Thursday - clinic and pill counting

Today I did the morning clinic at ABC. Not too busy, but one pretty sick guy. It is hard here - no home health, no nursing homes.... if you are chronically ill or disabled, your family must tend to you, often with not much support. He did seem to have a loving family, so he is probably getting the best there is available here!

Medically it can be the little things that get to you. Today we needed to put in a foley catheter. No kits, of course, so off to the store room to rummage around and see what was available! Finally we found enough of the right things in the right size.. then to find someone to insert it! Turns out the nurses don't insert foley catheters in men, only the male clinical officiers. They were busy. BUT the American nurse, Becky, who is essentially managing the clinic now, does insert catheters so it 'got done'. Oops, the connections to the collection bag were so old they split and leaked. Fortunately another collection bag was found. It is the little things.

Jose was busy in the clinic pharmacy this morning. Becky is doing pharmacy inventory and they are counting the pills... thousands and thousands of pills. Jose, Becky and another American nurse spent the morning counting and recording pills. (I think they liked the break for the foley catheter!!)

In the afternoon we got our photos taken for a visa - we are planning on going to Mozambique this weekend and need a visa to cross over the border. We also visited Anne Brown at COTN (Children of the Nations) to arrange a village clinic with the team currently at COTN. We ended up in the feeding village at Mtsiliza, where we will return tomorrow afternoon to help with the clinic. When we were leaving the village there was a whole road full of kids following three gulu wamkulu (fetish or spirit dancers). We didn't get a picture of them, but did get one of the kids.

Then on to the usual chores, including grocery shopping (always an experience). It was near dark by the time we got home. On the road to ABC we came upon a minibus that had broken down and was being pushed by two guys. By the time we could get a photo, there was only one guy left pushing... ha, I guess that is having a 'HIM i' engine!!

Photos today: two of the road to the village (one with the mass of kids), and the minibus and HIM i. Enjoy!