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Sierra Leone 2019
Day 17: Networking
For our last full day of fieldwork, we traveled three hours (each way) to Freetown. After nearly three full weeks learning about sickle cell, we felt that we had a pretty good understanding of the current diagnostic and treatment options available, and so our primary goal was a little bit different. With the hope of […]
Day 15: Makeni Government Hospital
After all the clinic visits where healthcare workers told us that they just sent their suspected sickle cell patients to the Makeni hospital, today we finally got to find out what happens next. Although the hospital itself is only located about 10 minutes away from the World Hope headquarters, we weren’t able to visit until […]
Days 12, 13 & 14: Passing the Time with Politics and Pups
Hello world, we’re back. Its been another weekend of planning, market adventures and not going to clinics or hospitals because they are closed. In order to sum up our new market adventures here is a haiku. Haiku: based on the random appearance of the VP caravan of guns vice president drove up, down silent, no […]
Day 11: Sickle Cell in Freetown (but more importantly, chicken)
Today we travelled three and a half hours to Freetown to visit the Aberdeen Women’s Center (AWC), meet with the Sierra Leone Sickle Cell Society (SLSCS), and speak with the manager from Enable the Children. AWC is a NGO-funded, maternity and children’s hospital which provides free care to women and children from the slums of […]
Day 10: More Clinics, but are you surprised?
Today we visited more clinics, but are you surprised? A ten minute drive down the road from the hotel and we arrived in Makamp. We pulled off the side of the road and up to the clinic in the drizzling rain. The nurse in charge, Susan, was on her way into the clinic when we […]
Day 9: “The devil is inside them”
Today we traveled to three different health clinics: Gbendembu Health Center, Mabunduka Health Center, and Mateboi Health Center. All three involved driving along bumpy, unfinished roads for about 1.5 hours. There were also areas where the mud had become so thick (it is currently the rainy season here in Sierra Leone) that we saw trucks […]
Days 7 & 8: Market Meandering
Eid Mubarak! The past two days have been pretty laid back. Sunday was Eid and Monday was the national holiday for Eid. We spent the days exploring the market and the local food within it. Everyone carries everything on their heads. We have tried hard boiled eggs, dried yucatan root balls, empanada looking cakes, kettle […]
Day 6: Exploring with Ebola
Today we went along with the Ebola team as they conducted their survey in Makumbana, a local village. After each interview, we were able to ask the villagers about sickle cell anemia using a translator. Almost every person we asked said that they had never heard of sickle cell. Even when the translator described the […]