You probably have malaria

In the village we worked in the local dispensary. It was a half hour walk every day to the clinic. At the clinic there were two nurses and one doctor. The clinic consisted of one building with four separate rooms- medication room, delivery room, vaccination room and the doctors office. On monday it was a general patient day and we saw one Masai man who had been hit with a Masai knife on the back of his heel, a child who had frank pus coming out of both ears and a abscess on his right jaw. On tuesday it was antenatal day so we saw a lot of expecting mothers ranging from newly pregnant to 9months pregnant. We did a lot of HIV testes and had many positive results. It was hear breaking to see how many of these women had no idea that they were infected. In Masai culture it is common to have more than one wife so the spread of the diseases can be very rapid since one man may be sleeping with as many as 10 women. And since there is still such a stigma about HIV often the women do not even want to be tested for fear that someone outside of the clinic would find out. On wednesday we had vaccination day. We were vaccination against polio, rotavirus, TB, and pneumonia. Thursday was another general day and i saw the largest hernia I have ever seen in my life. Clinic was truly a wonderful experience and helped add to my time at the village.