
In utter shock, I realized that we'd have a baby to take care off again. So for the next 48h baby Stanley was shuffled around the maternity unit until I took pity on the only nurse there and took him home for the afternoon.
Its hard to wrap your head around a death of this nature. At home, her high blood sugar levels would have been better controled through accurate monitoring with home glucoscans and sliding scales of insulin. But here, in resource poor Africa, the clinics don't even have glucoscans let alone the individual patient as the sticks required for blood sampling are so expensive. There is also a shortage of insulin and no one has fridges in the village to store it, anyway. The only reason Kalene Hospital has supplies is that the people from the home countries of the missionaries donate it.
It was a rough one to absorb, but thankfully, baby Stanley is doing okay, aside from having a slight cold which he's now passed on to me!
The week was not all bad, however. There are quite a few Brits here at the moment and we were able to organize a "Tea and Scones" party (complete with clotted cream). Gathered around the only satelite TV in the area, we watched the Royal Wedding!
Only 15 days until Amy and Julianne arrive...I'm looking forward to a short time away from the mission to catch up on sleep and news from home!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Orthopedics, the carpentry of medicine!
It has been a busy couple of weeks at Kalene as an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Gill, arrived (we now have 7 doctors!) and with him came an onslought of patients with various fractures and osteomyelitis. At the same time, we had a 48 hour blitz from an ortho team in Lusaka that flew in to deal with the obscure ortho cases. This team, headed up by Prof. Jellis, visits Kalene several times a year. Each visit last less than 48 hours and involves a clinic on the first day, weeding through all of the referals of ortho patients that we've saved for him over the past few months, seeing who is appropriate for surgery. The second day was spent in the OR, going though an intense list of patients with operations from setting fractures, grafting old compound fractures and even correcting a fused ankle from septic arthritis! Needless to say, the wards are busy too, as these patients need to be prep-ed for the OR, then monitored as they return to ward, semi-conscious on Ketamine anasthetic.
Along side the ortho patients are 5 babies with measles....in 4 beds. We have very few semi-private rooms (6 in total, only 2 on Men's ward). This has created a problem, as the first case of the the recent outbreak of measles was on the pediatric mal-nutrition ward. As you can imagine, these babies and toddlers have very little reserve and are therefore quite sick with measles. We've been isolating them as fast as we can once the symptoms appear, but seeing as the incubation period for the virus is 2 weeks...we're looking ahead to an outbreak every 2 weeks for a while. Thankfully, I have been vaccinated against measles, because one day last week, I walked into the isolation room to see a 1 year old baby, completely naked sitting by himself on the bed bawling his little eyes out. I turned to the man in the room, and he indicated that it wasn't his child and was he absolutely unprepared to care for him as he was watching the other child in the room. The baby's name is Gift. I sat down beside Gift and when he didn't cry any harder, I picked him up in my arms. The poor baby was freezing! All he needed was a blanket and a cuddle! He went right to sleep. It's amazing how easy some nursing is and how much suffering can be cured by a simple hug!
While all of this is going on on Men's Ward...chaos ensues elsewhere in the hospital. Last Monday, I was walking by Women's ward an noticed a commotion. Commotions tend to happen during visiting hours, so I didn't think much of it as I went to investigate. In the bed, lay a 14 year old girl in a full-blown seizure. This was the first seizure I'd ever seen. Emma was already there, so I ran to get the doctors and the diazepam. At this point, we believe that the diagnosis is neurosyphilis. The girl seized for nearly half an hour, even with diazepam and phenylbarital infusion. She de-saturated and basically stoped breathing on her own. As we are fairly ill-equiped when it comes to ventilatiors and ICU...we manually ventilated her for 6 hours. My shift went from 1800h-1900h....it was uneventful, until she seized again, 45 minutes into my shift, at the same time as an unconscious, hemorraging admission arrived an needed to be taken directly to the OR. It made for a crazy evening with doctors, nurses and monitoring equipment flying in all directions, but there's nothing like an emergency to pull everyone together.
I'm looking forward to a busy month ahead. Becs comes back to run Men's ward at the end of April and I am leaving then for Lunda lessons for a week or two, after which I head to Lusaka for the Safari and then the dreaded Zambian RN exam...
Well, it's a short note, but I'll try to write more later!
