July 7th

This past week has been ok. The doctor is driving me insane, I'm trying to remind myself its not my fault she lacks people skills. Its a shame, I could really learn a lot from her. The clinic has been pretty slow this past week. From what i understand people had till July 1st to pay their health insurance for the upcoming year. The money is paid lump sum so most people cant afford it right away. 

This week i had 3 people test positive for HIV. A married couple and a married man. The married mans wife tested negative. That was a difficult situation. Since drug use is not very common here I can only assume he is or has been sleeping with someone that is HIV positive. Its a sad situation, what will his wife do? I also delivered four babies this week. Two boys two girls, this now brings my total up to seven babies. I also witnessed my first episiotomy. The thought of it is enough to make me faint but when you are the assistant it is not a time to be weak. As if an episiotomy isn't bad enough the mom had no anaesthetic... Jesus!  I have now officially come to the conclusion I am NEVER having kids, I will never abuse my body like that. I was then given the opportunity to stitch her up, under supervision of course. At that point she received a local anaesthetic but she was still grimacing in pain. On thursday i delivered a 9 pound baby and within minutes turned around and delivered 4 pound baby. The 4 pounder came out so quick i barely had enough time to get a clean pair of gloves on.  

I had another first this week at the clinic. Usually my patients don't speak a word of english, so conversation is very limited. The other day i had a young man sit down for an HIV test and said hello to me. I then asked him if he spoke english, he responded in broken english yes. Excited I asked him his name and how old he was. He told me his name and said he was 23. He then asked me how old I was, I responded 21. You would think the next question would be what are you doing here, or maybe how do you like Rwanda, but no. He then told me he was single and looking for a wife. He then asked me to marry him. I kindly refused, HIV clinics is not where i pick up my men. 

I also have been running a lot here. Hopefully the higher altitude helps me when I get home. For some reason people are still shocked to see me run. They cheer, wave and run with me. I had a man run about a mile with me the other day. I kinda like having a running partner. Im going to miss the support once i get home.


Since I have been gone i have gotten several messages from friends and family about how amazing my experiences are and how proud they are of me. Thank you for everything, and thank you for reading, it really means a lot to me. People reading this should all know that you have shaped who I am and what I am interested in. I got a facebook message from an high school bio teacher saying "Bre...I am so incredibly proud of what you are doing. I just finished reading your last several posts (blog) and I had tears in my eyes as you described some of the situations, and was laughing out loud at others. The experiences you are gaining there are worth infinitely more than any money you could earn. As for the six toes and six fingers....it is probably due to polydactyly, an autosomal dominant inheritance. Again, I am SOOOOOOO proud of what you are doing. You are influencing and most likely changing lives, and that is truly something very special :)". This means so much to me, but little does she know she is one of the reasons I am here, Ericsson also played a big part. They are the two teachers that opened my eyes to science, they are the reason I became so interested in biology and they are the reason I chose nursing in college. Among several they are one of the reasons I am in Africa prefecting my nursing skills.