The first part of the course was about health and security issues, so people of a queasy disposition got their chance to ask about creepy crawlies and naughty worms. The key learning points seem to be:
- have all your vaccinations and keep them up to date
- keep taking the anti- malarials
- only drink clean boiled water
- don't eat food from street sellers
- sleep under a mosquito net
- don't swim in the lakes
There is a small group of seven going to Rwanda in January and it was great to meet some of them this weekend. It's amazing to find out about the variety of placements available. People go out for 3months, 6 months, 12 months or two years, depending on the type of work that needs doing. My job involves long term change of attitudes and skill development, whereas another volunteer is going out to help some craft workers set up a small business and it needs to be time limited.
It was a busy but fun weekend and strangely enough we were sharing the conference centre with a large group of women and children from all over Africa - it was great to join in their very noisy celebrations and gave us a taste of what is to come.It was weird to think that we were going out to their countries just as they had arrived in ours!! Fantastic
Hello Tricia - Thorp Primary School would like to follow you in your adventures in Rwanda.
ReplyDeletethat is a really good idea from Thorp School, you can either just comment as you have anon, or type thorp school in the 'name' box or if you have a school twitter account then you can login with that i think..x.
ReplyDeleteIt was great meeting you and all the other vso Rwanda volunteers. I had to remind myself when I went into school on Monday that I wasn't the horrid teacher from our role play!
ReplyDeleteDon't swim in lakes: in Rwanda it depends on the lake. Lake Kivu is safe but - officially - Lake Muhazi isn't. However, many volunteers have swum there and some just take the anti-bilharzia medication (one tablet) as a precaution.
ReplyDeleteMalaria tablets: yeah, I took them for almost all of the two years, got a little careless after the first year (I was on doxycycline). Best to stick with them if you don't have side effects. But, if you are on Larium, DO watch out for unusual dreams, hallucinations etc!!! And report them immediately.