Along side the ortho patients are 5 babies with measles....in 4 beds. We have very few semi-private rooms (6 in total, only 2 on Men's ward). This has created a problem, as the first case of the the recent outbreak of measles was on the pediatric mal-nutrition ward. As you can imagine, these babies and toddlers have very little reserve and are therefore quite sick with measles. We've been isolating them as fast as we can once the symptoms appear, but seeing as the incubation period for the virus is 2 weeks...we're looking ahead to an outbreak every 2 weeks for a while. Thankfully, I have been vaccinated against measles, because one day last week, I walked into the isolation room to see a 1 year old baby, completely naked sitting by himself on the bed bawling his little eyes out. I turned to the man in the room, and he indicated that it wasn't his child and was he absolutely unprepared to care for him as he was watching the other child in the room. The baby's name is Gift. I sat down beside Gift and when he didn't cry any harder, I picked him up in my arms. The poor baby was freezing! All he needed was a blanket and a cuddle! He went right to sleep. It's amazing how easy some nursing is and how much suffering can be cured by a simple hug!
While all of this is going on on Men's Ward...chaos ensues elsewhere in the hospital. Last Monday, I was walking by Women's ward an noticed a commotion. Commotions tend to happen during visiting hours, so I didn't think much of it as I went to investigate. In the bed, lay a 14 year old girl in a full-blown seizure. This was the first seizure I'd ever seen. Emma was already there, so I ran to get the doctors and the diazepam. At this point, we believe that the diagnosis is neurosyphilis. The girl seized for nearly half an hour, even with diazepam and phenylbarital infusion. She de-saturated and basically stoped breathing on her own. As we are fairly ill-equiped when it comes to ventilatiors and ICU...we manually ventilated her for 6 hours. My shift went from 1800h-1900h....it was uneventful, until she seized again, 45 minutes into my shift, at the same time as an unconscious, hemorraging admission arrived an needed to be taken directly to the OR. It made for a crazy evening with doctors, nurses and monitoring equipment flying in all directions, but there's nothing like an emergency to pull everyone together.
I'm looking forward to a busy month ahead. Becs comes back to run Men's ward at the end of April and I am leaving then for Lunda lessons for a week or two, after which I head to Lusaka for the Safari and then the dreaded Zambian RN exam...
Well, it's a short note, but I'll try to write more later!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
A little bit of Lunda and whole bunch of French!
I see that it has been way to long since I updated my blog. It has been a very busy time since the last post! I'm currently the only RN working on Men's Ward and so have been working hard, attempting to make clinical judgement calls that remain within my scope of practice while acknowledging that doctors are tied up in surgery and will not be into assess new admissions for several hours.
This week we have had a few very acute admissions including a motorcycle accident with suspected head injuries (he turned out to be alright). On Thursday, a young boy walked into the office with a large cloth drapped over his head. His brother handed me his ticket (chart) and before I could read much of the notes the boy, Paul, removed the material and an odour overpowered the office. Paul has third degree burns covering his half face, scalp and left shoulder. I could tell that the wounds had started to heal and that a significant infection had already set it. I motioned to the boy to sit up on the examination table and looked round for someone to translate for me....of course no one was around. I saw that their address was a village in Congo (DRC), so taking a huge chance, I greeted the brother in French...amazingly he is fluent!
As it turns out, Paul is a non-verbal epileptic who fell into a cooking fire 7 days ago during a seizure. He and his family then walked 2 days to Kalene Hospital as there are basically no hospitals in DRC.
Although, Paul has a huge road ahead involving 5 or 6 debridement operations followed by multiple skin grafts, its nice to know that I can communicate with the family fairly freely as they will probably be here for 4-6 months.
For the last few months there have been a few young boys in traction on our ward because of femur fractures. They have been so fun to have around, especially as they begin to walk. Grivan, 9, took longer than expected to walk after the traction was stopped because of numbness in the instep on his foot. He gingerly took step after step toward me, until one day he decided to do my morning round at my side! He is such a trooper and over a game of checkers, he gave me Lunda lessons! He would giggle the entire time at my accent, but at least he wasn't too critical! He went home on Saturday...so I'll have to look for another patient to teach me.
Two of our head nurses on away on holiday and sick leave, so there hasn't been enough RNs around to do night on-call rotation, but God is good! For possibly the first time in Kalene history, we have 6 doctors! This has allowed for a doctor on-call system to be implemented as well as a specific doctor responsible for each ward. I'm so grateful that I've had brains to pick over the last few weeks as I familiarize myself with treatment protocols for tropical medicine...as long as I figure this out in time for the RN exam!
