Sano! (Hello in Hausa)

Hello out there to anyone who may be reading this blog! Computer time and access is unfortunately short these days, as other people around here have more important work to be done on them, but hopefully I will be able to get in some good posts soon. In the meantime, I am trying to keep good notes as the days fly by (we leave on Monday and I am already too sad to think about it much... amazing how quickly I've grown to love this place and the people here.)

In the past couple of days, I have observed live surgeries, met with the founder of a women's initiative group that also started a microloan program, found some great Nigerian literature at a bookstore, spoke at the FAF staff meeting (beacuse they make everyone do that on their last week) and rode all over Jos on one of the ubiquitous motorbikes with Ezekiel, who does home-based care visits to patients too sick to come into the clinic. It was my favorite thing that I have done the entire time so far, and that is really saying a lot. I also got my hair done today (it took over two hours)- finally, after much prodding and teasing by all the women here, who keep asking me why I don't "look Nigerian" yet, and my clothes will be done by tomorrow so now I will be able to placate (and probably amuse) them. I will write at greater length about all of this and more when I get the chance... and feel free to prompt me if I don't. :) Love to you all!

With a mother and daughter who make batik tablecloths and wall hangings- I bought the red one the mother is holding- it has giraffes on it.Part of the Home-Based Care motor fleet.

Getting my hair "made".

Sunset in Jos.

Life at Faith Alive Foundation

There are so many amazing things going on here, so many amazing people doing incredible work... so much I've seen and experienced that I wish I could write adequately about and explain, but there are a few factors that make it challenging: one is that between spotty electricity and several people fighting for email access on a single laptop each evening, getting enough time to post is hard. We have also taken to watching the movie channel every night (the movies are great, horrendous, and everything in between; we watch them regardless), so even when I get my turn, it's sometimes tough to concentrate. At the moment, Jen and I are watching Alfie, using electricity from our generator (NEPA hasn't come on in two days) and keeping our fingers crossed that the satellite signal won't go out. However, I am going to attempt to tear my eyes off of Jude Law's face long enough to catch you up at least a little.

FAF Volunteers

Along with me and my Dad, there have been two other volunteers at Faith Alive during the time that we've been here, also staying in the same guest flat. Jen is a second-year pharmacy school school student from Baltimore. At first, I think, the two of us were not entirely sure about each other, but we soon bonded over our mutual love of all things edible. Together, we lead the late-night movie charge, giggle with the girls in Blessing's sewing shop, coo at the babies in the waiting room, and heartily enjoy everything set in front of us. Val is a big, middle aged woman with neon orange hair and a huge heart. She is the "anti-accountant" accountant, hailing from Fresno, and is here for six weeks to help train the FA accounting department on Quickbooks and get their records in line. It has been a huge undertaking, but she works incredibly hard and is rewarded with spending time with the all the kids from the clinic and surrounding neighborhood. Her Nigerian name is Mama G; Mama being a sign of respect, and G standing for generous.

Professor C. McDermott

Today I delivered a lecture to 4th-year medical students at the Juth Teaching Hosiptal, as a guest lecturer for Dr. Chris, who is also a professor of medicine there. (Wow, definitely never thought I would be writing those words!) Last week, when I told him I would like to go to Juth one day with him to see the hospital and see him teach, he asked me to assist him with his lecture. Friday, he handed me a flash drive and told me his power point presentation was on there for me to look at- and that I would be the one lecturing on Computer Applications in Clinical Medicine in his Monday class. I laughed, but he was completely serious; he assured me it would be no problem.

