Safety in Mozambique is the most important thing to me. So when this incident happened a few weeks ago, I was a little bit scared, annoyed, and frustrated. I'll leave the minor details out, but I was walking down the street around 11:15am on my way to the store. I had just gotten off a three hour chapa ride from Maputo and just wanted to get home and relax. I was already irritable because sitting in a chapa for 3 hours isn't a fun experience. Anyways, there's this crazy woman who lives in Xai Xai, or better use of words, she's mentally ill. I think she's a bit schizophrenic, but she's always angry and cussing people out. I saw her up the street and took more caution than usual because she was giving me "the eye." I don't know why she chose me, but she made some gesture at me, then decided to push me against a pole and slap me across the face. I screamed - bc that was just my first reaction - and I immediately started bleeding. She just kept on walking, and a police officer who saw the whole thing, also decided to do the same. Interesting. Glad he helped. Anyway, in the midst of some people laughing, some staring, I went across the street to the pharmacy to get something to stop the bleeding on the left side. I then called my friend Mal to come and meet me bc I needed someone to calm me down. Let me tell you, I wanted to hit somebody - mainly bc nobody in the streets, especially Mr. Policeman, didn't seem to care. Anyway, Mal showed up, we went to file a police report (which was pointless bc police here don't do anything about mentally ill people), and then I went home. I couldn't understand why I was so angry. surprisingly I wasn't angry at the woman bc she couldn't really help what she did - I mean she's mentally ill, but I was upset at the people and how the officer reacted at the police station. its amazing how nobody here cares about crazy Jane and Joe that walk the streets who say and do anything they please. What if that lady hit me with a weapon, or used a knife or something? We think things like this can't happen to us, but they do. I was thankful it wasn't worse than it was. At least she only used her hands.
Anyway, the point of this story is to let anyone know who's reading this and living and working in an environment different than their own - always, always keep guard. I felt I was pretty cautious, but I guess there was nothing I could've done to avoid the situation. Mozambique can be dangerous, depending on where you are and who you're with. I never walk alone at night, never take a chapa alone at night, and am usually always with a friend when I'm walking around the city. Its unfortunate that the police feel they can't do anything to Jane. They say to me, "What do you want us to do. She's mad." For all of you in the states, you're very lucky that if anything like this happened to you, you'd have somewhere to go. For example, back home we have mental hospitals, and while there are some here in Moz in the capital, Maputo, I don't live there. So its a problem when I try to express to the police here that its dangerous for these people to be on the street. Unfortunately they don't understand.
So I've become more irritable here, and I realize that even if its broad daylight I could be in danger. I don't want to scare anyone either, but don't worry. I'm fine now. Today is another day, and well, I'm still here.
Fica bem.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Flyin' High, Needles, and Baby Fizz
Spreading my Wings
I think I have finally found my role here at work, (which means going out to find work bc things move slooooooow here) and also becoming more integrated in my community – all thanks to my new friends, called patience and more patience. Sometimes there are so many lil small things I can think of that make me irritated, unhappy, or just plain upset – but I have learned to find the positive and beautiful things here in Chongoene. Slowly I think I’m developing into someone or something……who really knows, but the most important part is that I am making the most out of everyday here – and already realizing that time is flllyyyyying by. I cant believe its already been a lil over 6 months – but I’m happy I want to stay and experience more.
I talked a lil bit about my work before and how things were “picking up,” but its gotten even better since then. I have started going to the local hospital here in Chongoene, which is…..well I’ll talk about that a bit down the page, and also am working hard to get my REDES (Raparigas em Desenvolvimento Educacao e Saude) group together at the primary school. It’s a group for young girls that promotes awareness of health issues – such as HIV/SIDA and family planning. I love working with girls – but only the younger ones. Let me tell you, those teenage girls here are a hot mess sometimes – everywhere in the world there’s that group of petty teenage girls, when on any given day I could slap one of them lol. You get my drift, ne? Its easier to work with younger girls, because they listen and they are easier to work with and teach things to. So far I have 4 girls that are interested, so I’m working out the logistics with the Director of the School and hopefully (wish me luck) things will get underway.
Hospital
I work with a nurse, named Lurdrinha. She’s just about the craziest woman I have ever met in Mozambique, and absolutely love her. For the past few weeks I’ve just sat at the hospital and observed. Before I will say or suggest anything, I just like to “get to know” everyone and how everything works. Its better to just become familiar with the environment and comfortable with the people first – then I can start talking to them about why I’m really there and how I can help. So on Monday’s and Wednesday’s I help my friend, Antonio, with the program for teenagers at the hospital. They provide condoms and information that any teenager that comes to the hospital has. Its nice because Antonio himself is a teenager – so it makes it easier to work and talk with people his age. I was impressed at the resources they had – books of STD’s, loads of condoms for male AND female, contact information for the hospital in case of emergency, and more. It’s a very good program to have at a hospital, especially the condoms. Here you can’t just walk in a store in Chongoene and ask for a condom, because they’re not sold. My town is smaller than the next city over, and so things like condoms aren’t as accessible.
