I think that I have the best practicum placement ever!! I don’t think my instructors would have let me come if they knew how much fun I would have!! There is a missionary here who is an RN from Canada and she has agreed to be my preceptor. She works with Public Health which means that the community as a whole is her ‘patient’. Right now she is in charge of the kitchen which is cool because she is changing the diet to include fruit and milk and eggs. I have the pleasure of helping her acquire all the goods for the kitchen which includes food for 250 widows and those in extreme poverty that is given out every month. At home we would phone in an order to some food company or we would go to costco... but not in Africa!!! We get in a truck and drive all over town, down roads that cannot qualify as roads or even allies, we find the product barter the price and then load thousands of pounds into the truck... if they first place doesn’t have enough we drive somewhere else to get the rest... AND that was just the first thing on the list!!!
When my nurse got here she found a major problem... a gazillion people come to the center and there was only 4 latrines, or squatty potties, AND they were mostly full!! Once she spotted the problem she became the construction nurse and hired a team to start building new, fancy, permanent latrines. They are vented in such a way that the flies can’t get out the potty hole (because it should be covered) so they fly up a large pipe toward the light... they can’t get out the metal grate so they die and fall back into the latrine... this should greatly minimize cholera and other gastro bugs!!
Because the kitchen and latrines have been two of the major projects that my nurse has worked on, my job will be to teach many small groups of people (400-500 people total). The first session I get to teach about why we wash our hands, not just because Mama Linda said so!! The second session I get to teach about Latrine etiquette!
So that is a bit about my responsibilities and what I will be doing for the next month!!
Blessings on you head
Candace J
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