Teaching at Church and then off to Shyira

Today we had a relaxing morning and we got to go to church! I love that we can go to church here! Rwanda is so special because I feel like there is a heavy presence of faith everywhere I go. Most of the people here are Catholic and it shows! On our way to church the streets were very calm and not many people were walking around like usual. Rwanda also sets aside two Sundays a month called “No drive day” and there are main roads that motor vehicles are banned from in the morning from 6am-10am. Church was really fun! The Uganda mission president and his wife were there today. Sacrament meeting was really wonderful. I love how the church is the same wherever you go. Today was fast and testimony meeting so we had the pleasure of hearing the sweet and humble testimonies of the members here. We also got to teach primary today!! It was so fun. Haha the kids are NUTS! But so cute. Jenna taught a lesson about sharing and gave out some of the sock dolls she and her family made for the kids here. They LOVED them! We sang a bunch of primary songs and played a few games before it was snack time. After snacks was when things got crazy. The kids went bizerk! They were running around the small room and chasing each other and the other girls with me everywhere. There were a few babies and that was fun to play with them. Overall it was a really fun, spiritual and exhausting morning at church. After church we needed to grab a quick bite to eat before heading to the Northern Provence! We went to a restaurant called Mezze Fresh. They call it “Rwanda’s Chipotle”. It was the fastest meal I have had in Rwanda! Which was good because we were all so hungry after playing with those kids. It was actually a really good meal! Who knew you would find awesome Mexican food in Africa?! Once we finished lunch we were off to Shyira District Hospital. It was about a 3.5 hour drive and it was SO BEAUTIFUL. The hills and mountains are exquisite. We even passed by Volcanoes National Park and saw 5 dormant volcanoes! Our native director, Ivan, said that is where all of the mountain gorillas live! After a long but beautiful drive we made it to the hospital! It is in the middle of a rural village and we are surrounded by high hills covered in banana trees. We are staying at a guesthouse on the hospital property. We each have our own rooms! Its kind of like a motel. We met some of the administrators and enjoyed a nice meal of beans, rice and potatoes made by the kitchen staff. There are a couple of mental health patients that were really excited to see us. Haha they are really nice and try and help us out any way they can! Tomorrow we are getting a tour of the hospital and beginning our evaluations just like we did at the Biryogo Health Center! Cant wait! 







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to My Blog!

Hello! Thank you for following my journey in Rwanda as a global health intern. I am so excited for this opportunity, I am constantly pinching myself because it feels like a dream that I get to travel to such an amazing place and learn about what I love most... medicine and public health! First of all I would like to thank my family, friends, professors and anyone else who has helped make this internship possible, it really is a dream come true. I am extremely excited to apply what I have learned thus far in my studies as a public health student at BYU and to be pushed and challenged in brand-new and unfamiliar situations. I have created this blog to document each day during the internship for myself as well as those who are interested in what my day-to-day life is like for the next month (hi mom!!). Whatever your reason may be for visiting my blog, I am so excited to have you here! Please feel free to leave comments if you feel so inclined. I would love to hear from you! Thank you for
Read more

Day 1 - Arrival in Kigali

Image
Well after 36 HOURS of traveling we finally made it to Kigali! It was a smooth trip from Salt Lake City, we made all of our connections just fine. The flights were really really long but luckily I was able to sleep for parts of them. Other than that I just read some material for the internship and watched movies! We got through customs quite fast and when we went outside Solange was waiting for us! She is a Rwandan native who is one of our coordinators here. She is very nice and bubbly. She helped us exchange our money for Rwandan Francs and we were off! She led us to a big white bus which will be our transportation for this trip! As we enjoyed driving by the beautiful hills and city life in Kigali, Solange told us all about the culture, foods, and activities that we have to look forward to! After about 25 minutes of driving we arrived at the guesthouse we are staying at for the duration of the trip. We were surprised to find out that the guesthouse is connected to a catholic church
Read more

Biryogo Health Center - Day 4

Image
T oday was a pretty simple day! We started the day by meeting with the cleaning staff at the health center. We talked to them about their cleaning procedures and practices. The cleaners are a really important part of the IPC healthcare team that are often forgotten about. We were a little bit hesitant about this meeting because we hadn’t really witnessed any cleaning during our observations and we didn’t smell any cleaner anywhere in the health center. We were pleased to find out that the few members of the cleaning staff were very serious and passionate about their work. One of the workers said you “have to have a heart of perseverance to be a cleaner at a clinic”. Haha he was right! It is so important for the staff to be passionate about their work so it is done right.They explained in detail all of their procedures for cleaning and they showed us all of their cleaning supplies. I was a little sad to see they didn’t have much disinfectant and their stock of supplies was very sma
Read more