This past Monday I got to see Lurdrinha gives vaccines to babies – DTP and Hep B. Every mother here has a “Carto de Saude de Crianca,” a health record for the babies. One by one the names are called into the hospital waiting room – not a private room – and Lurdrinha tells the mothers to take off their babies diapers so that she can have room to shoot them up in the upper thy. The mothers do as instructed and then crazy Lurdrinha goes to work. The way she was giving them their shots was a lil hard to watch – first she’d take off the plastic off the syringe, squeeze in the medicine in the needle, then boom just like that. She did everything so fast….and so ……fast. Its like the mothers were in line getting a ticket or something and then walking away. One by one, shots were given, babies immediately started crying (awww they were so cute too), and the mothers left. The biggest thing I notied was that Lurdrinha didn’t clean the area first with alcohol, or put a bandaid on the area. I had asked one of my Mozambican friends if that was normal here, and his face dropped and said absolutely not. About 99% of hospitals clean the skin before giving the shot, but not at the hospitals in Chongoene. I wanted to say something the moment I saw it – but it wasn’t my place. I think today I will talk to the other doctor (since we’re like friends and all) and ask her instead of telling here what I think. “So before vaccines are given, are you supposed to clean the skin first or no?” something like that.
What I also noticed at the hospital was the lack of PRIVACY. I know I’m that American who lived in a totally different culture than this, but I literally got goosebumps at times. For example, the hospital is set up so that when you walk in there are 3 chairs in the waiting room (along with the table that I sit at along with Antonio and the other jovens). There’s a tv to watch but no one seems to look at that. Anyway, three people sit outside the room and wait to see the doctor. But the room that the patients enter is always open. When the doctor is speaking to the patient, ppl in the waiting room can hear most of what’s going on. Also when the patient is in the room, there’s other medical staff inside working or talking to other ppl/patients. Each person spends no more than 7 minutes with the doctor ( I was keeping time) and then they leave with a prescription. Everything just seemed so chaotic. I felt like I wasn’t really in a hospital. In my head I was thinking, How can a sick patient be thouroughly evaluated in 5 minutes? And how can the patient feel comfortable talking to the doctor when the whole waiting room and other people inside the room know your business? I’m sorry if I sound culturally insensitive – but I think no matter the culture or situation, every patient should feel comfortable and willing to visit the hospital. It should be an environment that’s safe and welcoming. Even the nurses and Lurdrinha, talk with no patience, one of the nurses never smiles and yells at people when they don’t move fast enough. My theory is – if the medical staff is walking around with an attitude and a cold shoulder – then the patients will feel that. Mozambican culture isn’t as “warm” as it might be to some of us back in the states, but its important that the medical staff cares about the people they’re helping. Most of the people that came in this past Monday, (Antonio told me) are HIV positive, or their babies have HIV. He knows the health history of the people in Chongoene well, but I was shocked when he told me. I never asked, but he says he knows who has “the virus.” It was sad hearing that, but its also the reality. Chongoene is a town of about 23,000 people, but I only know of a few people in my community that have HIV/AIDS. I sometimes think about how alarming the statistics are here, and constantly thinking about what I can do? We’re all trained to work with HIV people in our communities, but some days I get depressed when I see a 5 year old child that’s HIV positive. Or a young kid who is mentally retarded because his mother decided to drink beer while she was pregnant. Sometimes I want to scream, but I take it one day at a time and have learned to “speak the language they speak.” I talk to people in a way people can understand.
“Um…excuse me…..your baby…..um”
I remember one day at the beach, I saw this mother giving her baby Fizz – same thing as a can of Sprite – and I was feeling rowdy that day and said something to her.
“Excuse me, Senhora, does your baby like Fizz?”
she looked at me kinda weird with a smile and said, “sim.”
I said, “ok ta bom, but I think Fizz has too much sugar for a baby….how old is he?”
“4 months.”
