July 8, 2019
Monday: Finally, we get to go to work after a weird week of not having anything. When we got to work this morning, we started to test the oxygen concentrators that we fixed last week to make sure the oxygen concentration is the ideal 97%. Unfortunately, 2 out of the 4 we thought were good were around 20%, which is just normal air blowing out. For a good portion of the morning, we decided to clean the 4 concentrators as they were very dirty and full of dust inside and out. One of the concentrators got up to 80% with just cleaning it which was crazy how much the dust impacted it. We started to look at that concentrator to see if we could figure out how to get the concentration up. We found a leak in one of the circuit boxes that was releasing air, but we were not sure if that was an outlet of pressure or a leak. We decided to wait till after lunch to ask Boaz. One of our coordinators, Claire, came and took us out for lunch today at Miganos! Yum! I got a smoothie, and a nile perch dish with a side of parsley potatoes and vegetable rice. I devoured it, it was incredible and I knew I wouldn’t need a big dinner after that meal. It was fun to talk to Claire and hear her insight about this month at the hospitals and ideas that she had for us. After lunch we went back and tried to troubleshoot the two oxygen concentrators some more. We decided to add a sealant to the leak and see if it would work, but the sealant didn’t dry before we left the office so we will have to try again tomorrow. The other oxygen concentrator was having loads of problems this afternoon, and decided to stop blowing out air all together. Everything that could go wrong with the machine was, and we are thinking it has to do with the circuit board but we are still stuck on that as well. We are not having much luck in the maintenance workshop fixing equipment which is super defeating as that is what we have come to do. Hopefully later this week we will move onto other departments of the hospital and try to fix issues around the hospital. The amount of time at the hospital has gone by SO quickly and we can not even believe we are on our 3rd week of work. After work I went to the forex bureau to exchange some money, and cross our fingers hopefully it is the last time I will have to exchange. Prayers for my spending habits. Went home, rinsed off my grime and read for a while before dinner. We decided tonight is going to be an avocado toast, mango, and tea type night with not much going on. After dinner, I snuggled up in bed and watched 13 Going on 30.
July 9, 2019
Tuesday: Yesterday I was in a weird funk so when I got up this morning I made sure to make myself some tea and a good breakfast. When we arrived at work, I started uploading our conference invitations (at the end of the month we have a big conference in Kigali where each placement gives a presentation on their hospital and all of the work done during the month) so that we could give them to our BMET Boaz, as well as the Director General of the hospital. We decided to test the oxygen concentrator that we put sealant on since it had dried over night. THANK THE LORD the machine got up to 100% concentration which is incredible. Boaz had us clean two different ultrasound machines as the spare parts for them were coming in soon. We also talked a lot to Boaz about our secondary project and how we were going to get it done. We have a budget of $200 between the group so we concluded on 2 different projects. The first and main project we are doing was suggested by Boaz. This includes getting cloths to cover the big medical devices that are stored in the maintenance workshop, either getting repaired or waiting for spare parts. The tailor came today to measure the equipment, and the cloths will be ready by next week! We also are considering getting tags for each cloth so the device can be labeled and the BMET knows what is under each cloth. The second project consists of making a play area for the pediatric unit. We are going to make a zebra and giraffe put of tires and paint, so the area will have a more playful feel for the kids. We talked to the head of transportation at the hospital and he has spare tires for us to use so we will only have to pay for paint and some piping. We cleaned a few more spare parts for the ultrasound machine and went to lunch. Amanda and I wandered around the modern market for lunch and found some cheap sambusas and chapatti and fried chapatti so we were satisfied. We then found Amanda a white top for a wedding she is going to this weekend so our lunch trip was a success. After lunch we cleaned the 3 oxygen concentrators that are fixed so that we could take them to the pediatric area. When we finished cleaning them, we went with Boaz to optometry to fix a few split lamps that were broken. One was an easy printer paper jam, that was easily fixed. Next was a burnt bulb, so an easy fix but we do not have that bulb on hand and is hard to find. We found it on Amazon for $80 so if we have money left over at the end we may get it for the hospital with our stipend. The last was a headlamp and we found that the light wasn’t lighting due to a poor connection on a wire that was already taped up. We removed the tape and soldered the connection together. When we tested the connections there was voltage running through everything and the bulb had continuity but the bulb still did not light up. We were very confused as to what was wrong with the headlamp/bulb so I we are going to see if we have a replacement bulb to see if that works. I recorded everything down in the work summary document and then we headed home. I grabbed some water for the week and the store on the way back, and a Citron Fanta to have with dinner. I showered, and chilled for a little bit then Amanda and I made some dinner. Tonight our meal consisted of vegetables (onions, green peppers, carrots, and green beans) and pasta with a garlic butter type sauce. After dinner, Amanda and I played cards and talked for a while before heading off to our rooms where I finished the night in #selfcare mode.