This morning, I met up with Dr. Chris at the clinic and asked if he wanted to go over anything with me, and he said, "No, it's fine! It will be nice for me to sit down! You can do the whole thing." We drove to the Juth campus to get set up before the class started (Dad and Jen came along for the show). Slowly the students began to trickle in, then faster and faster, still wearing their lab coats from the class they'd just come from- over 150 in all ended up packed in, barely squeezing into the lecture hall benches. I was feeling nervous and amused at the same time ("How does this kind of thing happen to me? I have absolutely no idea what I'm about to talk about... well, guess I'll do what I always do and just go for it...") I don't really have a problem with public speaking. I'm actually pretty comfortable with it; I just like to be prepared, I like to be familiar with my subject matter, and I like to be sure that I have something valuable and legitimate to contribute. Dr. Chris assured me that I really had nothing to worry about; that probably many of these students had never even seen a computer before.

Turned out it was their first lecture of the term with Dr. Chris; he introduced himself and talked a little about his classes and expectations. He is fantastic in front of a classroom, making the students laugh and challenging them at the same time. He set out clear and high expectations for them; he asked them why they had chosen to go into medicine. Someone said, "Because it's interesting." Another said, "To serve humanity"; another, "God's will". The last young woman he pointed to said, "it's a calling." Dr. Chris at this point stopped and said that there are many interesting things in this world. There are many ways to serve humanity and many ways to do God's will; they will not get you through medical school and are not good reasons to go into medicine. Medicine is truly a calling, and if anyone in the classroom doubted his calling, he should not be there.

I introduced myself and started the lecture; I had reviewed Dr. Chris' powerpoint several times and knew the basic information there, although all I had to go on were his bullet points about topics I have absolutely no experience with (online medical bibliographic references? automated lab equipment? electronic patient medical records and specialist telemedicine?). At the beginning, the projector wouldn't stay on, then we couldn't get the mouse to work correctly, and so I was on my own for a few minutes. I was to cover basic information about computer uses, the internet, and the many ways that computers are used in medical science. It was really hard- I asked how many people had ever used a computer before... no response. I asked them to raise their hands. I asked if they had all seen a computer before. I asked how many knew what the internet was, and if anyone had an email address. They didn't really respond, except for ripples of laughter. Even though Dr. Chris swore to me that many had never seen a computer, most had never been online, and the majority wouldn't have email, I was still terrified of the line I was walking. I didn't want to insult or condescend to them by explaining common and very basic concepts, but I also wanted to make sure that I covered the material so they understood. I tried to give a few examples, and hoped that it was not too painfully obvious that I am about the furthest thing from a medical student as you can possibly get (the last science class I took was my junior year of high school, if you think I'm being modest.) I stopped at a few points to ask if they could hear me, if they could understand me, if there were any questions. They were definitely not a silent crowd, but they didn't exactly respond to me, either.

As the lecture went on, I began sweating more and more and felt like I was rushing through the final slides- the more medical-technology-specific ones that I could barely pronounce, let alone explain. I let Dr. Chris handle the questions at the end; after a short silence, a few students began to raise their hands and ask really thoughtful questions. Dr. Chris told me I had done well and that questions are a really good sign- they were paying attention. He said that he really likes to use guest lecturers because they can help students remember a lecture more more effectively than the same professor they get all the time. A couple asked me for my email address afterwards; it will be interesting to see whether I actually hear from them. It was one of the scariest and most hilarious things I have ever done.

Pills

Before my med school lecture, I spent the morning with Jen in the pharmacy of the clinic, counting out pills to be dispensed to patients later in the day (Flagyl, 30 to a packet). Faith Alive relies on donations, both of cash and medications, for a lot of what they prescribe and dispense to patients. FA is the only free clinic in the entire city of Jos, which means that it is literally the only hope for many people. All the services are free, including office visits, tests, lab work and prescriptions. Jen has been helping to organize the pharmacy- in preparation for her visit, Drs Isichei and Biana, the admin, made sure that the new shelves would be here on time. Her major project this week (she leaves two days before we do) is to get all the drugs in the pharmacy alphabetized so that it is more professional and efficient. She has met with some resistance on the part of the staff, who tend to be somewhat change-averse: they have adapted to just getting by, which sometimes feels like is all you can ask of anyone under these circumstances, but Dr. Mercy and Dr. Chris are very serious about running the clinic as well as possible.

