I have now been going...

... to the Chikumbuso Community school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Monday I began the health checks on the children starting with grade 1. There is a Zambian nurse working with me and she has been very helpful. She graduated from nursing school here in Lusaka in 2002. She and I did 37 health checks on Monday and 40 on Wednesday. She is working with me for a 2 hr period and it has been going well so far. The children have mainly been healthy and if one is displaying signs of an infection or needs medical care, each has a registered health card. With this health card, we send a note home to their parent/grandmother/aunt requesting that they take them to the compound clinic as soon as possible. The school is located within a compound and it is in a different part of the city called N'gombe. (Last year I was in Messisi and John Lane compounds)

Mainly the ones who have been ill have had ear infections, rashes and burns. I have been cleaning lots of minor scrapes and cuts with the first aid supplies that were sent by some group. From all these supplies there were gloves, band aids, antibiotic ointment, gauze, wrapping gauze/kerlex and cotton balls. All of it has helped with the minor scrapes and such..... plus, I divided them up to make first aid kits that will go to some of the women in the community.

I have been also helping the widows by knotting the plastic bags that they use as 'thread' while making the handbags. There are so many colors and they use 1 crochet needle to knot them and create them. Then, they sell them to various people and it creates a reasonable income. An income greater than having nothing due to their husband's death and then what was happening before was they and their children were in dire need of food. My contact here is Linda Wilkinson who has helped organize and teach these women how to make and sell the bags. She told me the story of how it all began 2 years ago with 8 women and now it has grown into 40 women. Plus, through her efforts and aid, they have been able to change a brothel and bar into this wonderful school with teachers and over 400 children. Pretty amazing!

This post was written by Sabrina, a doctoral nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's resident registered nurse.