This week is just taking in patient medical records and transcribing them into the computer software. Monday was so exciting, it was a long day, we worked from 10am to 7pm seeing patients and me working on the comptuer writing down all their information and making clinic cards. You wouldn't have been able to see the exhaustion on my face though, I was so excited to really get my project done. It was an amazing feeling to take people's blue books and transcribe their medical histories into our comptuers and then hand them a clinic card! I am so thankful everything is working out. So here is how it went yesterday. The doctor and Lyndsi were in the medical clinic. He was treating the patient and Lyndsi was recording what he said on the computer as that patient's intial visit. Then they would get their medicine from the nurse and come over the main office. I was in a room in the office with Moses (orphanage maneger). We saw people one by one. They came in sat down, gave us their blue book if they had one and waited until I finished. It was a slow process, but these people are good at waiting, and for me that is what my project requires so it didn't fase me how long it was taking. Moses translated for me and explained to them that their medical record is now in our computers and that they need to bring that clinic card to every visit at this clinic. We saw about 27 people yesterday and made them cards. Some problems I encountered are as follows. First about half the people had blue books, so the ones with out them I just created them a new medical record in the computer and that will be the begining of their history. Then there were some that had blue books that were written in from front to back! So these people I asked them if they could leave the book with me and I would do all the heavy transcribing later and come back around friday to pick it up again. Everyone agreed to that. Then there were some in which the hand writting of the doctor was illegible so some information we did not take down because you literally couldn't read it. That was pretty much all the issues I came across though.
 
Today was more of the same as yesterday. We started at 10am. Same procoss, they saw the doctor, got their medicine and came to me to get a clinic card and enter their medical record. At first on Monday people were not sure if they wanted to wait around for whatever I was doing, but by today (tuesday) word had spread that i was making clinic cards and that everyone got one with their picture and name on it. The clinic card acted as a lure to get people into the office and get me their medical record! Perfect! So today was not quite as exciting as yesterday, we were all exhausted from the work the day before and it was very hot and lots of people around. Towards the end of the afternoon I was getting really tired, my typing speed and skills were seriously deminishing and I was totally worn out. I'm sure Lyndsi felt the same way seeing as the doctor still can't type very fast, so she has to type every diagnosis and drug he prescribes, for him. Finally at 6pm, the solar power ran out and so we had to quite. It will recharge in time for tomorrow and we will start all over again.
 
Tomorrow I think I won't start taking new records until the afternoon. First we have to let the solar recharge and second I need to finish entering the ones that I kept from the people. We collected about 30 blue books that are packed with medical histories and we have yet to transcribe them into the comptuer becuase it would have taken to long while they were sitting there. So I kept them and they agreed to come back by friday to pick them up. Tomorrow I will spend most of the day entering those into the comptuers. Lyndsi can help with that as well, so it should go faster. I also expect we won't have as many patients as today(tuesday) or monday. Usually monday has the most people, then tuesday pretty close to the same but a few less, then wednesday even less, same with thrusday and by friday there are almost none. So that should give me time to catch up on the ones I am holding captive.

The kids have been missing us and probably wondering why we have been so MIA the last couple days, but it will be an exciting event to see their faces when they are finally holding their first solid proof of identity-complete with picture, birthdate, gender, and address.

Time is passing quickly, but things are great, and busy, and hecktic at times, and still wonderful.