A Quiet Day at Ilula

It is Sunday. It has been a quiet day at Ilula.  The conference is finished, a great success, Randy H. and Anne J. boarded the plane at Nduli, Iringa’s Airport and the big group is off to Ruaha. Here at Ilula, it is myself, Michael R. and Mwamoody. We just finished another delicious balanced meal with soup, sphaghetti, mushrooms in a sauce, terrific sambusas, a few chapati, diced plum and mango.  Breakfast was veggie omelets, a kind of square donuts, coffee. Lunch was chicken, rice, and pineapple. Anna is a good cook!

The mosquitos are buzzing around tonight. Tomorrow we will spray and close up the house. One of our long fluorescents is out, so that will be replaced tomorrow. Dr. Saga came over for a beverage – he chose magi ma dogo, but we only have magi ma kubwa, so we poured it in a mug and sent the bottle home with him. We chatted about a number of things.

There is a move here to move from our certificate (2-year) nursing school to a diploma (3-year) school.  The nurses get quite a bit of didactic training, but I think they get much more clinical rotations in the third year. Gary and I will ask Mr. Chiteji that tomorrow. I know the big criticism of the two-year school is that it does not prepare the nurses well enough and there is a national movement to the three-year diploma. I believe I heard that some of the rotations would be off campus, e.g. the Regional Hospital has a good Ob unit. Ours is very active, but we see mostly low risk and should be sending some higher risk women there from Ilula.

I had a real pleasure meeting up with one of our first graduates.  His name is Yonah Kikoti. He told me that he got 4.8 on his certificate test. That is 4.8 out of 5.0!  Well done Yonah! He hopes to go on to get the third year, then would like to get a teaching certificate and return to Ilula to teach!  His younger brother Isaac is an instructor here already.  They are the sons of a pastor in a congregation near Kilolo.  I hope to interview Yona, so perhaps you will hear more.

Tomorrow I will go to the Devotions and then to the Morning Report before rounds on the patients. 

My hope is to do a new video recording to put on YouTube. David Marts and I took a lot of video last year, so between the two there should be plenty of material. 

For a while now, Ilula has wanted a new Ob/Postpartum ward. There are routinely two women per bed and with the newborns that is four humans per bed!  Certainly more, uh, romantic than raising money for a mortuary, which has been “on the list” since the first time I was visiting here in 2006.  They do need to do a formal “needs assessment” study to understand if the sketch they have is the right size. It might not be big enough!