“Ahhh ok, well I work with babies at the hospital and the doctor told me babies 0 – 6 months should only be drinking breast milk because its not good for the baby to drink soda too young. Maybe your baby will get sick….and that would not be good, yea?” (mind you I’m talking to her like she’s my galfriend, not trying to be one of those know-it-all foreign chicks)
Surprisingly she smiled and said, “Ahhhhh ok mana, yea I don’t want by baby to get sick, because if he does you will arrest me.” Haha…funniest thing that was ever said to me that day, but we both laughed. I’m hoping she didn’t think I was just joking around, but that she really took into consideration what I said. I see that a lot though – babies drinking sprite, eating fries and other bad food. And even just the way babies are handled in general makes me cringe! People here seem to want to carry a baby by one arm and just fling it across the room. (I’m not exaggerating) To me, my jaw drops a lil and I start staring at it, but people just laugh and say to me, “mana nana, que e problema?” Or the way people “play” with babies. They are really aggressive when the throw babies up in the air, and also aggressive when the babies start to cry. The dynamic sometimes…..not all the time…..is so “rough” between the baby and parent. Either I’m too sensitive when it comes to baby care, or Mozambicans are too rough. Hmmm, I don’t know. But at the end of the day, babies are the most precious things to me, so I try to accept the fact that no matter what I say, or what my reaction is, Mozambicans will still pick their children up by one arm, throw them in the air, throw them in the water at the beach (as if a baby can swim), and give them Fizz and fries for breakfast. It’s a process for an overprotective baby lover like me.
Speaking of babies....there's one screaming in this internet cafe, so I'll cut this one short.
Next time folks....bjs
I think I have finally found my role here at work, (which means going out to find work bc things move slooooooow here) and also becoming more integrated in my community – all thanks to my new friends, called patience and more patience. Sometimes there are so many lil small things I can think of that make me irritated, unhappy, or just plain upset – but I have learned to find the positive and beautiful things here in Chongoene. Slowly I think I’m developing into someone or something……who really knows, but the most important part is that I am making the most out of everyday here – and already realizing that time is flllyyyyying by. I cant believe its already been a lil over 6 months – but I’m happy I want to stay and experience more.
I talked a lil bit about my work before and how things were “picking up,” but its gotten even better since then. I have started going to the local hospital here in Chongoene, which is…..well I’ll talk about that a bit down the page, and also am working hard to get my REDES (Raparigas em Desenvolvimento Educacao e Saude) group together at the primary school. It’s a group for young girls that promotes awareness of health issues – such as HIV/SIDA and family planning. I love working with girls – but only the younger ones. Let me tell you, those teenage girls here are a hot mess sometimes – everywhere in the world there’s that group of petty teenage girls, when on any given day I could slap one of them lol. You get my drift, ne? Its easier to work with younger girls, because they listen and they are easier to work with and teach things to. So far I have 4 girls that are interested, so I’m working out the logistics with the Director of the School and hopefully (wish me luck) things will get underway.
Hospital
I work with a nurse, named Lurdrinha. She’s just about the craziest woman I have ever met in Mozambique, and absolutely love her. For the past few weeks I’ve just sat at the hospital and observed. Before I will say or suggest anything, I just like to “get to know” everyone and how everything works. Its better to just become familiar with the environment and comfortable with the people first – then I can start talking to them about why I’m really there and how I can help. So on Monday’s and Wednesday’s I help my friend, Antonio, with the program for teenagers at the hospital. They provide condoms and information that any teenager that comes to the hospital has. Its nice because Antonio himself is a teenager – so it makes it easier to work and talk with people his age. I was impressed at the resources they had – books of STD’s, loads of condoms for male AND female, contact information for the hospital in case of emergency, and more. It’s a very good program to have at a hospital, especially the condoms. Here you can’t just walk in a store in Chongoene and ask for a condom, because they’re not sold. My town is smaller than the next city over, and so things like condoms aren’t as accessible.
This past Monday I got to see Lurdrinha gives vaccines to babies – DTP and Hep B. Every mother here has a “Carto de Saude de Crianca,” a health record for the babies. One by one the names are called into the hospital waiting room – not a private room – and Lurdrinha tells the mothers to take off their babies diapers so that she can have room to shoot them up in the upper thy. The mothers do as instructed and then crazy Lurdrinha goes to work. The way she was giving them their shots was a lil hard to watch – first she’d take off the plastic off the syringe, squeeze in the medicine in the needle, then boom just like that. She did everything so fast….and so ……fast. Its like the mothers were in line getting a ticket or something and then walking away. One by one, shots were given, babies immediately started crying (awww they were so cute too), and the mothers left. The biggest thing I notied was that Lurdrinha didn’t clean the area first with alcohol, or put a bandaid on the area. I had asked one of my Mozambican friends if that was normal here, and his face dropped and said absolutely not. About 99% of hospitals clean the skin before giving the shot, but not at the hospitals in Chongoene. I wanted to say something the moment I saw it – but it wasn’t my place. I think today I will talk to the other doctor (since we’re like friends and all) and ask her instead of telling here what I think. “So before vaccines are given, are you supposed to clean the skin first or no?” something like that.
