With prevention team on the road and international women day
Dear reader, I would like to take you with me through my last week, in which I went with the prevention team (with only local colleagues) to Ondjiva (near to the border with Namibia). The first morning we taught mainly nurses, a couple of doctors and midwives. The second day some of them have helped us to train church leaders, local health promotors (who raise awareness for HIV, Malaria and now also Fistula’s), traditional midwives and chiefs of villages. They now have knowledge on possibilities to prevent a fistula, to tell patients that there exists a treatment. Is was great to observe and listen to questions that were raised. Also great to see how our team dealt with the different sub cultures amongst all the people who attended the training. Around 110 people were trained. I really enjoyed spending time with my local colleagues, they all have a compassionate heart for the fistula women and they are all really ‘gezellig’ (Dutch word that can’t really be translated LOL, but comes close to sociable).
The first day I explained the audience about the work of the rehabilitation team. Later I checked with my colleagues whether they thought the people could understand my Portuguese. They told me so, but I felt insecure about it, need to practice a lot more with giving presentations in Portuguese. So far my thoughts on this matter are that I will focus on the conditions to make the presentations possible and so that we will be able to give more and more people these trainings. My local colleagues are way better in reaching the audience with the message that needs to be told! Will discuss this matter later on with my team leader, when we will write a job description, so far I am still orientating. :-)
In the mean time the rehabilitation team also had great times with the women living in the patient village, waiting for treatment or recovering from treatment. Since the 8 of March was international womens day, they planned to organise something special for the fistula patients. In Angola womens day is actually womens month, so it didn’t matter that the activity took place on the 28 th . The women could learn how to make clay pots and there was a biblical message connected to it. The day after there was a party, with beautiful clothed women and they sang together.
That’s it for now! Till next time or my news letter! :-)
Irene
