traditional Zambian food.... :)

For two days now we have had a "meal from the bush." The meals consisted of nshima--the staple food of Zambia, a root of some kind--which tasted like potatoes, ground pumpkin leaves and ground nuts--which I thought was really good! :) And fish....but actual fish, with the bones, the scales, and the heads. All traditional Zambian meals are eaten with your hands, because they do not use utensils. It was really fun to try the Zambian foods! :)

St. Mulumba....

Yesterday we visited a Zambian school for the hearing impaired, the visually impaired and the intellectually impaired. And...oh my goodness... it was awesome! This school was the nicest school that I have seen so far! We arrived right before the tea break...so we got to see many of the classrooms while they were having class. The teachers have a very hard job, but most of the students were very attentive. The deaf class was learning how to play volleyball--i guess this was their gym class. It was interesting to watch the teacher interact with the students. He would show them what to do and then point to each child individually, like the ball was coming at them, and they would demonstrate what technique they would use to hit the ball back over.

The students in the visually impaired classroom were taking a math test. They would feel the math problems in brail on a piece of paper and then they would take a board with small square pegs and align the pegs in such a way to make the appropriate answer to the problem. The teacher would then check the answer and the student would move to the next problem.

The teachers in the intellecutally impaired classroom had a very, very challenging job. All of the students were on different levels of intellectual progress, so whenever the students would show an adequate improvement they would move up to the next level. The students in this classroom all came up and gave us hugs and shook our hands as we walked into the room.

The school also teaches the students agricultural traits, as well as, gives them musical and artistic opportunities to compete with other children across the world. The school was very proud of their three silver medals, which they won in the Special Olympics when they came to the U.S. a few years back. We spoke with the head of the school and he gave us a tour and introduced us to all of the teachers. Many of the teachers had visual and hearing impairments themselves. And one of the students, who recently graduated from the intellectually impaired classes, is using his traits and skills that he has learned to help his fellow students with their intellectual struggles in learning.

The Japanese are big supporters for the school's financial program, so today a Japanese group is visiting the school to put on a dance for the students. The head of the school invited us back to watch the dance, as well as, watch the Zambian children perform a traditional Zambian dance! I'm so excited to see them and I can't wait to show you pictures! Until later....

Blessings.... :)

Hopefully there will be more pictures posted....many times it takes way too long to display pictures on the blog, therefore I am not able to post many pictures to view. I will try to post more pictures this week!

Chikankata....

This past week, our entire group went and stayed for two nights at Chikankata, the second largest subsaharan AIDs research hospital. It was so neat!!!! :) We had such a wonderful time! As we took a tour of the hospital we got to see their labor ward, maternity ward, ICU (which was more like a med-surg floor), female/male medical and surgical wards, TB ward, the OT (operating theatre), OPD (out patient department) and the nursing school/midwifery school, which was located directly to the right of the hospital. Seeing a nursing school in Zambia was really interesting! Some of the people in our group sat in on the lessons with the Zambian nursing students. The students were talking about mental health and psychosocial care.

The wards were decently busy and there was so much to learn! The hospital had health promotion/disease prevention posters set up on almost every inch of every wall. The nurses and doctors were so friendly and very helpful when we asked questions! Rachel and I were paired up again and we started the day off in the OPD. The OPD was more like doctor's office/emergency department. It was extremely busy and we had to admit about 6 patients within about 25 minutes! We noticed that most of the admitting diagnoses were severe malaria, upper respiratory infections, PUD/GI problems and skin disorders. After a few hours in the OPD we left and went to a family planning session with some midwifery students. They asked us about our forms of family planning in the U.S. and then they told us about their family planning options that they have available.

