Sawa Sawa (It’s all good)

 



Last week I got a new batch of students to teach Physical Assessment to. I used to really enjoy teaching this material to graduate nursing students at home, but I had an entire semester in which to do so. Here, I have 6 hours to teach associate degree students so I had to pare it down and hustle. Most of my other classes here have had 10-15 students so I was surprised to see 39 students file into the room. They were brand new students and were much more enthusiastic than the previous ones. With the others I was led to believe that their silence and passivity was due to my radically different teaching style and perhaps inability to understand my accent. In Kenya, teaching students and staff management involves being called out publicly for your errors in a kind of shaming manner. Probably how we educated and supervised people about 50 years ago in the US. So naturally the students sit quietly hoping I won’t call on them. Well, not this bunch! They actually answered questions and laughed at my jokes. I’d run out of time at the end, when I had them break into groups and practice some skills and role play case studies. Even though I kept reminding them to wrap it up, and apologized for going overtime, they kept going for an extra half hour! It was, in the end, the best class I taught here, and one of the most memorable ones I ever taught. 

Not all of my teaching has gone as well. I gave another Continuing Medical Education presentation, and I knew I was going out on a limb with my choice of topic. I wanted to address work stress and motivation, since there have been no other mental health topics presented lately. No one had any questions and when I attempted to lead a guided meditation relaxation exercise, hardly anyone closed their eyes. A Swedish volunteer doctor who was there said it was probably too “western” and not culturally appropriate enough. Probably so.

The week ended with me attempting to run a CPR class which hospital and nursing school staff had asked for, but nobody came (twice!) Again I’m left wondering what it is about cultural differences that I’m clearly missing.


Earlier in the week CMMB celebrated World Water Day by dedicating several new rain water tanks and water supplies to a village hospital and school. About 100 public officials, NGO partners and community health volunteers came for the party. There was also a breast and cervical cancer screening event that I was able to help out with. There were even some trees planted. 



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