Today we were at an outreach clinic in Emishie. To get to the village we had to drive up the mountain. The path to get up the mountain was filed with rocks and bumps. We had to ride on this terrain for about 30 minutes. Luckily no one got car sick! The thing that we did at the clinic was assessments. This includes vital signs and examining the patient. We noticed that a lot of the patients charts said that they were presenting with either itching and scratching or chest pain. The hard part about this situation is that some of the Tanzanian people hear that there is a free clinic and hear that they can get free medicine. So some of the patients came just to get the free medicine. To do this may seem wrong, but we do not know their situation. They cannot afford medicine, so they get free medicine, so when they are sick for real, they will have the free medicine that will help them get better. So we learned that we cannot judge people based on one interaction. There is always more than what we see on the outside.
We are all in agreement that today was a really good and productive day! This was great practice for us future nurses. We were able to do everything a nurse would and for that experience we are forever grateful. We also experienced a culture shock today. There are so many things that we take for granted. For example, we don’t have to go out back and kill a chicken just to eat a meal. Instead, we open up the fridge and start eating. Another example of what we take for granted is toilets that we can sit on. Here in Tanzania we got the pleasure of peeing in a hole. It was a hole in the ground and we had to squat over it and pray that we didn’t miss. Although this was very uncomfortable for us, this is the reality of many of the people in Tanzania. This helps us to empathize with them, because we have a slight idea of what it is Iike to live like them. Overall, we had an awesome, productive day and we are so excited to do it all again tomorrow!
Kaitlyn
Hi everyone,
Thanks for all your prayers. What an awesome team we have and they did awesome at our outreach clinic. The students got a lot of hands on experience and learned so much. The second group of the team arrived safely and we got the clearance of our medical equipment. Praise God. Dr. Pruitt and his wife will arrive on Saturday, and then all the team will be here and I can breath knowing I have clearance of all the equipment.
Today when we stopped to pick up the Tanzanian Doctor and nurse at the clinic in Mererani, their were patients waiting to see me to express their gratitude for doing surgery on their children. Due to COVID, I had to cancel two trips and delay this last trip, so I have not been here for awhile. Through your financial support we were able to continue to support these people and established a medical referral clinic in which we referred patients from our outreach clinics to Selian in Arusha. I would arrange which doctor the patient should see and set their appointments. Hope Ministries paid for all of their medical care. Most of these patients were children whose parents could not afford to get them health care. I will include photos of two of the children we helped. They expressed so much gratitude and God bless you all because of you my child received help.
Keep praying for the team as we head out to another outreach clinic in Maasai land tomorrow.
God bless,
Mama Gayle