I found out this week that I will be writing the exam on June 2 in Lusaka. This is such an answer to prayer! Both I and Emma need to write this in order to practice for 6 months on more in Zambia. The timing looked like it was going to be an issue as Emma needs to go to the UK in mid June and I am going on a safari at the end of May. The timing could not be more perfect, allowing for the least amount of flights and expense as I can just stay in Lusaka for a week.
I'm really looking forward to a visit from 2 great friends from Canada to go on the Safari ...the next couple of weeks will be filled with planning...and maybe some studying!
Well, that's about it,
Rachel
This week we have had a few very acute admissions including a motorcycle accident with suspected head injuries (he turned out to be alright). On Thursday, a young boy walked into the office with a large cloth drapped over his head. His brother handed me his ticket (chart) and before I could read much of the notes the boy, Paul, removed the material and an odour overpowered the office. Paul has third degree burns covering his half face, scalp and left shoulder. I could tell that the wounds had started to heal and that a significant infection had already set it. I motioned to the boy to sit up on the examination table and looked round for someone to translate for me....of course no one was around. I saw that their address was a village in Congo (DRC), so taking a huge chance, I greeted the brother in French...amazingly he is fluent!
As it turns out, Paul is a non-verbal epileptic who fell into a cooking fire 7 days ago during a seizure. He and his family then walked 2 days to Kalene Hospital as there are basically no hospitals in DRC.
Although, Paul has a huge road ahead involving 5 or 6 debridement operations followed by multiple skin grafts, its nice to know that I can communicate with the family fairly freely as they will probably be here for 4-6 months.
For the last few months there have been a few young boys in traction on our ward because of femur fractures. They have been so fun to have around, especially as they begin to walk. Grivan, 9, took longer than expected to walk after the traction was stopped because of numbness in the instep on his foot. He gingerly took step after step toward me, until one day he decided to do my morning round at my side! He is such a trooper and over a game of checkers, he gave me Lunda lessons! He would giggle the entire time at my accent, but at least he wasn't too critical! He went home on Saturday...so I'll have to look for another patient to teach me.
Two of our head nurses on away on holiday and sick leave, so there hasn't been enough RNs around to do night on-call rotation, but God is good! For possibly the first time in Kalene history, we have 6 doctors! This has allowed for a doctor on-call system to be implemented as well as a specific doctor responsible for each ward. I'm so grateful that I've had brains to pick over the last few weeks as I familiarize myself with treatment protocols for tropical medicine...as long as I figure this out in time for the RN exam!
I found out this week that I will be writing the exam on June 2 in Lusaka. This is such an answer to prayer! Both I and Emma need to write this in order to practice for 6 months on more in Zambia. The timing looked like it was going to be an issue as Emma needs to go to the UK in mid June and I am going on a safari at the end of May. The timing could not be more perfect, allowing for the least amount of flights and expense as I can just stay in Lusaka for a week.
I'm really looking forward to a visit from 2 great friends from Canada to go on the Safari ...the next couple of weeks will be filled with planning...and maybe some studying!
Well, that's about it,
Rachel
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Goat Tastes Like Beef
It's been an interesting and eventful week at Kalene. Last Saturday, some of the girls from Sakeji School came for the weekend to have a break from the chaos of teaching children...we didn't give them much of a break!
We spent the afternoon climbing Kalene Hill, a fairly steep climb that ends with a stunning view! The descent was only slightly hazardous...we each spent the time trying to stay up right as the patches of slick mud seemed to come out of no where. Thankfully, no one go hurt, but we all got dirty!
Saturday evening was spent playing "Articulate", one of my favourite board games involving teams and guessing words...not unlike Taboo or catch phrase. Because of this game, I now know where Munich is...we might have one the game had I known this during the game!
I wrote about Tuesdays events already, Internation Women's Day...because of the enthusiasm, some of the young women at the mission have begun a Bible Study of Women of Faith. We had our first session on Thursday night in our home. I've mentioned Mamisa and Maria before. Mamisa, 19, is still in High School and Maria, 20, has just graduated. They both have huge hearts for God. It was really encouraging to have them at the study, along with Emma and Rachel Reed, midwives and Dr. Chris, Becs and myself. The time of prayer following the study was awesome. It's amazing how quickly random people sitting in a room can become close friends just for simply taking time to pray for each other! Please pray that others whom we've invited will come this week.
