Warning: photo spam ahead!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted on here! This has been a very eventful week for me. I’ll start off with last weekend. On Friday, Petek and I went to Kigali to hunt for souvenirs for our friends and family. We were able to buy some African shirts for our parents. I bought my dad a beige shirt with a rhino on the front. For my mom, I got her an authentic African dress. I hope they like it! After all our purchases, we went to Bourbon to get dinner then headed back to Petek’s homestay. The wait for the bus to Kicukiro took around 2 hours. The traffic was insane that weekend because it was the weekend of the African Union. Many roads around the Convention Center were closed off for security reasons. Unfortunately for us, we had to pass the Convention Center to get back to Kicukiro. After getting on the very crowded bus, we finally made it back to the homestay.

On Saturday, we met up with Jade, Laura, and Bre and J Lynn’s for breakfast. It was nice seeing some familiar faces! We talked about our experiences at the hospital and towns. After breakfast, we made our way to town to go to Kazi ni Kazi: a small shopping area to buy spare parts and electronics. We had to buy some spare parts for our hospitals and materials for our secondary project. Petek and I were able to buy a new charger, paint brushes, and super glue from there. Afterwards, we parted with the other group and went to go get souvenirs. We went to Kimirongo and bought masks, artwork made from banana leaves, figurines, and plenty of keychains. I was able to bargain for the first time there! It was quite fun to bargain because the vendor was very friendly and willing to lower the price for me. For dinner, Petek and I went to a Korean restaurant called Dae Jang Geum. I ordered galbi tang (short rib soup) and kimbap (Korean sushi) whereas Petek ordered bibimbap (mixed rice). Although the food wasn’t as good as in the US, it was delicious! It definitely satisfied my cravings for Korean food. It was Petek’s first time trying Korean food as well! She really enjoyed eating her meal as well.

Our Korean meal!

Yummy kimbap

This week has been very busy for Petek and I we because we started our secondary project. We decided to make some shoe cubbies for the dentistry department and OR. We started off by first cleaning some old cubbies that we found in the scrap metal pile. We couldn’t find anything that could help us rinse the cubbies so we decided to wipe them down with baby wipes, which took half of our Monday. On Thursday, Petek and I painted the cubbies. We were both very pleased with how both of them turned out! We also left our mark on the cubbies by putting a hand print on them. On Friday, we did some final touch ups. Now all there’s left to do is to give the cubbies to the departments. We hope they’ll find our cubbies useful!

We had to stop taking inventory to take a selfie with Serge.

Our cubbies!

Matching with the finished product

Hospital partner selfie feat. scrap metal

Left my mark!

On Friday, Petek and I stayed with my homestay. It was very nice to see them again and catch up. We also had dinner with them. It was so nice having a home cooked meal! The food tasted amazing as well. The next day, we made our way to Nyanza to visit the King’s Palace. It took us quite a while to find the palace, however. First, there was a bike race in Nyanza, which blocked off a lot of roads. Second, the signs “directing” us to the palace were not very helpful because we got lost. Third, not a lot of people spoke English so we weren’t able to ask the locals where the palace was. In the end, it took us about an hour to find the place. We were able to find some locals who spoke English to help us out. The palace was beautiful! It was nice to learn some of the Rwandan culture. The king’s palace looked like a giant dome. There was a pole in front of the entrance that was called the forgiveness pole. Our guide informed us that once someone touched the pole, the entire village, including the king, would forgive that person for whatever they did. There were also sticks at coming out from the top of the roof. Having one stick coming out meant that there was a widow living in the house. The other two symbolized that the house belonged to the king. We took off our shoes and entered the palace. Inside there was a waiting room, a VIP room for the king’s friends, another room for the queen’s friends, and the bedroom. The bed was huge. It seemed like it could fit maybe five people on it! A fun fact I learned was that the shortest king was 2.17 meters! The bed was definitely fit for a king, especially for a king of that size.

