Settling In

Today is our first full day in Macha. It is especially quiet here today since many people are not working because it is African Freedom day. Maybe we won't all oversleep (like we did this morning) once there is activity starting early in the morning outside our windows.

The whole group of us in Macha!

It can be somewhat intimidating to be told to just go exploring and see what you find. We often worry before going out into a new area that there may be dangerous or unfriendly things, creatures or people. The area around Macha is very safe. There are no poisonous bugs (although there are these super cute fuzzy caterpillars (not for eating) that will irritate your skin and other biting bugs but they aren't going to kill you!), and everyone we have met has been very friendly and welcoming -- but you don't know that until you go out and see the area yourself. In order to help us begin feeling comfortable going out and about in the area, and to help us get a feel for the layout of Macha Research center and the surrounding area Dr. Thuma took us on a walking tour around the hospital and research buildings this morning, and to the village market and a place called the fires this afternoon.

The hospital buildings were build by Dr. Thuma's father in the 1950s, and Dr. Thuma grew up here in Macha. Since then they have added many extra buildings and have specialized Children's wards, OB ward, HIV, Men's and Women's ward (and more). The students will be spending a good portion of many of the upcoming days in the operating theater or doing rounds in the hospital and will come to know the campus well.

Stephne and Emily at the Children's Ward

Visiting hours are strictly enforced for most of the wards, the exception being the children's ward. Each child is accompanied by a parent (or other adult) who traveled with them to the hospital and will help the few nurses with caring for the child. The Children's ward is the only one we were able to really see today on our tour (our group is too big) but we were able to see two interesting things. 1) Instead of having tanks of oxygen for weak patients, they use an oxygen concentrator here. Steven Bandstra, the Messiah Mechanical/Biomedical Engineering graduate on our trip brought along supplies from the Collaboratory to fix the concentrator for the hospital. 2) One wing of the children's ward has recently been closed. Termites are a BIG problem here (individual termite mounds can be 2 meters high and as wide across!) and they have severely damaged the roof of the children's ward requiring closing one room, and the need to replace most of the roof on the entire children's ward.

The recently evacuate Children's Ward room. The roof needs to be replaced because of termite damage.

We also saw the outside (but not the inside) of the research buildings where they have ongoing projects to study Malaria, HIV and TB. Many of the buildings are decorated with painted trim near the roof to help to distinguish the many red brick buildings from one another. The Research Trust buildings are decorated with my favorite thing: DNA!

That's only 1/2 our day! - but it's time for dinner and I need to hunt down some of the pictures the students took to explain the second part of our day.