Week 4, full speed

This week, from 14th to 18th of July, we were seven volunteers working at the same time, plus the three TATU workers involved in the Health Project. Fortunately, we had ten people this week! Because there was a lot of work!

First, note this was the week between the two days of caravan. Therefore, there were several meetings with Pamoja Tunaweza doctors, in order to assess the intervention on 12^th of July, and plan carefully the logistics of 19^th. Furthermore, Javier and Gasto continued the recruitment for the caravan, covering areas A, C and Londoto in just three days, focusing on identification of cases that can benefit from Home Based Care, which is the main novelty of 19^th. Great work! On my side, I went on with that work in area B.

And not only activities related to caravan! Also during this week, we had the chance to access all the kids in the schools of Msitu Wa Tembo, taking advantage of the de-worming intervention, in which our colleagues from HEC-Montreal (also volunteers for TATU) played an important role. This de-worming intervention consisted on giving Albendazole (single dose of 400mg) and a seminar with advices on prevention. Apart from this, Isa, Luis and Alejandro worked together with Luis Santos, pediatrician from Spain, to set up a model of examination in order to get useful and easy epidemiological data. Then, from Monday to Thursday, they worked all day to apply it, and soon after finishing they started with the analysis of the data. Results of this analysis will be reported to dispensary and DMO and will be very useful for recommendations in clinical settings and design of suitable prevention measurements.

 

New volunteers, Ángela and Jaime, started working from Monday. A lot of work since first moment. In the morning of Monday, Ángela had already several meeting in order to prepare her seminar with “Hope” group, on prevention of STD (sexually transmitted diseases). It’s a difficult topic, and advice from Teach workers was extremely useful, as this friend NGO has more experience on this issue. From that point, seminars on Tuesday and Friday were alright, counting with many women attending and, as always, with huge support by Mwalimu Sara.

  

Together with Junior, Jaime spends his first week at the dispensary, being a difficult week, as we had to deal with expectations and involving workers from the dispensary in the caravan. There were some misunderstandings on 12^th that shouldn’t have been repeated on 19^th.

After all this work, we found ourselves in the bus coming back from the second day of caravan, having endless conversations on the work we are doing, feeling a mix of satisfaction, tiredness, doubts… There are always some doubts, but we are in the good path to find the answers. That night we were too tired to keep discussing when we got home, we simply fell asleep.

Medical caravan stories, coming soon.