Rwanda Criminal Tribunal

Yesterday, we visited the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) in downtown Arusha. It was started by the UN over 10 years ago and is the location for all of the trials of the people responsible for the Rwanda genocide in 1994, when 800,000 people were murdered in the span of 100 days. We were hoping to sit in on a trial, but unfortunately they were finished in court for the day when we arrived. So instead, we watched a movie about how the tribunal was begun, etc and then got to see a courtroom after. More info on the tribunal later...

After our tour of the tribunal, a group of us decided to stay in town for dinner. We went to an Indian restaurant called Big Bite. Though very inconspicuous on the outside, Big Bite had extremely good Indian food. It was easily the best meal that I have had at a restaurant in Tanzania. We ordered a bunch of dishes among the nine of us (I split Palak Paneer and Chana Masala with the other vegetarian) and LOTS of garlic naan. I had been craving Indian food for a few weeks, so I was very satisfied when we left. We then headed to Via Via, the same bar and restaurant that we had been to before on a Thursday night, when they have live music. Someone bought a bag of small plastic cups and we began a large game of Flip Cup once we all arrived. This has quickly become our group's game of choice since you can play with a lot of people. And I must say that I was the Flip Cup MVP this night… I know that my parents would be proud. Most of us got a taxi home at 10pm, since I feel guilty making my host parents wait up any later for me to get home.

On Friday we had our last group work day at Mt. Meru hospital. Alex and I were looking forward to it since we had another heater to fix in the OBGYN operating room . We arrived with our toolkit and the spare heater and were getting ready to replace it when we noticed that the doctors and nurses appeared as if they were prepping for a patient. We then saw a woman standing in the door, not looking very happy, with a very large tummy carrying her IV bag. And it wasn't really an IV bag; it looked more to me like those plastic containers that are used to hold water for a guinea pig or hamster, though it was a larger version. After asking if we could use a small table as a stepping stool, I was told that the patient needed to sit there. After that, we finally decided that we should come back later since they were clearly about to start a surgery. The doctor told us to come back around 1 pm. Alex and I then occupied ourselves by fixing a digital blood pressure monitor. The cuff needed to be replaced and the device needed to be calibrated. Right as we were finishing this repair, a nurse walked up and gave us a broken light. It was a light on a long metal stand that could be used for exams or even for surgery. Not only did it not turn on, but it was also mechanically unstable. There were two spots on along the power cord that had electrical tape wrapped around, which we peeled off in order to see where wires had been connected. However, the wire was old and the connections were not very good, so no power was able to reach the light. We soldered the wires together in order to make a permanent connection. The light was then able to turn on, but the repairs were still not finished. We epoxyed the light socket to the metal surrounding the light and then epoxyed this metal to the actual lamp. Several screws then had to be tightened and then the light was ready to be released. I showed a nurse how it had been fixed and we were happy to see them wheel it right back to an exam room. Though this was a relatively easy repair for us, it was definitely an essential piece of equipment that could not previously be used. I was quite proud of our light repair. By the way, when we returned to the operating room at 1pm and then again at 2pm, they were still in surgery and thus we were not able to do the repair. That operating room sure does see a lot of traffic. There are 2 EWH-ers that are working at Mt. Meru next month, so I showed one of them exactly where the room was and what needed to be fixed, so it will still get done.