We hung out and played Skipbo (which I had never played before, but it is lots of fun!) that night in the common room. I put my purse on my bed that night and a spider crawled out of it, which made me a little nervous to go to bed! But, we all ended up getting a really good nights sleep and woke up early the next morning to go back to the hospital! The following day I paired up with Alicia and Rachel and went to the ICU. The ICU did not have any equipment such as equipment to intubate, ventilators, etc. The ICU was more of a med-surg unit for patients with more severe complications. The patients needing respiratory support were sent to the University Hospital in Lusaka. Around 10:00 AM everyone in the hospital takes a tea break, which is kind of funny, since it is really, really hot outside! But it's fun to take some time and talk to eachother, while reprogramming your mind before heading back to the ward. That day we did not take a break, because we only stayed for half the day. Instead, Kara and I left to go to the Pediatric ward for the rest of the afternoon.

At the peds ward we took lots of vitals signs and we assisted the nurse with passing medications. When the nurses give medications here they usually measure out the doses and hand them to the family members at the bedside. The family members are, therefore, responsible for making sure that their children receive their medications. We saw many malnourished children, but it was really wonderful to get to hold them and make them smile! Quite a few of them were also HIV positive. We got the chance to sit in on a counseling session with one of the families. The boy, receiving the counseling, was dropped off at the hospital by his father and left for 2 months. The mother had passed away from AIDs. Fortunately, the mother's older sister was able to find transportation to the hospital and volunteered to take care of the boy for the rest of his life. She was quite a bit older, however, she still had the kindness in her heart to take care of her sister's child.

We experienced a couple deaths, one of which I felt rather close to. There was a small infant in the NICU, who died the night after we visited her. I was so thankful that God allowed us to talk to her and make her smile that night before she met Jesus. God gave us the opportunity to give that precious baby hope in life and even hope in death. Thank you God for the experiences and opportunities, which you have given us to share hope and love with the world. Until next time.....God bless....

Zimba....

On Monday of last week we had the opportunity to visit Zimba Mission Hospital and stay the night. Rachel and I partnered up and started taking vitals and preparing the ART (Anti-retroviral therapy--AIDs treatment) patients for their doctor's appointments. There had to be nearly 40 people who passed through the ART clinic for the 2 hours while we were there. It was very chaotic, but a wonderful opportunity to get to know some of the patients. I talked to one man, who was a farmer with five children. He said that he was not sure how he was going to get his 4 youngest children through school, because no one is buying his crops. He said that he was bankrupt and could not find a way out. I talked to him about his extended family and he said that none of them were nearby and that his father and mother had died with AIDs. He has been staying on schedule with taking his ART medication, therefore his health is pretty good at the moment.
After the ART clinic Rachel and I moved to the lab. Dr. J taught me how to draw blood for the first time! It was exciting! It was not as hard to draw blood as I thought it would be. IVs, however, might take some more practice! I tried a couple IVs the next morning and had some trouble, but I am very anxious to try again! The next morning Rachel and I were paired together again and were placed in the med-surg. men's and women's units and the TB unit. We had a couple blood draws and a couple IV sticks. There were quite a few patients in all 3 wards and there was only 1 nurse for these 3 units. There were many AIDs and malaria cases and a few musculoskeletal problems on the men/women's units. Later that evening Rachel and I got to scrub in for surgery in the theatre (the OR). Rachel scrubbed in to be the surgical nurse! How cool is that? It was a wonderful experience, especially because I love the OR! We watched 2 hernia repairs and then saw a severe burn patient, who had fallen into fire in the village. I have seen many surgeries at home and it was extremely interesting to see the difference in how the OR's are run. I can not wait to go back to the OR when I get the chance! We have had some wonderful opportunities this past week and I am looking forward to what is coming over the next month and a half!
Blessings,
~Alivia

Beautiful Baby Girl!!!! :)

This is the newest addition to the family!!! My niece.....Mckenna! She was born this past Sunday and isn't she beautiful? What a sweet heart! Thank you God for this wonderful blessing which You have given our family!!! I can not wait to see her upon arrival back in the U.S. for Thanksgiving! :) I love you Mckenna and will see you soon!!! :)..... Julia is doing well after the delivery! :) Praise God... And Brandon is loving every minute of it! :)

Hospitals, healthcare and hospice...

