Everything has been going great here. We've been working on a lot of Sunday School lessons and traveling to different villages and speaking to all the kids. It's a lot of fun...i love going into the different areas where people live. although in our eyes its so "ghetto" and remote and dirty...there is a beauty that underlies it all. There is an element to it that just makes you realize that life isn't about what you have or how things appear, it is about the people you are around and the contentment that comes from having love and joy in all circumstances. It makes me feel terrible about the things I complain about in my heart.
It was a good week at the clinic. On Monday, I shadowed someone and tried to learn the basics and how the system runs and all that. It's actually pretty fun! On Thursday, I started seeing some patients by myself (with a translator). Well..talk about the biggest "wow i know absolutely nothing" eye-opener ever! Between seeing families w/3-4 kids a piece at one time, not speaking the language, having to diagnose based on what the mother tells me in a language i don't understand with a translator that doesn't know much medical terminology...it was rough. Everyone has things i've never really seen a lot of in the states...worms, lice, ear infections that haven't been treated for months, etc.. Trying to prescribe medications was hard enough, but they are all medications from here so i'm trying to learn them all and make out the doses....all in arabic and in the stupid metric system. So needless to say it was pretty challenging and i had to ask a zillion questions but it has been a wonderful learning experience. I took home like a zillion inserts from the medications i am trying to learn to get the hang of all the new names, dosings, etc... It's also challenging to get used to the culture of the women here. It is hard to not get angry at them. One woman brought her baby (her 4th baby!) in at like a few weeks old...and she wasn't feeding her much except some beans and rice every once and a while. And like...had no clue it was not a good thing. Another brought her baby that was so protien malnourished that she had the craziest edema i had ever seen. Her little hands and feet were swollen like 6 times their original size. So sad. It's the worst when a mother comes in with a bunch of kids with all sorts of things wrong. They need all sorts of medications with all sorts of dosing and instructions. You are trying to tell them so many things...and it's hard with the translation barrier, and the fact that they cannot read. So even if you write out instructions, it means nothing to them. It's hard to give them times to give doses (like 8am, 1pm, etc..) b/c there is no real concept of time. There is no hygiene (hense everyone and their uncle has worms and lice), which doesn't help health prevention much. It is such a challenge, and it has inspired me even more to work in the arena of public health. So much to learn and adjust to, but I can't wait to continue :)
Arabic lessons have also been going well. 2 hours a day every day with a private tutor will get you pretty far pretty fast. I have homework and studying though, so it adds to the great list of things to be doing here. It's such a pretty language though!
Tonight after sunday school we all took a ride in a river boat down the Nile at sunset. It was really beautiful (despite the great views that are messed up by all the smog here!!). At one point i was looking out and just trying to grasp the reality that so many historical and biblical things happened here so long ago. That there was so much history there. I wondered who walked the shoreline that i walked on. Who traveled this same way thousands of years ago?
Tomorrow we head over to Garbage City....the dump of Cairo that has become home to thousands of street kids. The more i see areas like this, the more humbled i am to be here. I feel priviledged to be among the "least", and i almost pity the lives we live back home. I'm embarassed about all that I "require" to live my life. I'm ashamed that so much is never good enough. I am humbled to see the joy and strength of these people to live and persevere despite the odds that they will never rise out of the poverty they are in. They look to us as the ones that have the wealth, but sometimes i think they are the ones that have found true wealth and contentment and we are the ones that have such unsettled hearts and empty spirits. I don't know if that makes sense when i try to explain it in words...it makes sense in my heart, though.
okay, time for bed. I have a cell phone now!! sooo, if anyone wants to give me a call (::wink wink nudge nudge::) i'll send you the number. incoming calls are free for me so as long as you are willing to get a phone card.... ;)
xoxo,
Nicole
