Telephone Translation

When I (Michelle) first woke up this morning, I decided I liked waking to the gentle crow of a rooster.  It's a more pleasant sound than the constant beeping or ringtone that I am used to.  However, I quickly realized that roosters don't come with snooze or off buttons and after a half an hour of constant crowing, I changed my mind.  Once I was fully awake thanks to the rooster/barking dogs/goats outside our window, we got up and headed to the university to teach the medical students about electrical stimulation and soft tissue mobilization (aka massage). They seemed to enjoy the leacture and practice time and really got a kick out of making each other involuntarily contract their muscles through the stim machines. After our lecture and lab time was complete, Kristina and I each saw a patient and demonstrated how to complete physical exams.  Kristina lead the students through a low back pain exam, letting a different volunteer complete a different part of the exam they were taught yesterday during lecture.  I taught them how to complete a neurological exam on a woman with stroke.  This was an interesting experience.  She only spoke Hausa, the nearest tribal language, the hausa interpreter didn't speak english, so I gave directions to the French interpreter, who gave instructions to the Hausa interpreter, who then gave directions to our patient.  Needless to say some things got lost in translation.  While conducting a peripheral vision test, I asked the patient to look at my nose and point to which hand was wiggling.  When all was passed through our telephone of translators, she reached up to grab my nose.  Later I asked permission to touch her hips to facilitate weight shifting, when the message reached her she reached over to grab my hips.  She was a very sweet older women and everyone had a good laugh over our antics.

We spent the afternoon at "the mall" (aka market) to see what different artisans were selling.  It was a cool experience and maybe before we leave I'll have enough courage/language skills to negotiate prices for souveneirs I would like to bring home (so get your orders in now).  I ended up getting a wallet to keep my Nigerien money in and a leather map of Niger which artistic decorations.

We ended the day with a rousing game of volleyball.  A visiting friend of the missionaries we are working with is a PE teacher in the states and brought a volleyball net and volleyballs to teach the local kids a new game.  We never were able to communicate the point system so it was actually more like hit the ball over the net and keep it in the air as long as you can. Our team did get down how to rotate positions by the end of it though.  The kids then proceeded to try to teach me words in French, Hausa, and Jarmin another local tribal language.  I don't think I retained any of it, but i promised to bring a pen and paper tomorrow so they can teach me their languages while I teach them English.  It's been a blast to play and hang out with the kids everyday, especially since they love playing soccer as much as I do. Although I've discovered that playing in  skirt adds a whole new challenge to the game.

Tomorrow Betsy and I will be teaching at the university, Kristina and Dr. Carey will spend some time at Hope House, and that's about all I know for the plan tomorrow!  There really isn't a schedule, we're on Africa time, which is one thing that doesn't get lost in translation.

Bon nuit!