A Good Day

After several posts highlighting the difficulties of life I thought it would be nice to write about today...nothing less then an amazing day here in Ethiopia.  I am finally coming out of my homesick rut and feeling in the grove of things, both at work and in life in general.  Today I had the opportunity to attend one of the women's groups meeting in the village of Sheda.  Four of our outreach sites were selected last year to be part of a new project for the public health department.  Each choose two male and two female community representatives to be trained as health leaders. These leaders come together once a month to learn about a topic (TB, sanitation, women's health, malnutrition, etc.) and then run a separate meeting in their hometown for the men and women about that topic.

            When I looked at my planner this morning I was pleasantly surprised to see that today was Sheda's female meeting.  I got permission to bring Sebsibie, the clinic translator, with me (the one real bummer about being here is having to use a translator if I really want to know what's going on) and at 11:30am we were off to Sheda. After a great drive-- no stalling, no muddy roads, interesting conversation about life both here and at home with Sebsibie--we arrived in Sheda.  We walked to the health post and there waiting were about 60 women and my field counterpart, Andarge.  Taking up almost every inch of wall sat women of all ages and their children

After the teaching concluded I was asked to introduce myself to the group.  I did so, mostly explaining how excited I was to be there and working with them, esp. as I know that women like them are the key to creating change in any community.  I was able to ask them a few questions I had been wondering about; are the meetings helpful?  What are the biggest health problems in their community? What more can we do to serve them? What ways can we work to combat malnutrition? I also had the chance to talk with them about two ideas I had been playing around with.  One, to come to their village once a month (currently its on a random rotation) on the same day to do both vaccination and to begin growth monitoring for babies up to two years old. Second, to provide training on permaculture techniques (Andarge had recently been trained and I hope to do so in December) so that they can grow and eat a more diverse diet in order to avoid malnutrition. 

            The women were all very excited about both ideas and seemed to appreciate my being there with them.  Afterwards, we meet quickly with the village chairman who was equally as happy with the meeting and in full support of these two ideas.  Leaving Sheda we brought back two patients who needed to come to the health center....something that always makes me happy (that must sound odd).  Sheda is probably at least a three-hour, mountainous walk from Chiri...so helping someone avoid this always makes me feel good.

            By the time we got back the work day was almost over.  I had just enough time to get all the papers in order for the upcoming drama I am doing with the kids from the orphanage/kid's home.  When the community leaders come for their next training the kids will perform a little skit about a sick child as an example to the different ways to be creative in teaching  about health.  The children from the kid's home are all amazing and I love being able to spend time with them, making this project very appealing to me.  I gave the scripts to one of the kids who will be my "assistant" and ended the workday feeling great. 

             It was sunny and beautiful out so I went straight to the hammock to read. Naomi sent me a terrific package last week with a book that I can't put down....I was in heaven.  After an hour or so I went on a run with Faith, one of the ex-pats.  It was just perfect outside and we had a nice time talking about everything from life here to food, exercise and even farmer's markets.  We got back to find out that one of our guards who has been sick had returned from the hospital in Bonga.  We went to say hello and see how he was doing.  The hospital had a few patients and several visitors (its all one room), and I ended up spending a while in there chatting with the nurses, patients and families.  As mentioned in an earlier post, I love being able to make patients laugh and smile a bit my being silly.  This was a great group...they especially loved when I picked up a two year-old and flipped him upside down.  

            After that I returned to find a delish meal had been prepared by Andrew, couscous and veggies in a peanut sauce-- yum!  I was able to get online in one try and cha for a while with Naomi and my mom on skype, which is always a bonus.  I took a super hot shower and now am in bed, listening to the crickets and bugs make all sorts of noise....I mean really, what more could you want??