Mulago Hospital, Kampala Uganda

So after networking for a week and doing things Pole Pole (slowly slowly) African style, I get us into Mulago Hospital- the national hospital of Uganda. We enter right into the heart of the beast- infectious disease ward.
There are not rooms. One big room with beds lined up. If there isn't a bed, your family buys you a mattress to sleep on. There are 2 nurses and 2 student nurses to 75 patients. Because of this, your family comes and stays with you. It's required really- if there isnt anyone, the nurse will ask "where are your attendents?". Your family buys you all your medical supplies from a store, all your drugs from a pharmacy, all your food from home, all your bedding from home, your clothing, your diapers, your bucket to puke in. Provided by the hospital is: bed if lucky, IV fluids - which were not available today ("we will probably loose a few to dehydration today" a doc says casually at lunch) , and IVs... oh and medical tape. The nursing team starts at 10am and begins administering medications to all the patients. This continues till 4pm. Family does bed baths, walks you to the bathroom, ties you to the bed when you are thrashing, etc.. The nurse only has time for meds and if you die. I started my shift with wrapping a body and ended it with wrapping a body.
"Come someone has died" he says with a smile on his face. I walk into the room to find a man lying on the floor in all his clothes: pulseless, cold, pupils fixed and dilated. Everyone- family members and patients- are just watching me as I wrap the man in a sheet and find some people to carry him to the "treatment room". No one is sad, no one is scared, no one even cares.... in fact someone cracks a joke.
Medication Administration:
There is a sheet at the end of the bed where the doctor writes what should be prescribed. The family takes the sheet to the pharmacy. The nurse takes the medications from the family and administers them and writes it down on the paper. I administered meds all day and I don't actually know what were any of the diseases I was treating.
I thought we would just be a nuisance but the nurses welcomed us. Just started telling us what to do. In nursing, your senior knows more- just listen to them. At Mulago- they were so nice, never judging our qualifications, just teaching us what they do so that we can help. I understand- because they need it. I taught how to properly drop NG tubes today and they listened... weren't annoyed with me at all. At the end of the day they said "thank you" all smiles....
In the midst of all the problems there are here, there are some things I would like to learn from Africa:
-how to laugh when you are scared
-how to laugh when you are mad
-how to laugh when everything is shit
-how to be patient
-how to be quiet when you don't trust a situation
-how go pole pole and hakuna matata
-how to drive a boda boda