Experiencing Clinic Day

On the first and last Wednesday of each month, the MCH (mother-child-health) centre in Usolonga hosts “clinic day”, where children under the age of five are brought in to be weighed and have their health cards updated. Vaccinations are given to those who require them, and children who are severely underweight are referred to the doctor. It so happened that our second day in the village fell on clinic day. Jen and I weren’t too sure what we were going to do, but we’re told that it would be a good idea to show up and help out where needed –thankfully we were also told to expect mad chaos.
If I only had the words to accurately describe the way I felt that Wednesday morning! We had been told that clinic started at 8:30am, so being the keeners that we are we showed up at 8:15 –only to find that the ‘waiting room’ (which is basically an outdoor courtyard) had already began to fill with mothers and their children. I was very surprised to see so many mothers “on time”, but in true Tanzanian fashion, things didn’t get rolling until almost 10:00am! Seeing as this was our first big event in the village, it would be an understatement to say that we were noticed! From the moment we walked into the courtyard curious mothers and small children instantly surrounded us. Some of the children started crying when they saw us, for a majority of them we were the first white people they had ever come in contact with! (I kept telling myself that this was why they were frightened, that it wasn’t per se us they were scared of….) Most of the mothers found humor in this and proceeded to force their screaming child in our direction to see what their reaction would be! While we waited for the health representatives to arrive and get things started, we tried our best to communicate with the waiting mothers; there were approximately 200 in all! We weren’t able to say much, besides our names, where we were from and what we were doing there. Most women were very welcoming and understanding of our limited Swahili. Just before 10:00am, the health reps showed up but didn’t think it necessary to start right away, nor to introduce themselves –finally, after twenty minutes of waiting I entered the ‘weighing’ room and attempted to introduce myself…luckily Stella, the nurse came to my rescue and facilitated proper introductions. When asked what time things would get underway, we were informed that they were just waiting for us to start teaching! After clearing up the miscommunication and explaining to them that we were only there to help out, they finally got things started! For the next three hours we assisted in the weighing, recording and charting of nearly 200 children! Needless to say, by the end of ‘clinic’ day we had had our fill of cute African babies!