It’s was our wedding anniversary yesterday – thanks to everyone who sent good wishes! Having been brought some CHEESE earlier in the week, there was nothing for it than to put the finest dairy product into it’s natural habitat in celebration…
Double cheeseburgers, Garlic and chili fries and some homemade hot sauce!
Kristine (who cropped up in a previous post) left us for home this week, but not before we got around to making headway on a project idea that’s been kicking around for a while.
When the Paediatrics clinic opens every morning, there’s usually a large group of parents waiting with their children to be seen. For the past few weeks, one of the two nurses, supported by Kristine (with her experience as a Nurse Practitioner) has spent an hour presenting a raft of educational advice to this ready audience. Topics include things like household hygiene, signs of malaria, pneumonia, nutrition advice, and so on.
Much of it was based on notes a prior STA (short-term associate) had left, with the intention that they could be used for a presentation session, or even a video. So the CMO had suggested: why not make the video?
There would be a couple of advantages to producing something good: an educational video could be shown on the loop in the waiting area, and could run all day. The daily presentations are brilliant, but take up to an hour out of time which could be spent seeing patients. It’s a difficult balance, and having this as a resource would relieve that constraint somewhat.
On Wednesday and Thursday, we took our chance. We headed across the hospital to the CREN, where every day there are mothers staying with their malnourished infants (see last week’s post for more information.) We set up a ‘classroom’-like area, and the teaching began!
We worked in short blocks rather than doing a whole session at once, so there are going to be about six full sections in all. Roufaï, our presenter for the project, turns out to be a very talented communicator – talking clearly, using LOTS of visual aids (which took a further couple of hours to photograph in detail later!) and rarely pausing for thought.
Now the hard part starts, however – as it’s all in Hausa, editing will be interesting! (Note the shots below are straight out of the dailies, no colour correction yet!)
Explaining the malaria cycle, and how to to protect against those pesky mozzies.
Some of the CREN mums listening attentively.
Talking through the treatment for diarrhoea.
A malnourished little girl who has just been brought to the CREN.
The first of three rapid-fire photo posts for this week: after repeated calls to show what the inside of our house here looks like, we finally remembered to take a couple of quick photos.
The main living area (front door on the left). It's a Saturday, so it's a tip!
Our kitchen - bedroom and bathroom are out to the right. Cooker runs off an enclosed gas canister.
