First Aid 12/12/16
As some of you may know,
I was forced to relocate to a new town in Ethiopia due to circumstances out of
my control. I have been in my new rain forest-mountain town for a little over a
month now, and, thanks to amazing counterparts and a year of rough ‘n tough
Ethiopian experience under my belt, I have been able to get projects started
right away! I’ve got a stomach full of fresh, Ethiopian coffee (kindly offered
to me by my compound family) and the tangy smell of drying/rotting coffee beans
wafting into my home (it’s coffee harvesting time and the line between drying
and rotting is quite thin). Now seems as good a time as ever to tell you about
my most recent project!
My town is located about
8 hours away from the biggest city in my region. Those 8 hours are hot, mostly
unpaved, nauseating, hot, beautiful, unpredictable, hot, filled with sparsely
located towns, full of interesting conversations, oh, and, hot. Within this
list of fairly subjective adjectives, I’ll be focusing on the “sparsely located
towns.” Some towns can be up to 3 hours apart from each other with absolutely
nothing in between. This presents a problem for emergency situations. For
instance, in my travels throughout Ethiopia, I have witnessed anything from nosebleeds to seizures while on local transportation.
Similar to many people in America, I found that many people here were unaware
of basic first aid practices. As you can imagine, having first aid knowledge
can be especially helpful in those situations when you’re on a bus, 3-4 hours
away from the nearest health care facility. This became the exigency for my
next training- a basic first aid crash course.
At first glance, it
seems as though this kind of training would be pretty straight forward.
However, considering I am a foreigner in this country, I was faced with a huge,
impaling obstacle: culture. For almost all of the first aid topics, there was a
cultural method of resolution. In order to respect and be sensitive to these
sacred cultural practices, I was hesitant to stomp into the training room with
my giant “‘MURICA” hat and tell everyone they were wrong. I combated this
obstacle by working with people in my town.
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| My amazing counterpart and I |
My counterpart for this
project is the physical education teacher at my high school. He was very eager
to take on this training considering first aid is especially related to his
line of work. Together we established the most salient topics to cover: burns,
cuts, nosebleeds, fainting, seizures, sprains/strains and choking. These events
are very common and are often seen weekly, if not, daily. I then did interviews
with several other teachers in order to gain more information about the cultural first response practices. My counterpart and I decided it was best to
only emphasize the cultural practices that would worsen the injury or prevent
recovery. For example, burns are commonly treated with oil or butter in my
community. These substances actually keep in the heat rather
than releasing it. Consequently, this can worsen the injury. In contrast, if
people wanted to say a prayer or drink a certain tea in order to help with the
injuries, we did not counter these practices as long as they preformed the
proper first aid steps beforehand. With the help of Peace Corps resources and
my counterpart’s cultural knowledge, we put together a simple training going
over what causes each injury, what the injury looks like, what the caregiver
should do, and ideas for prevention. Co-facilitating this training in the local
language, with a respected Ethiopian helped to create rapport with our audience
and allowed for us to deliver the information in a way that was not only
educational, but also respectful of the culture.
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| Students preforming dramas to apply their knowledge: cuts |
For this first round, we
had about 30 participants. The training was a huge success! The students were
very engaged and had a lot of questions. They also helped to model the first
aid practices so their peers can see, first hand, what the initial care of each
injury looks like. In order to evaluate the students’ knowledge, we divided
them into groups and assigned each group one of the first aid topics. The
students were instructed to create a drama including the cause for the injury,
the proper first aid practice and advice for preventing the injury in the future.
To my surprise, the students really delve into their acting roles. They scoured
the school compound for props and wailed ever so convincingly when each injury occurred. Their dramas showed both and understanding of basic first aid, as well
as Oscar-worthy acting! One student approached my counterpart and I after the
training to express his appreciation. He said he was a sports instructor in the
community and has seen some of the injuries we covered while at work. He wanted
to share with us that he had learned a lot and was looking forward to
implementing his new found knowledge in his workplace, as needed. My
counterpart and I hope to repeat this training for different groups in the
future. Teachers, students and administrators have all expressed vehement interest!
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| Students preforming dramas to apply their knowledge: nosebleeds |
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| Students preforming dramas to apply their knowledge: sprains/strains |
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| A student explaining to his peers healthy practices that can help prevent fainting |
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| My counterpart reviewing the material for the students |
As I reflect back on
this project, I realize that this experience was an particularly valuable
learning opportunity for me. After Peace Corps, I intend to get a career in the
medical field. Considering the melting pot that is the United States, I’m sure
I will be forced to tread the line between western medicine and cultural
practices quite often. Throughout my Peace Corps journey, I have learned and
will continue to learn more about how incredibly important it is to have
awareness and sensitivity to one’s culture. This will certainly translate well
in my future work as a health care provider.
As always, thank you for
reading! Also, I’d like to send explosive, dancing, colorful thank-yous to all
of the amazing humans who continue to support me as I enter my 19th month of
service in Ethiopia! Galatoomaa!
-Marianna