Sundays in Jos

Churches here are more ubiquitous than Starbucks in New York. At least half a dozen per block, with every other street sign bearing names far more creative than any church you've ever seen in the states: Christ Lives in Our Midst Church, Redeemed People of God, Living Word of our Lord Congregation... Some are huge and pack hundreds into their sanctuaries on Sunday mornings, with dozens more spilling out and listening from the parking lot. Some are small house churches, meeting in a living room or back room of a store.

This morning we went to Blessing's church with her, called Christ Embassy. It's a small satellite of a charismatic megachurch based in Lagos. The service lasted about two and a half hours, complete with loud music (which was great!), screaming, swooning and speaking in tongues. Quite an interesting experience. The main pastor of the megachurch is this guy named Pastor Chris, who dresses in all white (think P. Diddy) and believes he has the gift of healing. He holds giant "Atmosphere for Miracles" conference-type things, where he "cures" people of such ailments as TB, cancer, blindness and paralysis. He also preaches that anyone who has accepted the Holy Spirit will become impervious to any disease or infirmity.

One of the doctors on staff at Faith Alive told Dad that this is a big problem here- pastors and other religious figures telling people they are cured of their diseases, and causing HIV positive patients to stop taking their ARVs, which in turn builds resistance in their HIV strain and makes it even more difficult to treat, requiring the last resort seond-line drugs (that is, if they make it back to medical treatment on time).

My favorite part about the morning was the fashion show. Everyone comes dressed in these amazing outfits, brightest colors and wildest shapes. Women wear matching skirts, tops, and headwraps (and sometimes a wrap to carry a baby in). Gives a whole new meaning to "Sunday best".

Blessing's Shop

For some clients who come into the Faith Alive Foundation for HIV testing and test positive, FAF runs a sewing school, a knitting school, a computer school and a wood shop to give them the skills they need to support themselves. If they show that they are serious about earning a living and working hard, their doctors and counselors can recommend them to these schools, where they can attend classes for free, and upon successful graduation, they are set up with the necessities for starting their own businesses.

Blessing is a tall, beautiful woman with a huge smile and gleaming skin. She greets everyone who comes into her shop with sparking eyes and an enthusiastic hug, and is one of the sweetest, most genuine people I have ever met. Blessing is one of the graduates of the sewing school, and now owns her own shop a short way down the road from the FAF clinic. She received a sewing machine from the school- a manually operated Butterfly- and now has eight students of her own, who all staff her shop. She and her students make gorgeous clothes, custom tailored. She took me and Dad to the market a few days ago (an adventure in and of itself) to pick out fabric for our outfits, then took our measurements and requests. Val and Jen, the two other volunteers here who arrived a couple of weeks before we did, already each have several stunning Nigerian outfits- vibrant colors and patterns, no two skirts or dresses alike. Although I can't imagine a setting in the states where I could comfortably get away with the whole getup, I still can't wait to see how ours turn out and hopefully get to wear one here before we go.