Yesterday was yet another stat. holiday. We celebrated International Youth Day at Musangala Community School. Nearly 200 children were in attendance and 50 adults for a day of sports and gospel outreach. Although, I managed to get a pretty decent sunburn, every moment of blistering heat was worth it. We had spent the previous day baking cupcakes for the children's snack. This was the first time any of them had seen one! Ruth, the leader, had to demonstrate how to remove the cupcake's paper and eat one to prove that them were edible!
What an amazing feeling to be able to introduce new things and ideas to children and adults! At the end of the day, James was able to take time to share the gospel through the story of the Good Samaritan. Each of the audience members really took James rendition to heart. The Harvesters, a group of Zambian young people striving to share the gospel through sports, lead by James and Ruth, acted out the story as James spoke.
The day ended with The Harvesters singing selection of farewell songs for James and Ruth, as they are returning to the UK, having working with the Harvesters and the founders of Musangala School for the last 2 years. It was lovely to see and hear how much they will be missed, but that their work here will continue as the Harvester Group is now prepared to stand on their own, sharing the gospel with communities near and far away. (They don't have vehicles, and very few have bicycles, so some of the young men walk up to 17 km to meet the group for Saturday outreach!)
Children at Youth Day, eagerly awaiting their lunch of rice with sugar, nshima with goat and cupcakes! You should've heard them sing! 
The Blood Lab at Kalene...We have a patient in Female Ward who presented with a Hemoglobbin of 2.8...or roughly 30 in Canadian :). Since the norm is between 11-16 or 120-160, this was an obvious cause for concern. Also, our blood bank is currently void of O +. We screened the two family members with her, only one was x-match compatible. We transfused his unit of blood, but her Hb only increased to 4.4. We wanted to give her another transfusion, but without blood, it wasn't possible. I volunteered my blood as I'm O+. In the end, I only was able to give 1/2 a unit as my veins colapsed, but she made it through to the next day when her brother came to donate blood. Thankfully she is looking much better now, but as we don't know who she is so anemic, she likely will continue to have these issues.
We spent the afternoon climbing Kalene Hill, a fairly steep climb that ends with a stunning view! The descent was only slightly hazardous...we each spent the time trying to stay up right as the patches of slick mud seemed to come out of no where. Thankfully, no one go hurt, but we all got dirty!
Saturday evening was spent playing "Articulate", one of my favourite board games involving teams and guessing words...not unlike Taboo or catch phrase. Because of this game, I now know where Munich is...we might have one the game had I known this during the game!
I wrote about Tuesdays events already, Internation Women's Day...because of the enthusiasm, some of the young women at the mission have begun a Bible Study of Women of Faith. We had our first session on Thursday night in our home. I've mentioned Mamisa and Maria before. Mamisa, 19, is still in High School and Maria, 20, has just graduated. They both have huge hearts for God. It was really encouraging to have them at the study, along with Emma and Rachel Reed, midwives and Dr. Chris, Becs and myself. The time of prayer following the study was awesome. It's amazing how quickly random people sitting in a room can become close friends just for simply taking time to pray for each other! Please pray that others whom we've invited will come this week.
Yesterday was yet another stat. holiday. We celebrated International Youth Day at Musangala Community School. Nearly 200 children were in attendance and 50 adults for a day of sports and gospel outreach. Although, I managed to get a pretty decent sunburn, every moment of blistering heat was worth it. We had spent the previous day baking cupcakes for the children's snack. This was the first time any of them had seen one! Ruth, the leader, had to demonstrate how to remove the cupcake's paper and eat one to prove that them were edible!
What an amazing feeling to be able to introduce new things and ideas to children and adults! At the end of the day, James was able to take time to share the gospel through the story of the Good Samaritan. Each of the audience members really took James rendition to heart. The Harvesters, a group of Zambian young people striving to share the gospel through sports, lead by James and Ruth, acted out the story as James spoke.
The day ended with The Harvesters singing selection of farewell songs for James and Ruth, as they are returning to the UK, having working with the Harvesters and the founders of Musangala School for the last 2 years. It was lovely to see and hear how much they will be missed, but that their work here will continue as the Harvester Group is now prepared to stand on their own, sharing the gospel with communities near and far away. (They don't have vehicles, and very few have bicycles, so some of the young men walk up to 17 km to meet the group for Saturday outreach!)
The commitment of these young people puts me to shame!
Maria and Mamisa resting after the steep climb up Kalene Hill. Emma and Chris taking in the view.
Rachel (Canada) and Rachel (Scotland)
Women marching in celebration of women's day
James and the Harvester's sharing the gospel at Youth Day
Well, that's all for now...
