Proteger votre coeur (protect your heart)

Today things are settling into a routine. The physicians are leaving in the morning to round on patients, do surgeries, teach lessons. Folks are getting more comfortable with public transport. Many have abandoned fear and jumped on a moto (small motorcycles) that are ubiquitous. Helmet passed back to the passenger, they zoom in between cars, up the wrong way on one way streets and cost about 1/4 of a taxi.

Our kinyrwandan purple dictionaries are stuffed into white coats, back pockets and purses. Folks are mastereing the basic greetings in both the local language and French.
We no longer move as a group as members are venturing out on their own for meals, shopping and exploration.

Yesterday, Ryan did a surgery on a young man who had two machete wounds on his arm. He was injured in a gang fight. The cardio team has been following several patients and figuring out how to get a patient transferred to the only hospital that can provide the care he requires. Pricilla, our neonatologist has been teaching newborn resuscitation in French to any professional that will listen. The women's health care team had no babies to deliver today so they delivered a lecture to 8 nurses on managing labor. The "village people", the humanitarian team working with the Twa (pygmy) population is making health insurance cards for 114, delivering shoes and clothes, weighing, measuring, deworming and providing Vitamin A to the people of Bwiza. The engineering team has done a site assessment for water supply delivery. Their hope is to have a system up and running by July.

Today I worked at the Kigali Health Institute for the treatment of trauma. I spent 6 hours teaching 8 counselling supervisors about the diagnosis and treatment of depression. In reality, the session ended up being a group session for the counselors themselves. Each had her own trauma story to tell and their work constantly reactivates memories and pain. These are delightful women who struggle to care for a nation in trauma.

We talked about each woman's love bucket that needs to be replenished for their work to continue. We spent an afternoon helping each other figure out what we would do to fill up our buckets. Monique is a tall athletic women in her late thirties. When she answered the question why she was a therapist, she had two reasons. "I believe people can change and I wanted to heal myself." She spent much of the day asking questions about self care. Monique had the hollow eyed look of the walking dead. Yet she still wants to swim again in a swimming pool. By the end of the day we had completed our lists and made commitments to do at least three of the self care items a week.

I have their emails and will check on them. I have pictures of the counseling rooms. Matresses on the floor. Plastic lawn chairs and a box of kleenex on a table. They have asked that I return next year to do a two day retreat for their association's 70 counselors. They need a library. They want to do more.

Monique has promised to start swimming again.