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August 8th- You are the Gift

Today we woke up early to go on a hike with the whole group. We decided to hike up to the old Shyira hospital that has now been turned into a health center. The hike was STEEP. We knew that we were going up a hill but we did not know that it was going to take an hour of us going straight up. After getting to the health center we toured it with the director. It was interesting to see how the old buildings were no longer in use. I can’t imagine carrying sick patients all the way up that path to get to the hospital. On our way down from the hike we ran into some children and I passed out a few stickers. They hiked down with us and I taught them words in English, I felt like I was back at my job in the kindergarten. After our hike we gave our final presentations which was fun! It was nice to finish those presentations. The best part of the day was we went to play soccer with the local children! I loved every second of it.  This day helped me realize that we are the gift. We can not alway
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August 3rd

Today was a national holiday so we had all day to work on our presentations and posters. Our partners from the University of Rwanda came to a cafe on top of the national library to help is finish our work! What would we do without them. We took a bus to the national library and that was an experience. We practiced our presentations for the medical staff tomorrow in front of Waleed and I think they went well. After our presentations we went and had dinner at the tea house because none of us wanted to have anything super heavy. We went and wandered the streets which was very fun and then came back to play cards! 
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August 1st- A Day in the Life of a Global Health Intern

Today was a good day! We went to the health center, which was very typical for us but we did not realize that there was going to be a surprise waiting at the end! But before the surprise, we sat in the waiting area with the patients that were there waiting to receive health care. One of the nurses got up and talked about HIV/AIDS. It was interesting to see them reaching a group of people and helping educate the locals. It was nice to see that they were all open to questions and were able to clear up some misconceptions about the disease. I think that this is something that could be useful in the US to educate people on how to protect themselves from diseases and help improve the quality of life. I'm surprised to see that Rwanda, a developing country, has things in place that could be beneficial in the US, a very developed country. Okay and now for the surprise! There is a kindergarten attached to the health center and we all went down and as we went down the stairs around 100
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July 30th

Today was the first day we toured the health center. It was an interesting experience but I was surprised at how well they were utilizing all of their resources. I thought the model within the health center was very interesting as the staff was entirely nurses but if more health care was needed they would refer them to the hospitals. There were definitely some areas that looked nothing like what we would have access to in the United States like the pharmacy. The tour of the hospital allowed us to realize that this was nothing like what we were used to which was a very humbling experience. After our introduction to the health center we walked to our lunch place and had lunch with all of us and the University of Kigali students. I'm going to miss talking to them and spending time with them! The picture below is me with Robert and Emmanuel! We had to say our goodbyes today and it made me very sad. Then we sat and had Waleed lecture us on the IPC protocols that we would be investigatin
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July 26th

Today we toured the NGO Gardens for Health and learned more about their work to improve nutritional education in Rwanda. Their model was very interesting by bringing women in from health centers and providing them with nutritional documents and supplies in order to ensure that the women have the seeds and resources necessary in order grow nutritionally valuable foods. We walked around the garden and weeded a plot of land, that is what I am doing in the picture attached! The other picture is me and Clara exploring the grounds of the garden as we were learning more about the different plants and how they give the mothers the supplies they need. Then we ate with the people in the organization and met a class of children that were eating with us. I remember that I had crayons in my backpack so I pulled them out and colored with all of the children. It made me happy to see that something so small, aka a crayon could bring so many smiles to people. We sat and ate for a long time and then we
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July 24th

Happy pioneer day from Rwanda! Today was very interesting because we attended lectures at the University of Kigali. The professor from Kigali lectured first and I thought his teaching style was so interesting! He would have his students fill in the blanks and read words off the slide collectively which took some time to get used to. Talking to the Rwandan students was one of the best parts of the lectures. Listening to them talk about global health helped me realize how so many perspectives can contribute to the successful implementation of preventative measures. Then, Waleed gave a lecture about his t ime in Yemen with Doctors without Borders. It was so interesting to look at global health issues and think about issues you would never think to solve. One for example was the bathrooms having to be well lit and convenient so that people are not intimidated to use the bathroom at night. Then we went to the Nyambirano women’s center were we toured a city and got to meet women that work fo
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