Flooded with work opportunities

 

It never rains but it pours.

After one year of teaching, suddenly in the space of one week, many new ventures and possibilities have opened up.

These include:

• A letter from the Minister of Health requesting my presence in Ruhengeri (4hours away) for the whole of next week to be part of a team to finalise Clinical Management Protocols for all hospitals in Rwanda
• A request for an arrangement for me to go to Kigali each month to train postgraduates and senior doctors in colonoscopy
• A senior postgraduate (soon to be Consultant) has transferred from Kigali to Butare in order to learn Gastroenterology and Hepatology from me
• Requests from the Dean that I become involved in training and research in Gastroenterology, as well as from several undergraduates and postgraduates approaching me with research proposals, and new options for funding became clear
• A large amount of interest has been expressed from all over the country in forming a Rwandan Endoscopy Society, which I have been working towards for some months
• Enthusiastic support from many undergraduates and postgraduates students, including suggestions of more teaching sessions, a journal club, and institution of a new case conference where they can present patients with difficult problems from the wards

There’s probably more, but with such a flood of options, I’m at a bit of a loss to remember them all. Please pray for wisdom for me as I try to work out what opportunities need to be seized now, and how best to divide my time and energy between them.

National University of Rwanda Graduation Ceremony

 

One of my first tasks as a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine was to attend the graduation of our students and postgraduates who finished their medical training last year. It is a major event for the country, with about 3500 students graduating from NUR, and thus last Friday the roads to NUR were packed (we walked there from the hospital!). There was a real sense of occasion with everyone in suits and academic gowns with silly hats and many thousands of people thronging the streets.

As a (newly appointed) member of Faculty, I got to wear my own silly hat, hang out in the Cloisters pre-ceremony and then be part of the grand entrance procession, complete with marching brass band:

The guests of honour were the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, the former Head of the East African Community, and the Rwandan Minister of Education.

With such a distinguished guest list, the paparazzi were out in force, and were especially keen to get my photo*:

* possible slight exaggeration

At the end of the six hour ceremony, which included the National Anthem, speeches, Intore dancers and a full roll call of the 3500 graduands, the new doctors assembled to say their Hippocratic oath, with the doctors present serving as witnesses:

It was a really exciting day to be part of, and great to see so many students who I have taught over the last 12 months cerebrating their success and taking the next step in their careers.

 

I’ll leave you with a few shots of our munchkins, fence climbing, painting and modelling the latest in wearable avocado tree fashion:

William Starts School

On Monday William and his best friend had their first day at the local Ecole Internationale des Parent de Butare (French International School). He was primed and excited. But the actual day was pretty hard for him.




My friend and I, with some of our kids, spent the rest of the morning in quite a different context. We visited the Iwacu centre for street kids, run by an English man.


 
 




My friend, who worked for years with street kids (as did her husband), said you could really tell the boys were fresh off the streets. They were very excited when David walked through the gate, greeting him with a hug and big smiles, and then greeted us very politely. Hannah got cuddles, we played hangman, and the boys told us a bit about themselves. They LOVED their drumming lesson from the local university’s head of drumming, and I was very impressed at their skill! They were just kids. Who have it tough. The centre does a fantastic job of trying to meet their needs.


Tim and I were rather impressed in the afternoon when William walked in with this butterfly he had made for us, all of his own creation!

I spent the evening reflecting on William and school, trying to work out what to do. Tim told me to stop whining and be proactive – good advice. So on Tuesday morning I made a big batch of playdough. Then I wrote a guide for ways to use playdough in the classroom. a friend translated it into Kinyarwanda and when French speaking friends came for running club that night they translated it into French too. Hopefully having something fun and familiar to do will help the boys to settle in faster...

A mending day to end my holidays

 

I’m back to work at the hospital on Monday. And after two weeks off, I’m feeling much more relaxed and grateful for the opportunity to be working here. To be honest, by the end of last year, I was feeling more and more tired and like I deserved special treatment because of the work I was doing. Now that I’m better rested I’ve got things back into some perspective: it’s my privilege to be here, to do the work and teaching that I love. It’s great to be called somewhere by God and to be able to put the skills he’s given my to use.

Inevitably there’s a bunch of little jobs around the house that need doing over the holidays. And equally inevitably, I don’t get around to most of them until the holiday is almost over. We’ve got leaking taps, towel rails lying on the bathroom floor, and a non-functional washing machine because of an electrical fault. Those were all relatively easily fixed: even the washing machine, which miraculously decided to start working again of its own accord three months after it last worked, and in spite of all my attempts to open and clean it, reseat electronics and so forth.

But the job that I’ve been thinking about most was the annoying fact that our computer and anything connected to it (iPod, speakers, Kindles etc) gives any barefoot person who touches it a nasty shock. I thought initially it was an electrical fault, but on testing, it seemed to be a problem caused by our voltage regulator, which all electronics here have to be connected to in order to avoid damage. It lacked an earth pin, which meant everything connected to it could not be earthed and any small ground leak from the computer built up on the case. It’s very painful and annoying and potentially quite dangerous for the children.

So here’s the solution I sorted out, running a piece of house wiring cable from the PC case:

across the room to the (filed down) steel cap on an old water pipe in the corner of our room, just opposite the meter box on the external wall:

Now effectively I’ve wired my own earth from the computer (and anything else connected on that side of the voltage regulator) to the house earth. It’s working a treat, which means no more taking my foot off the floor as I connect the camera to post these photos!

In other news, Will starts school on Monday (at age 3 1/2, in French at a local school where Catherine will also be helping with curriculum development for the teachers), and we’ve just got back from 5 days at Kumbya. We spent the first two (wet) days camping, and then moved into a cabin for the last 3 nights. We also had a New Year’s Eve bonfire! Here’s a pic of the kids “playing with fire” at our campsite.

Happy New year and blessings from all of us,

Tim