Today I spent the morning helping with one of the HIV/AIDS clinic teams, seeing patients and filling ARV regiment prescriptions, which was both amazing and intense- and also, frankly, stunning, for reasons I will elaborate on later. After lunch at home with the others, I stopped by Blessing's on my way back to the clinic to say hi. She gave me a huge hug and told me to come in and sit down. It was raining, and the longer I stayed and talked with the girls, the harder it came down, so I decided just to stay until the rain stopped. Friends dropped in and out, bunches of children played outside and shouted "oyiba!" (white girl), laughing, when they spotted me inside. I was admiring a purple embroidered scrap on the floor and Blessing told me I could have it to use as a headband. It was still raining hard. Then her friend Mary decided that I should have my hair braided, so she plunked a chair down in the middle of the shop and proceeded to comb out my hair and give me two very tight and impressively straight braids. Blessing offered me some of her lunch, traditional Nigerian ache- a spicy couscous and vegetable stew- and later gave me a packet of cookies. She teased me that soon she would teach me to sew, and when I told her I knew how, she laughed and asked if I wanted to sew something. She found me another scrap and I sat at the empty machine. It took me forever to get a simple hem down one side of the strip I was working with and I never did quite get the hang of the manual machine. Blessing and her girls make it seem so easy, but it was actually really challenging and so much harder than it looks. I couldn't get the pedal pumping fluidly enough to keep the needle going in a forward direction, so it kept going forward a few stiches and then back a few stiches, veering off the fold. They laughed and laughed at me. Now I have even more respect and appreciation for the things they make, working quickly and expertly over complicated seams and zippers. A couple of people walked in and laughed to see me behind the machine. Blessing and Mary asked if I had a boyfriend and told me they could get a lineup of Nigerians to marry me if I was interested. Eventually it stopped raining, but I was having too much fun to leave, and before I knew it, it was 4:30. At one point the people hanging out in the shop pointed down the street and told me that there was another white person coming. A couple of minutes later, a Chinese girl walked in to pick up some dresses and have them fitted. She is actually French, in Jos for two months to work on a project at the university. Here, any non-black person is considered "white". Soon Jen, who is Indian, joined us on her way home from the clinic, and everyone kidded us about how the men would be stopping by to talk to the three white girls. They taught me some phrases in pidgin English, which is among the more than 250 languages spoken in Nigeria (pidgin English is just as indicipherable to me as any of the others).

I have loved getting to know some people here in just the short time we have been in Jos. Along with the work we are getting to witness and help with, this has made all the difference between Nigeria and Namibia for me. I feel like I am actually in Africa, and not just some American, closed-off compound in a city. I am getting the incredible opportunity to see and do things that are meaningful to me and vitally important to the community. Maybe this is an unfair generalization, but the people here seem so much friendlier and more open and outgoing than the people I met in Namibia- maybe this is a coincidence, maybe not. Maybe part of the difference has to do with the fact that I know I am only here for 16 days- so things like no running water, repetetive heavy meals, limited mobility, and missing family and friends have not bothered me, as opposed to living in a foreign place for months at a time. Whatever the difference, it has been huge.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat?

No running water here means that you acquire a couple of new skills pretty fast. The bathroom set-up goes something like this: there is a large barrel of water in one corner that a woman comes to fill for us twice a week. There is also a medium-sized bucket and a large plastic bowl. Hand-washing consists of using the bowl and lathering one-handedly while the other pours the water, and then switching. For "showers" (bucket baths), you get about half a bucket full of piping hot water, add cold water until you have a full bucket of perfect temperature, stand or squat in the tub, and use the bowl to pour water over yourself. Then you lather up, and pour some more. Repeat as necessary. It is pretty time-consuming to wash my long hair this way, so I only do it every two or three days, and forget about conditioner. The first time I tried this bucket method, I splashed water all over the bathroom, but I'm getting better.

Val, another volunteer here, recommends this trick for getting feet cleaner: use two buckets, put a few inches of water in one, and stand with one foot soaking while you go about your business; about halfway through, switch sides. Dr. Chris told me a funny story tonight about a visitor he had from the US. The guy came and stayed with Dr. Chris and his family. After about four days, he still hadn't bathed, even though the Isicheis had provided him with a bucket every night. Eventually, he came out of the bathroom and admitted he had no idea what to use it for and had to ask someone to show him how to do it. The family thought this was hilarious and gladly taught him how to shower Nigerian-style.

Flushing the toilet goes like this: once it's necessary, use the bowl to fill the bucket a little over halfway from the big barrel; pour the water from the bucket straight into the bowl until everything goes down.

