I finally slept last night and it was divine! I even got cool enough to put a sheet on to help keep the mosquitoes. We got up, had breakfast, and then headed to Atta to work at Mana Clinic. When we arrived we got a huge welcome from the children and the elders alike. They were running towards the van yelling hi and good morning. We ended up seeing mainly children that go to the Mana school, as well as some adults. We didn’t see nearly as many people as I was hoping for today, but the work that we did do was important and well worth our time. We diagnosed a couple cases of malaria, and made notes on the children that need medication for worms so that we can bring that back and administer it. I’m hoping that we’ll be busy at the outreach clinic in Onitsha (I think this is really how you spell it instead of Anusha, but I could be wrong again). We stopped at the pharmacy on the way back to Queen’s and picked some antibiotics, antimalarials, and some antiworming medications for the outreach clinics in the upcoming days.

We left the clinic around 2:00 this afternoon. As we were leaving we walked onto the front porch of the building where many of the older ladies were sitting. They were very mad and yelling. They were evidently told by somebody that we would be giving out free medications today. That obviously wasn’t true. The main focus of our work is with children, not adults. Besides that, Mana Clinic has hired a physician to be there full time and he would be much more qualified to give the adults medication because they need much more follow up since most of the issues have to do with hypertension. Mana had received a “crate” from the US which they were opening while we were there. I believe that most of the stuff was donated by Mike’s church and sent over. It had bikes, toys, a sewing machine, clothes, etc in it. The people were preoccupied with finding out what was in there that we didn’t have a lot of patients. In one of the cases they opened and found a nest of rats and termites…GROSS!!! So they had to go through everything to make sure that there weren’t more rats in there and then reorganize everything.

After we left the clinic we went to a museum about the civil war that took place in Nigeria in the 60’s. It was pretty interesting. I had my first experience with racism here. Queen went to go and buy the tickets for us to get in. The person at the ticket counter asked if she had “white people” in the van and she said yes. Her and Robert’s tickets for admission were 100 naira, while the rest of us had to pay 200 naira. I thought the whole thing was kind of funny and ironic, but Queen was very upset with the whole situation.

After we got back to Queen’s this evening Erin, Kathy and I prefilled bags with vitamins for the outreach clinics in the upcoming days. Erin and I did some laundry (by hand of course), and we had some dinner. Queen and her family have been so hospitable to us, I am so happy that she came along and am so grateful for all that she has done for this group. This group of people is really a lot of fun to work with. We were all measured today for our authentic Nigerian dress that Queen’s family is going to make for us before we leave. I’m sure that they will be beautiful. I love the bright colors of the clothing over here.

Before I sign off, just a little update on Erin, who is currently in the shower and is hoping that “Brutus” (her cockroach friend) isn’t planning on joining her again tonight. She cracks me up! I forgot to mention that she has had a very sensitive stomach while we have been there. The first night while we were at the guesthouse in Atta she wasn’t feeling very good. I gave her a plastic bag just in case she threw up, which she did. As soon as she had tied the bag shut two women came running into our room, so happy to see us and grateful that we had arrived safely. They threw their arms around us and kept hugging us. There stood Erin with her bag of vomit, trying to hide it, giving this huge hug to these strangers (we still don’t know their names).
I think that’s all for tonight. We are going to try to figure out how to get internet on Queen’s laptop computer while we are away at the village. I’m really hoping that it works and that we are able to update our blogs and e-mail while we are away. Thanks again for checking in, I appreciate it!

Well the lights are flickering in spite of the generator so I must go.

Love Always,
Steph