July 10, 2019
Wednesday: This week is flying by so quickly my goodness! This morning when we got to work we headed to the pediatric unit where we were given 3 nebulizer and a suction pump to work on. During our time working there was this mentally ill lady that came into the room we were working in and was trying to hang out with us. She kept saying she was looking for her shoes but she had them on. She would then proceed to show us her toe that was all mangled and gross. She left and then came back topless, the security guard finally got her situated but that was very entertaining and made work more eventful. Once we finished the devices, we headed to eat lunch back at our house. I opted for a PB&J sandwich, a banana and passion fruit. When we got back to the hospital after lunch we grabbed a capnograph from the ICU to work on. The problem was that it was not reading the CO2 levels correctly, we tried to fix it but could find nothing wrong with the device internally. We asked Boaz for help and he was stumped too so we are going to continue tomorrow. We didn’t get a chance to talk to the Director General yet about our secondary project so we are hoping to do that tomorrow. After work Amanda and I headed over to Crema to get coffee and a snack. It is open till 8pm today because they have burger night which looked incredible and am going to come back next week and get one. When I got home from Crema, Jean Claude was at our house! Jean Claude was the original BMET at Ruhengeri but is on leave for an UN Mission. He still has been in contact with us as he is the main contact for our stay in Musanze but we hadn’t met him yet. We got a chance to talk to him at our house for a little bit then he invited us out to dinner. We went to the Fatima Hotel and had dinner and drinks there. We stayed for a super long time talking about school, his work, our work and our lives. We had an incredible time with him and are super sad that we won’t get to see him again. Jean Claude also set up for us to have dinner at the Fatima two more times before we leave so we are going again tomorrow night and our last night in Musanze. A stand up man for sure!
July 11, 2019
Thursday: Today again was a pretty normal day, but today my hands were DISGUSTING from the equipment cleaner we had been using. My hands were peeling and super dry so I made a pledge that I would not clean machines today. When we got to work we were given 3 different fetal dopplers to fix so we worked on those in the morning as well as into the afternoon. Today we also had a change to go talk to the General Director about our secondary project and get his approval. It was reassuring to finally get approval so we could start on our tire project on Monday. The cloths should be in next week too, so everything is coming together with the secondary project. Lunch again today was PB&J but we ran out of bread that morning so we took the peanut butter and jelly with us to town and got some croissants for the sandwich. We sat down at Migano’s to eat these and the nice waiter brought us plates and napkins for us to eat on! So kind. After work I showered and did some laundry and packed before the weekend started. Then for dinner we got our second free dinner from Jean Claude at Fatima. Tonight, I got rabbit and some wine. INCREDIBLE MEAL! When the rabbit came out we were shocked because there was enough food to feed 5 people on the platter, but I took some home and will eat it for leftovers on Monday night! We got home pretty late after dinner so I finished packing up my bag for the weekend and then went to bed.
July 12, 2019
Friday: This week flew by so quickly oh my goodness! Since we had no more bread/breakfast items at the house, Amanda and I went to Crema for breakfast this morning. We both made it to our free drinks, BOOYAH! I got a spicy mocha, and a rolex (chapati omelette) which both very much hit the spot. We got to work and decided on a plan for our secondary project. There was not much to do in the maintenance workshop so we went to town to buy all of our parts. It took way longer than we anticipated as people tend to move slow here, but glad we got it all done so we can start working on it. When we got back to the office there wasn’t much to do so Boaz told us to go to lunch, which consisted of going to an African Buffet. After we ate we stopped by a sambusa shop to get ourselves snacks for the Kigali bus ride. When we got back to work there still was not much to do so we decided to start sanding our pipes and gluing parts together. Today was superrrrr slow. Not a ton of fun, and my phone battery died the fastest it has ever had. The day was over and Amanda and I headed to the bus stop. We hopped on a 4:30 bus to Kigali and were on our way. When we made it to Kigali we had a freaking terribly long cab ride back to IPRC (50 minutes, RIP) because there was classic afternoon traffic. All the girls that came went to our cult favorite, Best Bar for fish brochettes and chips. We were all super tired so we headed home after dinner.
July 13, 2019
Saturday: I was abruptly awoken at around 8am to this dang rooster that our Kigali host family had apparently recently purchased. Laura and I tried to sleep in a little bit but were too irritated by the rooster so we went to La Mane for coffee and a pastry for breakfast. We stayed at La Mane for quite a while and journaled and talked. It was super nice to talk to her about life and everything that’s been going on. For lunch we grabbed chicken pies from Simba, oh my lord so good I’m very upset I hadn’t had one earlier. Then a group of us went to Kimironko which is a big market where we bought lots of crafts and gifts for our family, friends and ourselves. For dinner we went to Meze Fresh and got a fat burrito… so good, I needed that in my life. It was our friend Maya’s birthday earlier this week so we went out to the club to celebrate! We went to a new place called Fushia, and it was so fun and we stayed out wayyy too late but it was worth it for her!! On our way home we stopped at Milanova and grabbed some chocolate croissants, again so good. My sleep was short that night but ya know it be like that.
July 14, 2019
Sunday: The rooster made a wakeup call again which was no fun. I got ready for the day, packed up, and went to another homestay to steal some of their breakfast food since ours wasn’t providing food that weekend. We hung out for a good portion of the morning at their house, talking and chilling. Maya found a cool coffee shop in town called Kigali Art Café so we went to that for coffee and lunch. We stayed there for a crazy long time, due to us talking a lot but also a good African time example of the bill being way more complicated than it should have been. From there we went to the bus stop to get back to Musanze. When Amanda and I made it home we grabbed some bread and water, and then made some dinner. My dinner consisted of my Bolognese leftovers from last week and some more pasta on top of that. It was so nice not to cook. I then took the most incredible shower since I have been in Africa and it was a fantastic end to the night.
Rwanda 