Outreach

Outreach basically consists of going to people's homes and checking up on them etc. We drove to a nearby village to test 2 children for HIV. The mother knew we were coming and "went to go get firewood"...for about 6 hours. Just trying to avoid us because we cannot test the children without her permission. They lived in the traditional circle huts made of mud with a thatched roof. There was nothing inside the hut other than a few scattered items like a shoe, bowl, etc. There was a small cooking area outside that consisted of a fire pit and a few grilling pieces. The next house was a plaster house with only one room and of course no indoor plumbing/electricity. An older sister and brother stayed there and took care of their younger siblings. However, the older sibs were unemployed and unwilling to look for work, which means their younger sibs are on Food Basket and government programs which barely provide enough for basic dietary requirements. (and absolutely no veggies - scurvy crossed my mind) We were checking on her little sister who was taking her TB medication and recovering from malnutrition. She actually looked pretty good today. Stunted growth of course, but no signs of overt deficiency now. She also had speech delay, but you can add speech therapy to the list of things you can't get in Botswana. Next we went to a daycare and a local clinic to see if anyone needed us. There is a large group of orphans coming to the daycare next week that they will arrange to meet and test if they want. Another group of kids really needed a PPD, but we don't have them. Hopefully tomorrow we can get some from a local clinic and go test these kids. I'm so sure the younger brother has TB, I don't know if I even want one. :-) We went to the last house on our list to check if a recently diagnosed mother had taken her kids to get treated at the local HIV clinic. Of course not. We had a long chat about the importance of treatment blah blah blah. If she doesn't show up in clinic tomorrow, we are going to find her. I am going to try and do outreach again tomorrow. So far I have enjoyed it the most out of all the things we have done. Hopefully, tomorrow we are going to meet a group of kids for testing.

We have also been working on a presentation for journal club tomorrow. My brain is fried thinking of maximal likelihood analysis and phylogenetic trees. I can't wait until that is over. I never want to hear the words "phylogenetic tree" again.