CSPS de Dassasgho, Section 28

I spent the better part of today at the maternity of CSPS de Dassasgho, a public hospital of Ouagadougou. It was a pretty calm day, which meant that everyone had all the time in the world to ask me questions about the States. There were a lot of great questions about things people learn via popular hip-hop music videos, such as, "aren't their mothers embarrassed that they wear earings just like a girl?!" Everyone was super nice and they tried to convince me to stay another month and do another internship with them. Below are two of the accoucheuses who were on duty this afternoon, both of whom were very enthusiastic about showing me around. This hospital, though wealthier than Saponé's, is still sparsly equipped. I was happy to note though, that there is soap at every sink and the floors are mopped at least twice a day. Below is a picture of one of the two recovery rooms. Women who did not have any complications during birth are required to stay 48hrs, and then come back in 6 days for a check-up. The recovery room seems large when it's empty like this, but when there are two women recovering, their whole family comes around, and the space is very quickly filled.

Though there were no births today, there were two women in labor, and several prenatals. Everyone was very excited to let me show off what I've learned, and got a kick out of my hesitant Morré. I also had the opportunity to give some injections for malaria during pregnancy, which is a some what complicated process because it is a coctail of three different medications.

Above is my buddy Ada, who hung out with me all day. She is the child of one of the women who cleans the maternity, and her job is mainly to go get things for the accoucheuses. I split my snack with her before I left and she gave me a thumbs up and ran away.

I leave tomorrow on an 11pm flight, so during the day I will be running around do all the last minute things I wanted to do, but haven't yet. I will be sure to write when I get home, perhaps after my permaculture workshop this weekend (and I'll tell you all about it!)