It’s raining today! It’s the first time that it’s rained since I’ve been here. I’d forgotten how much I liked the sound of rain, being caught up in all the new-ness everything. The weather since I’ve been here has actually been really fantastic. During the nights and early morning it gets chilly to about.. skiing temperatures, but during the day when the sun’s out, it’s like a chilly spring day. Take a look at this sunset I get to see every day:

So a week’s passed and a lot has happened. We’ve been demonstrating the technologies to various doctors and nurses, getting a TON of feedback, and learning so much from the hospital. I’m pretty surprised, but we’ve actually made a lot of progress. Before we came, people get warning us not to get frustrated because people here tend to resist change and it would take us a while to win them over. But it turns out the doctors, and even many of the nurses, have been really receptive and enthusiastic. Even if you have a suspicion that something might not be useful, they’re still polite and let us explain the whole device and just want everything/anything you’ll give them. Even when Andrea and I determined that our device probably wasn’t going to be useful, they still insisted that they keep it. When we came back at the end of the day, they’d recorded that they’d used it 5 times, but in the end, thought their way was simpler, and gave us great feedback. As always, most everyone’s full of smiles and nods. It actually makes it more difficult to tell if they actually understand what you’re talking about, haha.

So highlight of the week: I was showing M’e Matsebo (head nurse in the lab) about the dosing clips (read more in the technology section), and as she was studying it with a face impossible to read, she says “Hmmm, maybe this will be useful for her (pointing at another nurse), she takes the blood.” And Andrea and I are kind of thinking “… What? Blood? These syringes aren’t sterilized.” And she runs off for a second and comes back with a syringe, takes the clip from my hand and snaps it in. And as she pulls back the plunger to exactly 3mL, just like it’s supposed to, her whole face lights up and she does this huge grin, scrunching up her face, sticking out her tongue at us. Best. Moment. Ever.

She explains that when they take blood samples, they always take 3mL or 4mL, so the dosing clips will work perfectly. She won’t even let me put them back together for her and wants to do it herself.

It was so great. So awesome.