Tuesday, we spent the majority of the day in Kanombe, a military hospital near the Kigali Airport. It is a hospital that is still being developed, but for the most part it is very up-to-date! The hospital staff takes pride in their brand new equipment, and in their Biomedical Engineering workshop(that is very spacious)! It is more than what I expected from a hospital in a third world country. We spent the day doing preventative maintenance on Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Ventilators. That afternoon, a small group of us decided to go back downtown to find the Rwanda's version of a mall. After walking around in circles, we ended up finding a 5 story high building, filled with a supermarket, shops, and a movie theater. After a little retail therapy, I went to the movies and watch Malificent. Nice plot twist, btw! That evening, my roommates and I went to our friend's homestay to watch the Mexico vs Brazil Game. Every bar/restaurant that we passed was filled with people excited to watch all the soccer games! Nice to see how truly universal soccer is. The homestay gave us African Tea, which is basically tea mixed with hot milk and a couple of spices. Pretty delicious! Needless to say, I was the only one rooting for Mexico! And they did not let me down!
So on my birthday, Thursday, I was asked to go speak at the US Embassy to Rwandans about colleges in the US because of the Gilman Scholarship that i received for the study abroad. Unfortunately, the embassy does not allow any cameras, phones, computers, or anything electronic. Regardless, we received a tour of the embassy and finally had a good cup of coffee! Then we went to the library to talk to around 20 Rwandans who are in the process of taking college admissions standardized tests and applications. There were three of us, David(one of my colleagues), Dr.Pishko(our professor for the trip), and I. Each one of us bringing a different point of view. The students asked questions about majors/minors, being a part of the university, application process, and many other topics. Among us three, we were able to answer all of their questions, and at the end they asked us for our contact information to be able to answer more! Its a great feeling! We then headed to the lunch at my favorite Italian restaurant in town, we shared a jug of red wine, fried calamari, and two authentic thin crusts pizzas. However, we were caught in the rain, so besides great food, company, and scenery, we had the beautiful smell of rain! My favorite lunch thus far!
After wandering around town for a couple of hours and grabbing dinner at a small cafe in the trading center, a group of us headed home to get ready to go out for the night. But when I got home, all of my classmates jumped out and yelled SURPRISE!! It was my first surprise birthday party, and i loved it! They were all stacked up on drinks and little snacks. There was even a cake, but my candle was just a match (which does the trick hah)! After mingling for awhile, we went to celebrate some more at night club called K-club. Honestly, it is to the standards of clubs in downtown dallas. Definitely, a "muzungu" (non-african) club! We ended up dancing the night away! One of the best birthdays ever!
On friday, we said our goodbyes to our wonderful French and Instrumentation teachers! No more classes, now for the remaining five weeks we will be sent to different hospitals all over Rwanda. We leave sunday and i can not be more excited for my location! Butare, Rwanda. Sara and I are stationed at the teaching hospital of the college town in Rwanda. We hear nothing but good things, so wish us the best!
Until next time!
XOXOX
Melanie
The view from Sole Luna
Our calamari and red wine
Our pizzas!
An obligatory birthday lunch picture!
Ben, On The Ground Coordinator, explaining how to an Oxygen Concentrator works.
The view from a burger joint, called Mr.Chips
The view from the edge of downtown, or in other words "Memuji"
No comments:
Post a Comment