scintillement and stars
On Thursday and Friday, Kelly and I began teaching in the classes. We decided to combine the hand washing lesson and song with a more interactive demonstration using glitter to represent germs.
Before we met with the 4th graders, we discussed the lesson with our translator. I was worried at first about not being able to fully convey the purpose of the lesson to him, but he caught on quickly. There was definitely a light bulb moment when he understood how students shaking hands with other students who have glitter on their hands represents germ transmission.
The 4th grade class was very receptive to our lesson! Our translator is a natural in front of a classroom, and he even elaborated on our main points and asked the students, “Do you understand?” several times. We explained that germs are small and we can’t see them, and that they make us sick, but we can get rid of them by washing our hands with soap and water (I can still hear the French and Creole words in my head … Freole?).
Kelly and I pretended to cough and sneeze to show that we were “sick,” sprinkled glitter on our hands, and held our hands up to show the “germs” to the class (the French word for glitter, scintillement, sounds like you’re sneezing when you say it anyway—hooray for onomatopoeias!). We walked around the classroom, shaking hands with the students (on Friday, we picked two students to do this instead of us, to involve as many students as possible), and then we asked them to hold up their hands to see who else got the “germs.”
We then demonstrated proper hand washing technique and walked around the classroom with a basin of water and soap so they could each wash the glitter off their hands. The first graders had a little less hand-eye coordination, so my arms and legs were also washed 🙂
All of the grades remembered the hand washing song that Tiffany and Meagan taught last year, and I thought the song was a great way for the students to associate Kelly and me with last year’s interns.
When we asked, “When should you wash your hands?” and “Why should you wash your hands?,” I noticed that the students are used to answering in unison, not raising their hand and being called on individually. In the 5th grade class on Friday, we tried to convey to our translator to call on one student to answer the question, but he picked random students to answer, rather than asking for volunteers to answer the question. While this method may keep the students on their toes and paying attention, we don’t want to create a fearful or negative learning environment.
So we have several cultural barriers to overcome, not only with the students but with the translator as well. Overall, though, I was very happy with the lessons so far, and now I have a better sense of the students’ level of understanding and how they tend to learn.
Between the 4th and 2nd grade lessons, we met briefly with the teachers and discussed what science/health material their students have or haven’t covered. While we gained some useful information, the purpose of the meeting was more to show the teachers that we don’t want to push our lessons on their students, but rather work with them and improve the material they’re already teaching.
In the afternoon, we went over to the clinic (which can be seen from the school) and met with Nadia, the dentist, and Dr. Lucien.
We demonstrated the Diagnostic Lab-in-a-Backpack, including how to charge the centrifuge, microscope, and battery charger for the otoscope and ophthalmoscope batteries with the lithium ion battery, solar panel, or wall outlet. They were especially impressed with the various charging options, as the clinic only recently got power. We also demonstrated the pulse oximeter and glucometer. One of the technicians pointed out that they quickly run out of the glucometer test strips, and I explained that reusable test strips were in development at Rice.
The most exciting part of the day for me was demonstrating the ophthalmology pack to Dr. Lucien. While the pack is still very much in development, it was great to finally show the results of two semesters’ worth of work!
For those of you who have not followed every iteration of the pack’s design (comparable to watching a tennis ball during a tennis match… head-spinning and nearly impossible!), the pack is currently intended for mobile ophthalmic diagnostic applications. Basically, an ophthalmologist can take the pack to rural, outlying areas, seek out patients in need of eye care, diagnose their condition, and refer them to the clinic for further, possibly surgical, treatment. The pack includes a portable indirect ophthalmoscope, a portable slit lamp, loupes, a condensing lens, vision charts, eye patches, syringes, needles, and various medications.
Because glaucoma is highly prevalent, even in young people, in Terrier Rouge, a tonometer is also needed to measure the intraocular eye pressure, but the version we originally ordered is more time-consuming than automated versions, so we chose to omit a tonometer for now.
Dr. Lucien told us about the surgeries she and Dr. Brown, an ophthalmologist from South Carolina who has extensive experience working in developing countries, performed a few weeks ago, and I could see how passionate she is about her work here. When they first began to seek out patients, she wasn’t sure how long it would take to find someone they could treat, but she almost immediately came across a man standing under a tree who had clouded lenses. His pupils responded to light, which indicated that he wasn’t permanently blind but had treatable cataract! She said that they spent a week finding and diagnosing patients, and another week performing over 40 surgeries! I can’t wait to see (ha ha) where our work with Dr. Lucien takes us this summer.
On Friday, we demonstrated the Community Health worker backpack to Dr. Gustav, the GP of the clinic. We were told that some of the components were too advanced for the clinic’s “agent sante” (health agent/worker), but we explained that the feedback forms will help us improve the backpack. I think one of the most challenging parts of demonstrating the 3 backpacks was to accurately convey that they are in development, and that we anticipate and need both positive and negative feedback and suggestions for improvement.
So that’s mainly what I’ve been up to for the past few days. Kelly and I also began Creole lessons with a local high schooler, Lanaud, who befriended the interns last year and is quickly becoming our friend and unofficial translator as well. I emailed him a few times this past spring, and seeing my email address written in the front of his Creole book put a smile on my face 🙂
In other news, the electricity was on and off all last evening (Kelly and I were joking that because we left the fan on all afternoon, we used up all of the electricity stored in the solar panels… our bad!), but on the plus side, we got to see the stars in their full glory.