Work

It is worth it / Let me work it / I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it...
-Missy Elliot


It’s been a while…

For those of you wanting a rat update, you will be happy to know that I have seen no brother or sister or mom or daddy rats since my last incident. However, going along with the theme of athletic-creatures-in-higher-places-than-they-should-be, I did find a worm on my 12+-foot ceiling, in the middle of the ceiling, and I have absolutely no idea how he got there or how he was sticking to it. But, hey- worms, I can certainly deal with.

Several people have asked what a typical day is like. There is no typical day, week, or month here, but I had a really amazing work week last week, so I’ll tell you what I did:

Monday- Went to the AIDS clinic at the hospital in my area. This was the first time I had been there- finally met all of the right people, submitted all of the letters, got everyone’s permission. Hung out there all day and just observed how things work, it was really great! Everyone who works there is super nice and really committed, can’t wait to learn more about how they operate and see what I can do to help them out!

Tuesday- The clinic that I work with does immunization outreaches, where they go out to various villages, and give the kids in that village their shots. We have immunization outreaches on most Tuesdays and Fridays, so we get to cover several different villages. At first I just went along and held kids, greeted people, etc, but I felt like I wasn’t doing much. My counterpart and I decided that, while the health workers from my clinic were giving out immunizations, I would go and do home visits for people living with AIDS. My Luganda tutor (I’ll tell you about her in a sec) went with me to translate, as did the community health mobilizer for that village. We visited with a couple different people and both were really good visits! I don’t feel like I should talk about them on here for confidentiality reasons, but they were just good.

Wednesday- Had a Luganda language lesson with my tutor- one of my favorite nuns. She’s so great! She used to be the a counselor for the AIDS program at the area hospital, but has had diabetes for some time, and it’s really beginning to affect her. She can’t move around a whole lot. She no longer works, and stays in the “sick bay” wing of the convent. She’s been doing things like making baskets, which is really unfortunate, because she has so much knowledge and experience! (Not that making baskets isn’t a worthy pursuit, but… well, if I personally had nothing to do but sit around and make baskets all day, I wouldn’t be too happy. I think it’s the same for her.) So, it’s great for both of us that I’m here- I get a really nice tutor, and she has something to do! She’s also going to be going on all of the home visits with me- I worry that it’ll be too much for her, but she’s really excited that she can help out and do something worthwhile.

Thursday- Harvested maize! Scroll down to the next entry (8 Feb), I wrote a whole separate post about this!

Friday- Another immunization outreach day, went on another AIDS home visit! This one was really great- I was with my counterpart, the community mobilizer for that village, and the woman we were visiting, and I asked if they had an AIDS support group for their village. They said no, but would I be interested in helping them start one? And I said OF COURSE! I’m so excited! I feel like I’ve finally been around long enough where people have started asking me to do stuff… definitely NOT the case at first. Anyway, they’re going to organize their people, and our first meeting is going to be the last Sunday of this month! In the late afternoon, I went to the hospital for a staff meeting of the AIDS clinic. I was so inspired- the director is awesome, and just has a really good understanding of the whole situation- the needs of the people, the frustrations of donor funding (another post on this to come…), ways that the AIDS clinic can improve. I can’t wait to discuss some ideas with him! He’s busy, so it may be a while, but all the more time for me to learn a lot about the clinic first. The staff meeting ran late, but afterwards, I went out to the main road and caught a taxi to my PCV friend’s house in another village, and made it there before dark.

So, that was my really really really good week of work. Maybe it doesn’t seem as startlingly good to you as it did to me, but all previous weeks have been nothing like that. I haven’t been writing about work, because there is nothing interesting to write. I’ve kinda been doing nothing and it’s been pretty frustrating/boring. I’ve been doing things like… sitting. Reading. Holding kids. Reading. Organizing things. Reading. Cleaning. Reading. Doing my laundry. Putting off doing all of my laundry, because if I finished doing all of my laundry, then I’d TRULY have nothing to do.

My weekends are usually fantastic, because if people aren’t here visiting me, then I’m visiting them. The weekend before last we had a birthday celebration at my house, and this past weekend I went and had a really nice time with my closest PCV neighbor at her site. This coming weekend, I’m going to Kampala to hang out with some friends there.

I’m really excited, because this week is off to a fantastic start as well… the students have come back from holiday, so I get to start teaching life skills/health classes next week. When I got back from my friend’s on Sunday, I had a really great meeting with the headmistress of the school I’m going to be teaching at. Then, right after that, I was telling another nun friend about that meeting and she was like, “Oh, those classes would be SO GREAT for my students, can you teach at my school too?” (She also runs a school, for catering.) I’m going to be teaching at night, so that way I’ll still have time during the day for all of the other stuff. Can’t wait! I think that, even though I really want to be a doctor, I will always be a teacher in some capacity— I can’t seem to help it! (Side note- my students in Thailand graduated from Legacy Institute on the 4th, and I am SO PROUD of them!!!)

Today I went to an assembly at the school I’m going to be teaching at (the first one), had brunch with the headmistress, and then talked to my counterpart and looked up stuff for the water tank grant. After that I had lunch with the sisters, and talked to my favorite nun friend about religion. After lunch, I went to the hospital to hang out at the AIDS clinic again, and I learned more about some of the software they’re using to handle all of their data. On my walk home, I randomly met the hospital’s surgeon, who was out for an evening walk! He’s super nice; I can’t wait to go observe surgeries and stuff! He and I also ran into some people from Germany who have just arrived and will be working here at the deaf school for the next couple of months. There are a couple girls my age, should be fun!

Let’s hope my lucky work streak continues… :)