Finishing up at Kapsowar

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            I’m just wrapping up my last full week in Kapsowar.  Next week I’ll be going on a short safari with my roommate, Katie and then to Nairobi to fly home.  In some ways it’s gone by so fast, but when I think back to my first night in Kenya it feels like ages ago.  The week before I left for Africa I went to see The Hobbit with my family.  I said after the movie ended that I felt like Bilbo Baggins, heading out on a journey for which I was anxious and not quite ready.  Of course, my sister Julia scoffed at that statement and thought it was ridiculous, but oddly enough it has turned out to be true.  I’ve been reading the book while I’ve been here and just finished the part where Bilbo rescues the dwarves from giant spiders and is gaining their respect as well as his own self-confidence.  I think that has definitely been true of me during this experience.  At times living in this different culture and environment has been frustrating and I’ve often thought longingly of home (as Bilbo wishes many times to be back in his comfy hobbit-hole), but I’ve learned a lot about myself here and have found that I’m capable of more than I originally thought. 

I’m working on the female medical ward this week and I’m learning to be a bit more gracious with myself about my mistakes.  I tend to be a little self-deprecating (as my family is keenly aware), especially when it comes to my abilities as a medical student.  My first day I felt a little overwhelmed and got almost every medical question the attending doctor asked me wrong.  I felt particularly stupid when I held up a chest x-ray backward and proceeded to try to interpret it that way.  My roommate kindly reminded me later that in America we never have to orient the films, they are usually on a computer screen in the correct fashion.  So although that was a silly error, it was a situation unique to being at this hospital.  Normally after I do a bunch of things wrong I feel really dumb for a while and think I went into the wrong field and will never be a good doctor.  This time, however, I just thought to myself, it’s ok to not know everything yet, this is just another opportunity to learn and hopefully not miss the same thing the next time.  That might be an obvious conclusion to make, but it’s one that I haven’t come to on my own until now.  

 

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Some random tidbits from the last two weeks:

-       I lit my first candle!  Everyone should be proud of me :) (the power was out for 2 days)

-       There are lots of cute baby animals in Kenya, reminding me of how much I miss my cat – can’t wait to see him soon!

-       I got sick AGAIN last week with a GI bug

-       Our apartment got infested with ants, luckily they are all gone now

-       I saw monkeys out in the wild! Unfortunately we drove by too fast for a picture, but hopefully I’ll get some exciting animal pics on safari next week

 Maurine and Leonida, nurses in the NBU (newborn unit)

 The children's ward

 One of the sweetest patients ever, she was badly burned in a house fire last fall

 The female medical ward

On a home visit after the community clinic this week