Last Week

Hola,
As is typically the case at the end of an adventure, I'm not quite ready to leave. This week has been really fun as I've been exploring other parts of the hospital in addition to working with Dr Johnson in the theatre. My favorite part of the week was delivering babies! A late night C-section last week reminded me how great is is watching these tiny little guys pop into the world. Since then I've been hanging out with the midwives during breaks this week and delivered 4 babies so far. Labor and delivery is quite a bit different here than at home as there are no fetal heart monitors and NO PAIN MEDS!!! Watching these ladies made me think us Americans are such wimps, but when I eventually get around to having kids you bet I want that epidural.

What the labor room here did have which most at home don't is a resident cobra. Yes, a cobra as in long scary poisonous snake. Here in Zambia there is a old wives tale that a snake won't come near a pregnant lady. Hmmmm...consider that myth dispelled by a bunch of midwives and pregnant ladies running around the ward yelling "snake!". Fortunately nobody was bitten and the snake was beheaded. We're still waiting to see if he has friends who will be gracing us with their presence.

I also attended a general meeting of all of the hospital staff. It was really interesting to see what issues they found most challenging or concerning. In contrast to my last post, saying people weren't so concerned with other staff members dying, much of the meeting was dedicated to the very subject. Sadly they are faced with so many funerals of community members that they have whole policies and committees determining how funerals are handled. Employers here are much more responsible for providing for employees in all aspects of living. Many people are fed and housed by their employers. To an extent this also includes planning/financing funerals and weddings. There were interesting concerns of funerals for employees at different pay levels getting more priority or people in different jobs having more freedom to attend all of the funerals they would like. This is also compounded by a cultural concern that if you don't attend someone's funeral you will be blamed for their death.

They also discussed extensively plans to fix the broken generator versus the broken minibus. These are issues I can't really imagine making it to the board meeting at a hospital at home but truly matter day to day here.

Not much else is new-just lots of social plans this weekend with people in town who know I'm leaving soon. Last weekend one of the cooks from the guesthouse invited me to her home to meet her family which I just loved. While I was there we were watching TV, as they typically do on a Sunday afternoon. There aren't many channels but what was on was WWF wrestling. WWF is ENORMOUSLY popular here. I can't say I'm proud that's what Zambians think America is like, but for whatever reason they absolutely love it here. Perhaps the funniest moment of my time here was when the 3 year old niece introduced me to her teddy bear and told me it's name was John Cena, after a WWF star. Scary!

That's it for now- have a great week!