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. :)