Arjun in Kakamega

First off, I want to send out a huge thank you to everyone who donated to the emergency reponsiveness project at Iguhu District Hospital.  Thanks to your generosity, the project raised a total of $1,100, which is beyond my fundraising goal.  This is phenomenal!  I’ll be posting regularly about the progress of your funds and the project as a whole.  Again, thank you so much for donating!  And if you missed the fundraising end date but still want to donate to projects like mine or FSD in general, please peruse the FSD website!  There are interns like me all over the world who would appreciate your donation and could implement truly sustainable change in developing communities!  Your donation can truly make a difference!

RECAP OF THE DAY: Woke up, went to training, people were late, talked about trauma patients, handed out the handout, left, went home, went to Kakamega, met with the carpenter who is going to make the stretcher/backboards, saw him make one, went and got different wood because the first one I got was too weak, tested it, it looks good, Damaris is helping me get belts to fix patients down, got foam to make temporary splints, went for a run, got caught in the rain, waited forever for the matatu to leave, we had to switch matatus halfway, only problem was we transferred into a matatu that was full, I had to stand up and lean over four people, got home really late, worked on budget for meeting tomorrow morning, going to Kisumu tomorrow to check prices and buy stuff, sleep.

REFLECTION

Today was a really productive day.  After training, I went into town to oversee the making of the first of six stretchers that will be given to Iguhu Hospital after the training ends.  The carpenter is really professional and very good at what he does.  I was pleasantly surprised by his understanding of my vague hand motions and terrible drawings – by the time I got there, he was almost done with one of them, and he took the changes I wanted to make in stride.  I was even foolish enough to doubt him at one point – we had a debate over the strength of a certain piece of wood – and I was proved wrong.  I can’t tell you how good it feels to leave a pretty important job with someone here and be assured that the person knows what he’s doing!

We have a meeting with Angie tomorrow morning to discuss the budget for the online fundraising.  I’m thrilled to report that the project raised $1,100, which is beyond what I asked for.  Thank you to everyone who donated!  I’m going to make sure the money goes to life-saving equipment that is complemented with thorough training.  It’s a wonderful feeling to know that so many people are willing to put so much of their own resources into developing this community with me.

Some of the money is going toward the construction of six stretchers/backboards.  They’re kind of a hybrid between stretchers and backboards, so I’m thinking of pursing a patent and calling them strackboards.  Unfortunately, judging from the multitude of pirated DVDs available here, I don’t think intellectual property is respected at all in Kakamega, so my patent will probably be useless.  I have some pictures of their construction posted below.

I’m a little nervous about tomorrow, because I announced today that I would not be there at the training and instead have asked my co-trainer (Charles from the CCC) to handle the training.  I left him with all the materials and briefed him on what should happen.  I really hope the training (a) still actually happens, and (b) goes well.  Given that a huge part of this project is the reproducibility of the training, it’s vital that Charles is able to effectively train his peers.  I anxiously await his report on Monday.

I’m off to Kisumu tomorrow to check the prices on Ethernet cable.  I need tons of it, because I want to network the five computers at Iguhu to form a patient database.  I’m still trying to get a handle on Access – my “fiddling around” with it yesterday didn’t go very well – but tonight I’m just going to focus on getting my budget done and working on the textbook I’m trying to write about emergency medicine.  I figure that the whole network project can’t happen if the Ethernet cable isn’t cheap enough, so I shouldn’t spend any more time trying to figure out Access until I’m certain that the network can actually happen.  If it can, guess what I’m doing this weekend?

Building the backboards/stretchers

The carpentry shop

Making Supports