Electricity here is spotty at best: it is generally only on for a few hours every afternoon or evening, although we have apparently had an unprecedented amount since we've been here- it even came on in the morning one day! The Nigerian national power company is called NEPA: Nigeria Electric Production Authority- but Nigerians say it stands for Never Expect Power Always. When the power isn't on, we use huge generators here at the guest flat and at the clinic, as well. At the clinic, when the lights flicker off, someone sprints outside to get the generator running as fast as possible. The medical student I was working with in the lab when we lost power just commented, "Welcome to Nigeria."

The generator at our flat sounds like a riding lawn mower parked right outside the dining room window, and emits about the same amount of gas (which comes right into the window). It's definitely a toss-up, but we usually go for a few more hours of light and tv at night. Once power is out and generator is off, it's all about the headlamps- definitely one of the best items I packed.


A note about pictures: I am trying to take lots but don't have a way to get them off my camera until I get home. I know that blogs without pictures are boring, so I'm trying to put up some generic ones to keep it a little more interesting. Once I'm home, I may go back and add my own pictures into old posts, or I may just put a lot of pictures on some new posts- stay tuned.

A Quick Summary So Far

*Toured the Faith Alive clinic with Dr. Mercy
*Sat in on the TB clinic
*Visited Pro-Health International, an organization that does medical missions into rural areas with teams of 40-50 doctors and a mobile surgical unit
*Visited the sewing, knitting, computer and wood-carving schools
*Met Blessing, a graduate of the Faith Alive sewing school, in the shop she now owns
*Sat with Pastor Esther as she did pre- and post-HIV test counseling
*Adjusted to bucket baths, no running water, and only a few unpredictable hours of electricity
*8 am devotions and prayer meeting at the clinic
*Observed in the lab and got to help administer HIV and hepatitis tests
*Accompanied Dr. Chris to a "dedication"- he was asked to pray over and bless a local business that's just about to open
*Sat with Dr. Chris as he met with patients in the evening after a full day of teaching medicine at the university


It's been raining for most of the afternoon every day since we've been here. Temperatures are usually around the low 70s, which most Nigerians think is pretty cold (I tend to agree- I'm glad I brought my sweatshirt.) Jos is in the Plateau State of Nigeria, and the coolest city in the country. So far mosquitos (or any other bugs, for that matter) have not really been a problem- we spot a couple every evening in the flat, but haven't broken out the bugspray yet.

We're Here!

I once got a smart-alecky reply to an email with that subject line ('we're all "here", Cathy'). Specifically, Dad and I are now in Jos, Nigeria, settled into the guest flat that Faith Alive Foundation uses to house the many volunteers that rotate in and out, staying for varying lengths of time.

The trip over was long but uneventful. We left Ft. Collins around 11:30 am on Friday (Dad frantically packing at the last minute and both of us stuffing as many donations and supplies into our bags as physically possible before making a mad dash to the Denver airport.) Our checked luggage was three 50-lb boxes full of medical supplies, books, eyeglasses, vitamins, clothes, shoes, and a laptop computer. We flew through Houston and then Amsterdam, finally arriving in Abuja (Nigeria's capital) around 8 pm on Saturday. For those of you doing the math, Abuja is 7 hours ahead of mountain time and 5 ahead of eastern time; that makes the trip a little over 25 hours.

Saturday night, we stayed in a guest house in Abuja before making the 3+ hour drive out to Jos on Sunday morning. The drivers here are like Central American drivers on speed. I managed to nap most of the way, but Dad was in the passenger seat and had to endure the literal front-row view of the adventure. At one point he turned around (when Godwin, our driver, was still driving) and said, "It's better than a roller coaster!" At another point (when we had stopped and Godwin was out of the car buying milk on the roadside), he said to me, "Someone almost dies about every five minutes." The roads are actually fairly recently paved and in decent condition, save the occasional bus-sized pothole. Godwin had no qualms whatsoever about serving into oncoming traffic in order to avoid them. Exciting!

More to come soon...