This little girl was waiting to be seen at the dentistry clinic. She seemed curious about me and came over to take a closer look. I thought it was interesting that her dress was kind of fancy, but she was barefoot. BTW, hookworm is prevalent here so children should not go barefoot. I think there are agencies including this hospital which hand out free shoes, usually a knock-off version of Krocs. I believe that lots more women know how to sew here than back in the U.S., and someone must have made this dress for her.
Lucas left today to go back to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. He will spend the night there in a house with other people he knows from the mission here, then start flying back to Memphis tomorrow afternoon. I miss him already! But it was great to have his company for the first 2 weeks of my trip, and he seemed to enjoy this experience.
I met with 2 Rwandan managers and a British manager today to present my report about how to improve the hospital's inpatient and outpatient chart tracking and numbering system. The meeting was held in mostly French, with some English thrown in. It was quite challenging to try to bridge the communication gap! Thankfully the British manager was fluent in both, so she translated what I said for the Rwandans. One of my next projects will be to evaluate the cash handling and claim filing system, which I think will take a little while to dig into (especially considering the language barrier), but I'm looking forward to it. I am curious whether they use anything like CPT codes, ICD-9 or ICD-10.
She has a pretty dress; sorry to hear she needs shoes. Thanks for including Lucas in this amazing experience; I'm sure you have shared some lifelong memories. I'm looking for his posting today, too. Hope your project goes well. You are really working hard on some difficult projects, Jill. Love, Steph
ReplyDeleteI’ve been keeping up with you and am fascinated by your stories and pictures. You and your little camera are doing a wonderful job of capturing the colors and details of life in Rwanda and at the same time showing us the contradictions of life there…like the little girl in the beautifully handcrafted dress but who has no shoes to wear. Good luck on your newest work project and keep the wonderful stories and pics coming.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to seeing what you've posted every morning. Fortuantely for us, we haven't been locked out of this website YET! So have you been wearing your "ugly" glasses? Have you had anything exotic to eat yet? Anything scary? (like we were all imagining)
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see what kind of birthday celebration you have tomorrow! (They do know it's your birthday right?)
Furaha Ya Siku Ya Kuza Liwa!