by Gracie Garrrison, BSN student
Today my fellow classmates Kendra, Eva and I, were driven out to the Fisenge village where we stayed mostly in the maternity ward at the local village clinic. Ten minutes after we got there a women was in active labor so we immediately followed the midwife as well as other nurses to help assist with the child birth. It was so exciting to see because this was our first child birth that we were about to witness, let alone be apart of.
The room was set up with a metal bed frame and a bucket to catch all of the amniotic fluid below the delivery bed. When we opened the curtain the mother was in active labor, having contractions, so we jumped in assisting the midwife as needed. The actual birth was rather fast, and the mother gave birth around 30-40 minutes after we arrived at the clinic. She gave birth to a 3.5kg baby boy. The mother had asked me to name her baby that was just born, however because of cultural beliefs the father usually names the child. We dressed him and gave him to mom, following up by taking vitals on mom and baby every 15 minutes. We assisted mom and baby to the postnatal ward and let them rest. The mother had actually gotten up on her own and walked over to the postnatal ward. That shocked me because it really puts it into perspective on how strong and resilient women are and how they can recover so fast for their babies. It was truly the most beautiful experience I have ever been apart of.
On the other side of the clinic was the main building where Eva, Kendra and I started triaging people in the waiting room that were needing to see the doctor. Being apart of the village community was an experience beyond words with so much to learn and gain knowledge in.
We went back to Kafakumba where we had a traditional lunch with beans, a cabbage mix and nshima, where you eat it with your hands– it was by far the best meal I’ve had since being here!. After lunch we gave a educational speech to the children at the Kafakumba school where we discussed different topics like malaria and diarrhea. The grades here are preschool to tenth grade. Kendra and I spoke to the fourth through sixth graders. The kids here are so amazing and so eager to learn and listen. They are extremely respectful, each time they speak or answer a question they stand up to speak and that is just something you would never see in the states. The kiddos had a lot of questions, and honestly I think they knew more about malaria than us!
After we gave our health talk at the school, we toured a honey farm and saw how honey is processed, stored, and distributed. We got to taste the light honey and the darker honey and it was seriously the tastiest honey I have ever had.
We finished the day off with dinner and a “non” competitive game of pickleball with the expats here. Every day here is a blessing, learning about the Zambian culture and being welcomed into their community has been such a fulfilling experience that I would not trade for the world.