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
International Women's Day
March 8th is International Women's Day. The school's are cancelled, workers get the day off. The School of Nursing held a parade and government officials, the Chief and the community were invited to spend the day celebrating women's advancement in education, specifically in science and technology.
I worked this morning at the hospital, preparing patients for the operating theater as scheduled operations happen Tuesdays and Thursdays. I managed to sneak away early to go watch the parade and eat nshima. I discovered that nshima is delicious when prepared with mais meal as opposed to cassava...this is handy to know as I expect to be heading to a nearby village to live for a few weeks to learn Lunda. And as nshima is served twice a day, its good to know that I have some sort of option and a hope of surviving!
Well, the celebrations went very well, it was really encouraging to see women of all socio-economic states joining together to promote women's equality while maintaining a Christian perspective. The banners carried had references to Galatians 3:28. "There is neither Jew now Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
It was so touching to see these women rally together. They have every right to give up hope, the tragedy they've seen, the injustice of the education system toward girls. The cultural tradition that allows men to marry multiple wives, premits adultery for the man, but criminally punishes the women.
This paradox was spoken of by Mrs. Chilambe, the organizer of the day. She directed her speach to the women in the audience, knowing full well that the Chief, sitting next to her has recently taken on a third wife.
I couldn't help but to be thankful for the society in which I was raised. Not only were these battles fought and won, but they happened over 100 years ago! The fact that I have to right to a post-secondary education, or that I can expect to go through my day without being assaulted or mistreated by the males around me. Though I am not ignorant of the crimes against and struggles of western women, I can only be thankful for the life that the Lord place me in.
I hope that with the enthusiasm the women showed today, they will continue to rally together to increase the education system in this rural area, so that these women can learn even the basics like math for running a small business, or obtain credits prerequisit for entering post-secondary.
At the moment there are only 4 girls out of 60 students in the highschool, because the other girls have dropped out to raise their families. The Nursing School provides a post-secondary education, but the entry requirements don't allow for a rural education. The necessary biology and math for nursing is not being taught in the rural highschool here.
In talking with the other missionaries, we'd love to just scrap everything and start new. Unfortunately, that wouldn't solve the systemic problem. The solution needs to come from the Zambians, from the grassroots. There are funds and government initiatives to boost rural education, although we have yet to see much of it put into place.
All in all it was an encouraging day!
Rachel
I worked this morning at the hospital, preparing patients for the operating theater as scheduled operations happen Tuesdays and Thursdays. I managed to sneak away early to go watch the parade and eat nshima. I discovered that nshima is delicious when prepared with mais meal as opposed to cassava...this is handy to know as I expect to be heading to a nearby village to live for a few weeks to learn Lunda. And as nshima is served twice a day, its good to know that I have some sort of option and a hope of surviving!
Well, the celebrations went very well, it was really encouraging to see women of all socio-economic states joining together to promote women's equality while maintaining a Christian perspective. The banners carried had references to Galatians 3:28. "There is neither Jew now Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
It was so touching to see these women rally together. They have every right to give up hope, the tragedy they've seen, the injustice of the education system toward girls. The cultural tradition that allows men to marry multiple wives, premits adultery for the man, but criminally punishes the women.
This paradox was spoken of by Mrs. Chilambe, the organizer of the day. She directed her speach to the women in the audience, knowing full well that the Chief, sitting next to her has recently taken on a third wife.
I couldn't help but to be thankful for the society in which I was raised. Not only were these battles fought and won, but they happened over 100 years ago! The fact that I have to right to a post-secondary education, or that I can expect to go through my day without being assaulted or mistreated by the males around me. Though I am not ignorant of the crimes against and struggles of western women, I can only be thankful for the life that the Lord place me in.
I hope that with the enthusiasm the women showed today, they will continue to rally together to increase the education system in this rural area, so that these women can learn even the basics like math for running a small business, or obtain credits prerequisit for entering post-secondary.
At the moment there are only 4 girls out of 60 students in the highschool, because the other girls have dropped out to raise their families. The Nursing School provides a post-secondary education, but the entry requirements don't allow for a rural education. The necessary biology and math for nursing is not being taught in the rural highschool here.
In talking with the other missionaries, we'd love to just scrap everything and start new. Unfortunately, that wouldn't solve the systemic problem. The solution needs to come from the Zambians, from the grassroots. There are funds and government initiatives to boost rural education, although we have yet to see much of it put into place.
All in all it was an encouraging day!
Rachel
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