Here is a reflection straight from one of the students:
"That experience was amazing! I'm so blessed and thankful that I had the opportunity to help out, hands-on, with a surgery. This reaffirms my desire to do surgery. I don't get scared of blood, or get light-headed, even though the room was fairly warm. My nervousness wore off and my confidence grew steadily. I can do this; I DID do this! I loved it in there, with the atmosphere and the doctors, nurses and everything. There's only one thing I would change: the shoes were extremely tight and hurt my feet quite bad, so I'd want to wear shoes that fit." - Alicia Brown
We were able to meet up with seven other Messiah students who are spending two weeks in Choma (a few hours away) doing work through Messiah’s Collaboratory. We met up for lunch together and were excited to see some familiar faces!
After lunch, we spent the afternoon in class, discussing a polio case study, as well as how our culture and belief system affects how we view health care. Three hours of class flew by as we were all engrossed in and engaged with the material. After a yummy dinner of sausage, sweet potatoes, apples, carrots, and chocolate cake, we had a change of plans (African-style!). Our guests who were to talk with us about marriage and dating in Zambia had to reschedule for next week, so instead we watched “The Constant Gardner,” a movie set in Africa about pharmaceutical companies running drug trials in Kenya. It was a sobering movie, which provided us with much food for thought.
We will have class again tomorrow morning and will begin discussing epidemiology and causes for poor health in developing countries. We will then drive about 40 minutes by vehicle to visit a traditional healer in one of the surrounding villages. We continue to soak in the culture!
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