We made it to Kibagabaga! Not much has changed at the hospital, but there is a lot of new construction everywhere else in Kigali.
Rwanda is truly booming, which is great to see. As I was writing this, I saw a book on the coffee table called, “Assessing Girinka Programme”. Apparently there is a program in Rwanda where every family gets 1 cow (girinka means “may you have cows” in Kinyarwandan. This cow gives them access to milk, and potentially to meat, hides, and other valuable assets, and the cow may be the only thing they own outright. It was started in 2006 as the country was recovering after the genocide of 1994. I would love to read more about the program as I’m curious how it works.
We had a busy day examining patients. We saw a 9 month old baby that had been abandoned in a ditch, but taken in by a kind hearted woman. The child has a serious medical problem, but one that is likely fixable with surgery. We saw a 14 year old girl who needs surgery quickly to avoid kidney failure, and that surgery should happen on Tuesday. We saw a 50 year old woman who is dying of cervical cancer that went untreated for 5 years. But it wasn’t all sad stories; we also saw women who had surgery last year who are now dry and happy.
I would love to be able to share videos like I did last year, but the process of editing and uploading takes such a crazy long time that I’m not sure it will be possible. I have set up my Instagram account to post pictures in the right sidebar, so I can upload photos and videos there more easily.
More tomorrow…
Leah's Rwanda 