Hi all!
(from Melissa)
Check out my photos from Goma on flickr, including some pictures of our adventures putting up the wireless routers to link the hospital to the learning center (and Internet room and library) across the street.
I'm so incredibly blessed to be here at the end of a very busy three months in Africa. Where
most of the time I'm very occupied by my various research projects and consumed by the need to produce publishable data, here I have the freedom to just do whatever's needed. But more importantly, I'm getting a chance to do what I love as part of my church. It's so exciting to work with everyone on this team, to see another member preach at morning chapel every day, and to see God at work in this place, using our variety of gifts and skills to really serve HEAL Africa and to learn about how we might be able to continue serving in the future. Tomorrow/Sunday we're splitting our resources - our team will be preaching at three different churches after we attend the 7am service at HEAL Africa together.
Internet access is mostly okay - it works best in the mornings and in the late evenings, whereas it pretty much grinds to a halt in the late afternoons. During the day most of us just use the Internet room in the hospital, but for evenings when we are at home, I picked up a wireless modem that uses RwandaTel (a mobile phone company) to provide internet connectivity. (For you technophiles, it uses EVDO over CDMA.) I'm using ad hoc wireless routers from meraki.net to share my Internet connection so everyone else can just connect via WiFi. I'm using the same routers to set up networking for the hospital, and already have a link spanning the ~300 meter (I haven't actually measured it) distance between the Internet/Library room and the hospital. We have about 6 routers with us on this trip, so I could just try it out to make sure it works. To cover the entire hospital, we'll need quite a bit more... (btw if anyone is interested in getting wireless routers for their homes, the meraki routers are quite good and fairly inexpensive - $50 each for the indoor routers).
I spent some time earlier today speaking with Dr. Vindu in the pediatric HIV clinic about electronic medical records and how she wants to use computers in the hospital. Almost immediately she suggested OpenMRS, an open source project in collaboration with Partners in Health and already in use in major projects in Kenya (hi rachel!), as well as the Millenium Village Project in Rwanda. At the close of our conversation I asked her what she thought was her most pressing need for the clinic. I expected her to say something like more doctors, more medicines, or even to ask for more computers and better data management. Instead, she said
the most pressing need was for the families that were caring for the HIV-infected orphans. About 240 of the 360-some children in the clinic are orphans, being cared for by relatives or other community members, who are often quite poor themselves, and cannot afford the school fees (including books, uniforms, and supplies) for the orphans. Indeed they often cannot afford the fees for all of their own children. Not only am I amazed by the selflessness of this request, but also heartbroken that such a basic need is not being filled. Of course there's a whole list of other needs to be filled at this hospital as well... we just have to decide where to start. In the meantime, Naomi's working very hard on a mural to cheer up the children in the clinic.
Okay early church tomorrow and I need to get to bed. Thanks for reading and please keep praying! Pray especially for the teaching at the three churches tomorrow, and for Rebecca, the 7 day old premie in the incubator at HEAL Africa.
Melissa
(from Melissa)
Check out my photos from Goma on flickr, including some pictures of our adventures putting up the wireless routers to link the hospital to the learning center (and Internet room and library) across the street.
I'm so incredibly blessed to be here at the end of a very busy three months in Africa. Where
most of the time I'm very occupied by my various research projects and consumed by the need to produce publishable data, here I have the freedom to just do whatever's needed. But more importantly, I'm getting a chance to do what I love as part of my church. It's so exciting to work with everyone on this team, to see another member preach at morning chapel every day, and to see God at work in this place, using our variety of gifts and skills to really serve HEAL Africa and to learn about how we might be able to continue serving in the future. Tomorrow/Sunday we're splitting our resources - our team will be preaching at three different churches after we attend the 7am service at HEAL Africa together.Internet access is mostly okay - it works best in the mornings and in the late evenings, whereas it pretty much grinds to a halt in the late afternoons. During the day most of us just use the Internet room in the hospital, but for evenings when we are at home, I picked up a wireless modem that uses RwandaTel (a mobile phone company) to provide internet connectivity. (For you technophiles, it uses EVDO over CDMA.) I'm using ad hoc wireless routers from meraki.net to share my Internet connection so everyone else can just connect via WiFi. I'm using the same routers to set up networking for the hospital, and already have a link spanning the ~300 meter (I haven't actually measured it) distance between the Internet/Library room and the hospital. We have about 6 routers with us on this trip, so I could just try it out to make sure it works. To cover the entire hospital, we'll need quite a bit more... (btw if anyone is interested in getting wireless routers for their homes, the meraki routers are quite good and fairly inexpensive - $50 each for the indoor routers).
I spent some time earlier today speaking with Dr. Vindu in the pediatric HIV clinic about electronic medical records and how she wants to use computers in the hospital. Almost immediately she suggested OpenMRS, an open source project in collaboration with Partners in Health and already in use in major projects in Kenya (hi rachel!), as well as the Millenium Village Project in Rwanda. At the close of our conversation I asked her what she thought was her most pressing need for the clinic. I expected her to say something like more doctors, more medicines, or even to ask for more computers and better data management. Instead, she said
the most pressing need was for the families that were caring for the HIV-infected orphans. About 240 of the 360-some children in the clinic are orphans, being cared for by relatives or other community members, who are often quite poor themselves, and cannot afford the school fees (including books, uniforms, and supplies) for the orphans. Indeed they often cannot afford the fees for all of their own children. Not only am I amazed by the selflessness of this request, but also heartbroken that such a basic need is not being filled. Of course there's a whole list of other needs to be filled at this hospital as well... we just have to decide where to start. In the meantime, Naomi's working very hard on a mural to cheer up the children in the clinic.Okay early church tomorrow and I need to get to bed. Thanks for reading and please keep praying! Pray especially for the teaching at the three churches tomorrow, and for Rebecca, the 7 day old premie in the incubator at HEAL Africa.
Melissa
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