Back in the Field

What’s this? I am working!

Girl, what dates you talking about? July 24-25^th, 2012

Initially, I was worried whether or not I would be able to make the number of required work hours needed to fulfill my practicum. Yeah… that concern no longer exists. With 12 hours days, I’ll be just fine. I was told that I would have an intense schedule for the rest of my time but damn! I am tired. A good tired, but tired nonetheless. However, I am quite ecstatic to actually be working.
 
Tuesday
 
Tuesday was a particularly long day because a lot of it was spent on the road. We made four stops at several different health centers to make various supply deliveries all over Kisii and Gucha South District before we actually proceeded to our true destination of interest.

T'was a rather bumpy ride through the hills.

 We finally settled at the Etago Sub-District Hospital to participate and observe the TB/HIV psychosocial support group. My org supports the formation of these support groups throughout the areas of Nyanza they serve. Without going into too much boring detail, their purpose is to encourage people to a) talk openly about their health status in a stigma free environment b) take their medications regularly and on time and c) provide them with hope and self worth. We went there to facilitate a wrap up session, and privately talk to members of the group that were identified to not be taking their medication on schedule to encourage them to come up with a strategy to improve their adherence to their treatment regime. 

Member of psychosocial support group talking about his experience disclosing this HIV status to his church members.

Wednesday

Yesterday, we went to the city of Kisumu (about a 2 hour drive from Kisii).

The mountains you see along the way between Kisii and Kisumu are breathtaking. Sadly, I have yet to be able to take a photo that appropriately captures that beauty.

Currently, two 5-day trainings are taking place for health professionals that represent dozens of health facilities from the Kisii area. Most of the health professionals are nurses, but some are nutritionists and public health officers. The first training was about how to properly consult patients regarding nutrition and their positive HIV status. The other training is about ways to integrate TB and HIV care effectively. 

The Nutrition and HIV group

My job was two write up evaluations regarding how well the trainings were going, what could be improved, and log comments from participants on behalf of the Monitoring & Evaluation officer. It was a good experience… though my accent throws people off and my Kiswahili is still a work in progress. Therefore, there were a few communication hiccups, but nothing insurmountable.

I’m not sure what the rest of the week entails but I need to be getting better sleep for these long days. Thank goodness is not culturally unacceptable to take a nap when there is a downtime on the job.

P.S.
On the ride throughout Gucha South, one of my colleagues made the mistake about complaining about how Kenyan women supposedly just “lay there” during coitus. Needless to say, dude was ragged on for two hours. Everyone in the van (about 6 of us) promptly turned to him and informed him that his issue was not with Kenyan women but his clear lack of knowledge regarding the art of seduction. He tried to recover by trying to act all cool and nonchalantly proposition me for “lessons”. I promptly turned him down with a “You’re too old, you’re too broke, and I only work with students at the top of their class. Clearly, you’re in need of remedial courses.” It made a long car ride rather short. J