Front entrance of the palace

Inside! P.s. check out my cool African shirt

There were also two smaller dome shaped houses behind the palace. One of for a girl who was in charge of the milk. The other was for a boy who was in charge of the banana beer. These jobs were very honorable jobs because the boy and girl were chosen out of the rest of the village to serve for the rest of their life. After seeing these two houses, we visited the cows. The cows had huge horns! There was a cow herder there that would sing to the cows. We were told that the cows love music and attention. One of the cows came up to us, ushering us to pet him. Cows were my favorite animal as a child, so I was super excited to be able to get so close to one!

The milk girl's home.

Pots that stored banana beer. The sticks are actually straws made of papyrus.

In front of the banana beer boy's home.

Inka! (Cow in Kinyarwanda)

We were also able to see the modern palace. The palace was very big and had multiple rooms. I was able to learn more history about Rwanda, including the expansion of the country (Another fun fact: Rwanda means “expansion”). In the 18^th century, Rwanda’s borders used to expand into Uganda and the Congo, with a little help from Belgium. However, when these colonizers left, the borders shrunk to today’s borders.

After visiting the palaces, Petek and I took a bus to Muhanga where Savannah and Grace lived. We were able to also see Addie, Katie, Megan, Gabby, and Bryan. We all cooked dinner together and had a feast. We made spaghetti, mashed potatoes, sautéed green beans and carrots, and garlic bread. We enjoyed our dinner while watching The Office. Grace also made these deep fried banana balls for dessert! Although it a simple dish, it tasted very good, especially with Nutella drizzled on top. The group sat around and caught up while enjoying these banana balls.

Group pic with the food we prepared!

Serving it buffet style~

My plate of food. My favorite part was the garlic bread and veggies! 

The next morning, we all woke up around 8 AM and made grilled cheese sandwiches with avocado and omlettes for breakfast. There were also some left over banana balls, so we ate those as well. We ate breakfast while watching Despicable Me 2. After eating and finishing the movie, Petek and I made our way back to Byumba. It’s shocking to know that we only have one more week left here. This Friday, I’ll be heading back to Kigali for the EWH conference. Next Sunday, I’ll be getting on a plane to go back to America. Time has definitely flown by! I will definitely be making the last week memorable. I wonder what adventures will be in store for us this week.

Grilled cheese and avocado! Not pictured: omlette and banana balls because I ate them haha...

A Happy Hump Day

Petek and I walked into the hospital this morning thinking that it would be a slow day, especially since it was Wednesday. When we entered the maintenance room, we took our usual seats and waited for Serge and Eric to come in. When they came in, we said good morning to them and started working. We first put back together an oxygen concentrator we looked at last week. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to fix it due to not having spare parts to replace the broken ones with. After that, we looked at a laptop charger and desodered the broken components on its circuit board. We found a spare part and tried to desoder that off of its circuit board however, we found out that the piece was also broken. To get our minds off of not being able to fix those pieces of equipment, Petek and I decided to take inventory in the dentistry and radiology department. We met the friendly workers there and asked if they had any broken equipment that needed fixing. They said that there weren’t any, but we did see Serge walking towards the maintenance workshop with the head nurse of the maternity ward. We saw that she was carrying a handful of sphygmomanometers and a bucket (literally a bucket) full of thermometers. After taking inventory, Petek and I made our way back to the workshop. We thought that the equipment the head nurse brought in would be tough fixes (we were also bummed out about the oxygen concentrator and laptop charger), so we took our time troubleshooting. We were watching music videos on YouTube when I found out that there was a simple fix on one of the sphygmomanometers. I realized that there was a hole in the cuff that could easily be mended. Petek and I put some super glue on it and the device was as good as new! We were excited since it was our first fix in a long time. We told Serge and he brought us to the pediatric department to confirm that the sphygmomanometer was fixed. Petek and I eagerly stood next to the nurse that was using our fixed piece of equipment on one of the patients. When she was done, she removed her stethoscope and smiled at us.

“Il fonctionne” she said in French. Petek and I were both super excited. Serge congratulated us and the rest of the nurses in the pediatric department clapped for us. This was the most praise we got from fixing equipment. Even though it was one of our easier fixes, the nurses were the happiest. I think it’s because a sphygmomanometer is a device that is used daily. With our morale boosted, Petek and I were able to fix all the other sphygmomanometers, which belonged to the maternity ward. The head nurse was very pleased to see that we fixed all four of them! We also were able to fix a bunch of the thermometers for the pediatric department by the end of the day.

