The female sleeping quarters out in the staff house - where we didn't get much sleep
Chelsea and I with Adrien and his proud mother (among others):
Chelsea performing baby care with Bernadine:
Kristinn & the girls cooking some supper - stuffing the squid!
Wednesday January 21
After a long first night in the staff house in Januiay (we have learned that the Filipino students don’t value sleep in quite the same way we do, and they also don’t mind leaving the lights on all night long...), we started our first official day working in the community with our student buddies. Wednesdays are the official day here in the Philippines where every community health clinic in the country has baby clinics where children come to get their immunizations that are covered by the government, as well as when many of them get seen by health professionals if they are sick. We finally got the chance to put the IMCI program that we learned earlier this week into practice, as well as having the opportunity to practice giving more childhood immunizations. Kristinn and Chelsea were assigned to immunization duty while Troy and I were given the task of assessing the sick children using IMCI. Unfortunately Jenny and Morgan were still very sick so they weren’t able to join us for the day, they stayed back at the university to rest. Soon after beginning the assessments, I was told that there was a woman in labour waiting to deliver! Before I knew it, it was my turn to deliver a baby! The mother progressed very quickly, going from 7 cm dilation to being fully dilated in one hour. Suddenly her membranes ruptured (literally exploded - thankfully no one was in the line of fire this time) and it was time to push. The baby was crowning within seconds and then the head was out. I had a slight scare in that the cord was around the baby’s neck, but the midwife was at my side helping me through the situation. Then in no time at all, it was over, and it was a boy!! Little baby boy Adrien. Following his birth, I also delivered the placenta and checked to make sure it was all intact while Chelsea gave all the baby care. Overall it was an amazing experience!
The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of immunizations, IMCI assessments, and wound dressings. Many of us were also able to give our first Tetanus immunizations on the adults who were receiving wound dressings (it is standard practice here in the Philippines that individuals who are wounded by anything that may be dirty or rusty, including road rash, receiving tetanus immunizations following the dressings unless they can be sure that the individual has had their booster shots within the last 10 years). Before we knew it, it was time to return to the staff house to prepare and eat our lunch, followed by an hour long siesta (rest time).
In the afternoon we headed out to the sitio of Gamad (a sub-division of a barangay) where we walked along rice patties and performed an ocular survey of our surroundings. Most, if not all, of the homes did not have running water, many people had to walk a fair ways to get to a communal well, and their toilets consisted of holes in the ground. You literally didn’t want to slip off the edge of the rice patty - what you would land in is not pretty. Despite these conditions, as per usual here in the Philippines, all of the people were very hospitable and happy. During this experience we also did home visits with our student buddies, who allowed us to perform the family assessment while acting solely as our interpreters. I really appreciated getting the chance to do rather then watch. During our adventures in Gamad, we also happened across someone’s pet monkey/baboon that was chained up in the backyard. It quickly took a disliking to Troy and threw a coconut at him! He was obviously jealous of Troy’s stature, too much competition for the females.
That night we had the pleasure (or pain?) of having James (Troy’s buddy) teach us how to properly eat Balut. Balut is a type of egg that you eat hard-boiled but there’s a catch - the duck fetus is still inside! Following his lesson and graphic description, only Troy was brave enough (or insane enough?) to try it. He said that the fetus was not the worst part, the egg white was too chewy and the consistency never changes, just breaks down into smaller pieces. We really owe a big thanks to Troy because he has so far tried EVERYTHING that they offer us, chicken intestines and all.
Thursday January 22
Well, after another late night in the staff house the group headed out again to the rural health unit to practice more IMCI assessments as well as prenatal checkups. Today Morgan and Jenny began to feel better, so they made the trip out to join us.
After lunch we headed back to Iloilo City to attend the Paulinian Olympics here at St Paul’s University. The Paulinian Olympics are a talent competition here at the university that is very serious competition. We watched a few events; vocal duet, folk dancing, lip-synching (a new event this year), and group hip-hop dance. It was really fun and entertaining to say the least. These students are amazingly talented and creative, and to win the competition they must meet very high standards of judging. Halfway through the events, we were introduced as the Canadian guests and our student buddies showed a slideshow to all the attendees that focused on the past few days we spent in Januiay. It was a really nice slideshow, we hope to get it up on the blog at some point. Following supper Troy, Kristinn, and I also went and watched the volleyball final - Nursing vs Physiotherapy/Hotel Tourism Management (nursing is so big that other colleges have to be combined so that they stand a chance of winning). Nursing lost the match in the end, unfortunately. Overall the past two days have been great. We are continuing to learn so much from everyone here. Stay tuned… Next entry: Circumcision adventures.. :)
Lindsay and the Philippines nursing crew
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