The headteacher welcomed us on our arrival and we headed to where we would stay for the next few nights. sharing with my Shar again was great, such fun company. It was Alinanes birthday, which she kept very quiet about . Myself and Shar felt we should do something so we made a card and brought it round for everyone to write a personal message on and we were to present it at dinner time. At dinner time after we had had our yummy rice and beans we presented it and alinane was shocked and happy, it was a lovely experience, alinane works so hard to she her smile at our card was lovely.
Our challenge for the week at Embangweni was to test all 180 children (who have currently 10 teachers) , fit those who need to be fitted and train the teachers in appropriate audio topics. As this time we had everyone at the school (bar peter and occasionally ingrid and courtney going to the hospital for ear care) rather than half at school half at hospital in karonga. Each morning we had devotions where the whole school would get together at 7.30AM. It interesting to see and a privage to be a part of, there we hymns, talks and bell ringing (by colour due to deafness, children rang there colour when stated on the sheet in turn)
More planning was needed especially with more children to cover. We initially set up one room for wax removal/ otoscopy and tymps another room for 3 audio testing stations and a room for fitting HAs. After the first day finding this got hectic and hold ups appeared at stations it was organised better the next day at an evening discussion over dinner and it was all based in one room. It was good to debrief at the end of the day to help make the next day better. The second day I got to work with Courtney and fix up the child with hearing aids I really enjoyed this as hadnt got a chance to do this yet.
This was our fitting room very chaotic and when running low on supplies we were doing multiple at a time. I made near 60 impressions that day. The plan was each child would have a temporary mould made so the HA could be fitted straight away ( this was new to me learning to make , pour hole in, trim and attach temp moulds) and permanent moulds that would be taken back to the US and then sent back to them (each childs mould was bagged and named) . This was my favourite day in embangweni because you could see the benefits of the children once they were fitted. the ABC students were great in assisting and helping councelling the children.  |
| patricia counselling one of the students |
Testing the children continued through to day 11. The day 12 we had alot to plan for we had fitted 70 HAs altogether which was great but we needed to make sure they would be maintained and looked after otherwise it would be like a "HA dump (hearing aids just programmed up with little info and no follow up) which we were vastly trying to avoid.
The plan
- that each dorm mother for each dorm of children would have a box with whos HAs need to be kept in there at night.
- Each teacher would have a list to who should have their HA in
- Training sessions to be given in ear care- observing infections as a number of children had foreign bodies and cotton wool deep in their ear canal ( so training to avoid this)
- Training session in HA care for teachers and dorm mothers.
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| refreshing the headteacher of the school on BSL ( they use more ASL and malawi signs.) while making teachers listening devices to check the HAs( will be sent out with the permanent moulds) |
By the end of day12 we had tested all 180 children, some parents and a family who had travelled from zambia. Fitted 70 hearing aids, councelled and have 70 perrmanent moulds to be sent back to the US. Trainning to staff at the school and fingers crossed for contiuned care. Peter said they will visit embangweni but wont be able to do so as much as karonga.
Hearing aidsssss! :) 
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