Testing to make sure the thermometers worked...and they did!

After finishing work, a one of the kids from the local elementary school walked up to Petek and I as we were walking back to our room. She gave each of us flowers. Soon after, her friends came up after her and gave us a handful of flowers! Both of us were very confused, but very happy. This was definitely a sweet end to hump day! This Wednesday also marks the start of the final quarter of this trip. I still can’t believe that I’ve been in Rwanda for a month and a half already. Time has definitely flown by. I feel extremely accomplished because of all the effort I’ve been putting in to help fix medical equipment in Byumba. Although I’ve ran into some bumps along the road, I know that I was able to help out someone along the way. J

Flowers!

The Most Asian Day Ever!

This week felt a lot shorter than the others. I didn’t have work on Monday since it was Liberation Day. Wednesday was the end of Ramadan, so not a lot of people came to work. Petek and I also found out that Fridays are half days for us so we get out at 12! Despite the short week, Petek and I ran into some problems at the hospital. We weren’t able to fix any medical equipment this week. Most of the time, we were waiting for email responses from manufacturers to help us troubleshoot since the problems we ran into weren’t as simple as the first week. On Tuesday, a nurse from the maternity ward came in and asked us to fix two handheld blood pressure monitors. She explained that there was only one working monitor left and how it’s quite difficult for her to monitor the blood pressure of 7-8 patients with only one monitor. That made Petek and I feel quite pressured to fix the monitors as soon as possible. The nurse told us that the cuff would inflate but would not deflate, thus not properly recording the patient’s blood pressure. When Petek and I opened up the monitors, we could not find anything wrong. We also asked our head BMET if he could find a problem. However, he also could not find the problem. On Thursday the nurse came back in and asked us if we fixed it. We answered “no” and explained what we expected the problem could be. After explaining, she responded with “I can’t wait any longer. I need them fixed now. I will just go to our director and ask him what I should do.” And with that, she walked away with the broken monitors. It definitely was not a good feeling when we could not fix such a simple device for her. Petek and I felt very discouraged when this happened. It seems as if the hospital staff have very high hopes for us two despite knowing that we only had one month of training. We understand that there will be some pieces of equipment that we won’t be able to fix. However, we are trying to stay optimistic and hope for equipment we can fix in the last three weeks we have here!

On Friday, after work, Petek left to go to Musanze to do the volcano hike with others. I didn’t feel too well, so I spent the rest of the day in bed. I think I was just exhausted and needed some time to relax. On Saturday, I made my way to Kigali to meet up with Jenny to visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Little did we know what we would have a day filled with adventure ahead of us…

We met up at Nyabugogo, a large, and extremely hectic bus station. Since it was the afternoon, we decided to go get lunch at a restaurant called Pan China, which was pretty popular among other umuzungus (foreigners), according to TripAdvisor. We took a bus to the Convention Center because we thought the restaurant was close by. However, after walking for about 30 minutes, we realized we were lost. We ended up asking police for directions. The police were kind enough to call motos for us and direct the drivers to the restaurant. It was my first time riding one, so I was a bit hesitant. We were also discouraged to ride motos, especially in Kigali. However, there was no taxi or bus in sight so that was our only option for transportation. With that, I put on my helmet and sped off on the moto. It took us awhile to get to Pan China because: 1) it was a lot farther than expected and 2) the moto drivers didn’t know where it was either! We had to drive around the neighborhood for a while until we found the place. Jenny and I ordered Sichuan beef, stir fried noodles with vegetables, and a banana chocolate milkshake. Yes, a milkshake. At a Chinese restaurant. IN KIGALI. The entire meal was delicious. It was very rewarding, especially after wandering around the city looking for this place.

Close up of our food...it was so good...

Look how excited Jenny is!

After our late lunch, the manager of Pan China ordered a taxi for us so we can get to the genocide memorial. The memorial was much like a museum where you can walk through and read the different posters displayed. I was able to learn a lot about the genocide, including the buildup prior to it and the aftermath. I definitely recommend going to this memorial because it was extremely informative.