On Monday the other half of the girls visited the Hospital in Zimba. Two of the girls got to deliver a baby! :) A couple of the girls started IVs and drew lots of blood work. Everyone got some good clinical experience! There were no surgeries due to a lack of an anesthesiologist, however he is supposed to be back next week. Two more girls got to travel to a beef farm and perform well baby check-ups, immunizations and blood work. Our group gets to visit the Hospital next week, which is really exciting! There were many, many cases of HIV/AIDS and a few people died overnight and there was a still birth, which was very hard for some of the girls to see.
Today we traveled to a Hospital near our compound. (About 70-80% of the patients at this hospital were dying of AIDS.) We took a tour of the wards, which we spread out among quite a bit of land. All of the wards were seperate from eachother and you had to step outside and walk to the next ward. I was really surprised by what I saw in the wards. The beds were extremely rusted and the mattresses were extremely thin. Each of the babies had a bassinet and very little sheets. The patients, who arrived first, were able to get bedding. However, if there were not enough sheets to go around then the patients had to wait on bare mattresses until sheets were given to them, following a discharge. The OR is called a Theatre and one of the nurses said that it is usually very, very busy. I am so excited to get to see a surgery! The nurse to patient ratio ranges anywhere from 1:5 to 1:50. One of the nurses talked to us about how she became a nurse in Zambia and we asked her if the nurse to patient ratio makes her job hard. In response she simply stated, "It is a little bit difficult." She never said that her job was hard, or frustrating. She just said, "a little bit difficult." I get nervous sometimes having 10 patients at one time....50 patients I can not even imagine! The Zambian people are so kind! And most of the nurses we have met are so passionate about their jobs!
We left the hospital and took a tour of the Hospice, which was extremely nice! The hospice does not hold very many patients, most of which are AIDS patients. We only toured for about 5 minutes, but we will be going back for clinicals this next week. After leaving the hospice we stopped by a village and gave candy to the children. It was a lot of fun! Tomorrow we are planning to all leave in the morning and give immunizations all day! God is keeping us busy with lots of opportunities and I can't wait to see what we are going to be doing next! :)
until next time....God bless....

WHIZ food distribution....

On Monday we got the chance to visit Dr. Jain's office. Half of the group went to Zimba Hospital and half of us went to Dr. Jain's. Of the eight girls going to Dr. Jain's, 4 went in the morning and 4 went in the afternoon. I was one of the 4, who went in the afternoon. He is not as busy in the afternoon, however we were able to see lots of cases of Malaria. I got to watch one of the lab personnel dye slides for malaria and we got to see the parasites through the stethoscope. Most of the cases were malaria related...but there were a few that were accident related, or involving skin disorders. We had to take temperatures and blood pressures with mercury sigmomenometers and thermometers. The mercury blood pressures were extremely hard to read, because I could not see the mercury while trying to read the diastolic pressure. All of the medications, which we gave, I had never seen before, so I had to look all of them up on the internet.
On Tuesday we got to participate in a food distribution for WHIZ. The mealy meal, which was completely out in the supply store, finally came in and was given to World Hope for distribution. The 8 of us left that morning (the other 8 stayed overnight in Zimba) and began driving north towards Lusaka. After about 20 minutes of driving we were pulled over for a car safety inspection. We were supposed to pull over on the side of the road until we could pay enough for a fire extinguisher for the truck, which was hauling the food. Every time we tried to deliver the food something would happen. We prayed together in our car and we were released to begin driving again. Thank you God! :) We drove for a total of about 3 hours between different cities on the way to Lusaka. We were able to stop in about 6 villages and deliver cabbages, mealy meal and emergency kits. It was a wonderful opportunity to see how the villages function related to community health. We were able to get out of the land rover for about 20 minutes at each village and play with the children, as well as, meet and greet the mothers and fathers. It was a very humbling experience and I am so thankful that we were able to finally deliver the food! Thank you God for your faithfulness in this situation! :)
God bless...