Sept 18th
Hey it’s been a while. Guess I actually got busy for a while. Things are starting to compress... time that is and suddenly I realize that I actually have a lot to do if I consider the fact that I’m supposed to be doing research. Trying to get a proposal done that’s half decent, while fishing and hanging out plus doing ‘work’ is actually quite a lot. Not to mention that daily chores take up about a quarter of your time here.. actually make that half.
Right now for instance it’s Sunday evening and I actually have a few hours with nothing to do. So instead of working on my proposal I decide to sweep and mop the floors, wash the dishes and tidy up my room, finally unpacking those packages I received from back home.
The benefits, I now have a nice clean house, with water jugs filled and no ants :) Also my wall looks pretty with the pictures and drawings I got in my packages finally up. Cons, I am yet another day behind...which makes it about 2 and a half months late now... I wonder if that’s a record?
Things have been going well lately. The puppies are growing up so fast and are finally reaching the stage where I can leave them at home alone for quite a few hours and they won’t eat anything or poop anywhere. We took them up to Tsodilo Hills yesterday, which is a world heritage site that has ancient rock paintings from about 3000 years ago or something. It’s pretty cool, especially the paintings of the penguins and whales, which must have been from San people who traveled to South Africa or Namibia.
pause... a giant beetle just got in my house and it can fly....
Work has been fairly productive and things with my counterpart are bearable. We’ve got some really good activities coming up and we’ve been visiting the settlements a lot more... hence why I am never online or have a cell network :( But it’s good because the CTBCs are making progress and it actually feels like we’re starting to do health education... or at least the monitoring of it.
I found out one of my friends has TB which definitely makes the problem or epidemic much more real. I saw her on a friday and she was ‘sick’ but looked fairly well. We all thought that she had malaria but she wasn’t getting better so she went to a clinic in Maun. I found out the Monday that she wasn’t well at all and that I should go and visit her. No one mentioned what was wrong, just that I should go visit. That immediately made me think it was TB or HIV. When I visited she looked terrible, like someone you would imagine was starving. She was lying on a mattress on the floor and could barely even lift her head she was so weak. This was only after two days on TB medication which was causing side effects such as vomiting and diarrhea. An already thin woman she must have lost another 20 lbs in a few days.
I think that coming from the West we have this perception of TB being like something a little bit worse than a cold virus. Maybe even better because we can treat it. Seeing how it eats away at people though changes the entire persona of the disease. MDR-TB is even worse (multi-drug resistant). If you get this and give it to one of your family members or friends they have a much higher chance of developing XDR-TB for which there is usually very little you can do. As the patient dies they cannot even be with family members since it’s so contagious and are usually isolated on their own.
We have 4 MDR-TB patients in Qangwa, which is one of the San settlements we work in. Patients get MDR -TB either from another person with MDR, which would be considered primary MDR or from poor treatment adherence and/or treatment dosage. In Qangwa a lot of our patients give reasons of poverty for not adhering. They often go into the bush to look for groundnuts, fruit and wild game to supplement what little food (usually sorghum or maize) they have, which is often even just a portion of someone’s government food ration.
The government gives food rations to TB patients who are eligible in order to help them put weight back on and so that their treatment is more effective. TB treatment won’t work as well on a person who is malnourished. The problem is that the rations are only for that patient, and by the time they finish feeding half the village, as is required, there isn’t really enough to help.
The project we’re starting and I’m hoping to research is possibly going to try and address this through giving patients an incentive to finish the program. I’m not really sure why someone would need an incentive besides life itself, but apparently similar programs have been successful in other places. The idea is that if the patient completes treatment (6-8 months) without missing treatment they are qualified to receive a live goat which hopefully they will raise and breed to gain income and prevent malnourishment in the villages.
September 27th
Let me just say that I am so tired. I'm not trying to complain but seriously can't one day go by without something going terribly wrong or just inconveniently. Last night I pulled 15 Putzi fly larvae out of my puppies. Ew. And I thought ticks were bad. Lets just say I cannot wait to get back to Canada. Apparently these fly larvae like to lay their eggs on peoples clothes as well.. and burrow into humans.. *shudder.
I'm about 50% done my research proposal. Painful.
Tomorrow is my sisters 21st ! Happy B-Day Jessi !! Hope it's grand.. I just saw pics of her best friend's new son and omgsh i actually cried a little. So precious! Wish I could be there. anyways off to Namibia soon which is much needed.. though I don't think I can afford to go financially nor time wise...
hope it's fun.. and that i get to go riding.
... maybe I'll travel around the world getting married to the same man in every country .. wouldn't that be cool? lol
i know random.. but i don't really feel like explaining. :)
talk soon!
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