Jenny and I made our way to RZ Manna, a Korean bakery. We ordered tried out a bunch of different bread flavors including soboro, mocha, and sweet potato. We also tried their coffee, which was amazing. I haven’t had coffee since we were still at IPRC…

Top: Sweet potato bread & mocha bread

Bottom: Soboro & brownie

Mocha frap~

After RZ Manna, Jenny and I were going to go back to Nyabugogo so we can get back to our cities, but we ended up talking about the latest trend back at home: Pokemon Go. For those of you who don’t know, Nintendo released a new app where you can catch Pokemon in real life. It works by syncing your GPS to the game. This allows you to walk around wherever you are to search of Pokemon. I had the app on my phone, and Jenny was curious on how the game worked. We ended up walking down the streets of Kigali for a solid 40 minutes to “catch ‘em all.” My childhood dreams of becoming a Pokemon master have finally come true! I’m sure both of us looked ridiculous since I was holding my phone out in the open and Jenny had her computer out since we used it was a Wi-Fi hotspot.

These two MTN workers thought I was taking a picture of them...little did they know There was a Zubat on them!

Literally flipped out when I saw these two hanging out on the road.

There was a Sandshrew next to Jenny this entire time!

The weekend was definitely quite an “Asian” day. We ate Chinese food, had bread and coffee at a Korean bakery, and even caught some Pokemon in Kigali! I hope next week I'll be able to find more when I come back. :)

Reunited with the EWH Squad at Lake Kivu

We are well into our sixth week in Rwanda. It’s been a week and a half since all of us have parted ways to work at our regional hospitals. I can’t help but feel a bit sad when I think about being away from the rest of the EWH squad. The days are much quieter and a lot slower. I even started counting down the days until the conference and my departure back home. Without the rest of gang here, I started to feel more and more homesick. Maybe I just need to find ways to keep myself busy to think about these things… On a brighter note, Petek and I were able to fix plenty of equipment. We fixed an infant warmer, a few pulse oximeters, and a surgical lamp, just to name a few! Both of us are very excited to see what else we can fix at the hospital. We also have been able to take warm showers daily here in Byumba. We were almost in denial that the water coming out of the faucet was warm! We spent a few minutes standing in our bathroom, running the hot water over our hands and almost burning ourselves! As for food...although there is not many restaurants to try, the hotel we're staying at has excellent food. The new city has definitely been treating us well!

Checking to make sure the pulse oximeter works. (It does.)

Despite the slow days at the hospital, Petek and I look forward to see familiar faces on the weekends. This past weekend, we traveled to Kibuye to visit Lake Kivu with Laura, Jade, and Bre. We later found out that everyone else also decided to go to Kibuye as well. Planning the trip with everyone was very disorganized so everyone decided to follow with their own plans. On Saturday, we made our way to the environmental museum. We learned about the different sources of energy there is in the world, and what kinds of energy Rwanda uses. At the end of the tour, the museum guide showed us an herbal garden that was located at the top of the building. It was interesting to see what local plants can be used to treat burns, stomach pains, and many other ailments. Afterwards, the five of us, and Katie who joined us later in the day, went on a boat ride on Lake Kivu. We visited two islands: Napoleon Island and Peace Island. We hiked up Napoleon Island and were able to catch an amazing bird’s eye view of the lake. On our way up to the top, we saw plenty of bats. All of us were unsure as to why all the bats were out in the daylight. We tried asking our tour guide but he wasn’t so sure either. At Peace Island, we were able to swim in the lake. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my swimsuit, but I was able to dip my toes into the cool water! We ended our boat ride by stopping in the middle of the lake and watching the sunset. It was my first time seeing the sunset in its full glory so I was in awe of its beauty. We ended our day by eating at the restaurant in the hotel we stayed at. I ordered a hamburger with vegetables but ended up getting sauteed vegetables in between two buns. I was sad to not see meat on my burger! I decided to not ask the kitchen to make a new one since waiting time is a lot slower than that in America. Overall, the weekend was great. I was able to see everyone and was able to experience Lake Kivu and all of its glory!

We're on a boat aaand...it's going (not so) fast aaaand! (Anyone recognize the song?)

Super posed pic on Napoleon Island. FYI: Don't wear flip flops when trying to hike up a nearly vertical slope.

Watching the sunset on Lake Kivu.