What I also noticed at the hospital was the lack of PRIVACY. I know I’m that American who lived in a totally different culture than this, but I literally got goosebumps at times. For example, the hospital is set up so that when you walk in there are 3 chairs in the waiting room (along with the table that I sit at along with Antonio and the other jovens). There’s a tv to watch but no one seems to look at that. Anyway, three people sit outside the room and wait to see the doctor. But the room that the patients enter is always open. When the doctor is speaking to the patient, ppl in the waiting room can hear most of what’s going on. Also when the patient is in the room, there’s other medical staff inside working or talking to other ppl/patients. Each person spends no more than 7 minutes with the doctor ( I was keeping time) and then they leave with a prescription. Everything just seemed so chaotic. I felt like I wasn’t really in a hospital. In my head I was thinking, How can a sick patient be thouroughly evaluated in 5 minutes? And how can the patient feel comfortable talking to the doctor when the whole waiting room and other people inside the room know your business? I’m sorry if I sound culturally insensitive – but I think no matter the culture or situation, every patient should feel comfortable and willing to visit the hospital. It should be an environment that’s safe and welcoming. Even the nurses and Lurdrinha, talk with no patience, one of the nurses never smiles and yells at people when they don’t move fast enough. My theory is – if the medical staff is walking around with an attitude and a cold shoulder – then the patients will feel that. Mozambican culture isn’t as “warm” as it might be to some of us back in the states, but its important that the medical staff cares about the people they’re helping. Most of the people that came in this past Monday, (Antonio told me) are HIV positive, or their babies have HIV. He knows the health history of the people in Chongoene well, but I was shocked when he told me. I never asked, but he says he knows who has “the virus.” It was sad hearing that, but its also the reality. Chongoene is a town of about 23,000 people, but I only know of a few people in my community that have HIV/AIDS. I sometimes think about how alarming the statistics are here, and constantly thinking about what I can do? We’re all trained to work with HIV people in our communities, but some days I get depressed when I see a 5 year old child that’s HIV positive. Or a young kid who is mentally retarded because his mother decided to drink beer while she was pregnant. Sometimes I want to scream, but I take it one day at a time and have learned to “speak the language they speak.” I talk to people in a way people can understand.
“Um…excuse me…..your baby…..um”
I remember one day at the beach, I saw this mother giving her baby Fizz – same thing as a can of Sprite – and I was feeling rowdy that day and said something to her.
“Excuse me, Senhora, does your baby like Fizz?”
she looked at me kinda weird with a smile and said, “sim.”
I said, “ok ta bom, but I think Fizz has too much sugar for a baby….how old is he?”
“4 months.”
“Ahhh ok, well I work with babies at the hospital and the doctor told me babies 0 – 6 months should only be drinking breast milk because its not good for the baby to drink soda too young. Maybe your baby will get sick….and that would not be good, yea?” (mind you I’m talking to her like she’s my galfriend, not trying to be one of those know-it-all foreign chicks)
Surprisingly she smiled and said, “Ahhhhh ok mana, yea I don’t want by baby to get sick, because if he does you will arrest me.” Haha…funniest thing that was ever said to me that day, but we both laughed. I’m hoping she didn’t think I was just joking around, but that she really took into consideration what I said. I see that a lot though – babies drinking sprite, eating fries and other bad food. And even just the way babies are handled in general makes me cringe! People here seem to want to carry a baby by one arm and just fling it across the room. (I’m not exaggerating) To me, my jaw drops a lil and I start staring at it, but people just laugh and say to me, “mana nana, que e problema?” Or the way people “play” with babies. They are really aggressive when the throw babies up in the air, and also aggressive when the babies start to cry. The dynamic sometimes…..not all the time…..is so “rough” between the baby and parent. Either I’m too sensitive when it comes to baby care, or Mozambicans are too rough. Hmmm, I don’t know. But at the end of the day, babies are the most precious things to me, so I try to accept the fact that no matter what I say, or what my reaction is, Mozambicans will still pick their children up by one arm, throw them in the air, throw them in the water at the beach (as if a baby can swim), and give them Fizz and fries for breakfast. It’s a process for an overprotective baby lover like me.
Speaking of babies....there's one screaming in this internet cafe, so I'll cut this one short.
Next time folks....bjs
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