Hey hey hey, here’s another bit of chicken scratch as one of my friends calls my beautifully awful handwriting…
Funniest things from the week
Me: I’ve got to go soon. Thought the match was meant to statt at 9am and it’s almost 10 now.
Jim: What time is it?
Me: 9.55
Jim: So it’s still 9.
When giving a poster for International Stammering Awareness Day to a new local establishment run by the local representative I was asked if I got permission from the government for giving out info…. My reply: “errrrr, no” . . “You could get arrested you know…. (cue awkward silence) … but I’ll cover for you this time”
Was told that a few weeks ago at the meeting in Uganda as I was busy shovelling food down at lunchtime a lady opposite me told a colleague: “I like him… He eats like a Kenyan man”.
Last Sunday when having a kick-about at half-time during a tournament I was goaded into having a pop at goal. Struck it beautifully, came off the underside of the bar and the makeshift goal proceeded to collapse in comedy-like fashion: bar came crashing down, then the right post flopped down and the left followed suit.
Twice now there has been some odd kinda witchcraft like chanting just outside my house at stupid o’clock in the morning… Very tempted to grab a look but probably not the best idea as 1. The front gate gets padlocked at night (fire safety hazard woo-hoo) and 2. They may be chanting about me.
Picked up a huge snail (about the length of my tiny girl-like palms) for a photo. It proceeded to pee/slime everywhere.
Monday - School canvassing
After a lovely morning at the hospital seeing some clients new and old I spent the afternoon trooping around some of the major schools in Kisumu explaining what I do, giving information regarding Saturday’s stammering awareness event and encouraging the principals as much as I possibly could to pass on the information to relevant pupils and parents and all staff. The response I got was very mixed, which in my humble opinion is pretty representative of that seen in the majority of teachers/school staff. One principal looked like he hadn’t been to sleep in 3 days and would rather have been having his fingernails pulled out than listen to my speil, whereas 2 principals in particular were incredibly lovely and receptive, asking questions regarding my work and immediately flagging up a few students/families who they will contact. Come Saturday, students from both of these schools turned-up :)
Tuesday - Home visit
My first proper home visit was today and it is hopefully going to be a sign of things to come as I have started to clear by Tuesday’s for home/school observation purposes (previously Tuesday was a mish-mash day and as home visits are not as efficient time and money-wise as school visits I hardly had any). One of the reasons for this home visit is that the parent has been looking for a SLT for a long-time, she is extremely passionate, receptive and motivated for her child (age 5) and is also the head of the parents committee at Disciples of Mercy School where I will be doing some training in the next month. On a slightly selfish note, it is also really nice to be able to see a child on a regular basis and work across environments on specific short-term and long-term goals.
This first visit was explained to the mum as an observation to get to know the child better (the referral information/diagnosis merely says “intellectualy challenged” , see how he plays with mum and sister (if there is opportunity to play in the house) and to do an informal assessment of his receptive and productive communication ability. Like many of the kids I see the child has fairly significant sensory issues and during the hour or so I was at the house he only sat/stood still for a maximum of 30 seconds or so and each of these longer periods were due to noises outside the window which he had to go and see/hear/explore. One of the major discoveries from the session was the child’s receptive language skills (I.e: understanding of spoken language) were far below that reported by the mother. It can be a little difficult at times to explain things like this to family, especially when she believes he understands basic commands and many basic words but when observed, non-verbal cues (such as following others actions, understanding through gesture) was how the child was understanding and a basic assessment showed his understanding of basic nouns was the equivalent of guessing. In addition to this I also breached the subject of potentially using a non-verbal means of communication for her child. At his age, with good tongue movement, an encouraging motivating environment but still very little spoken language (only screaming/crying/open vowel sounds and mama, baba and tuk-tuk - but the words are not used for any particular purpose/intent) plus a good set of non-verbal communication skills (both understanding and use of gesture, facial expresion, passing and taking objects) a non-verbal way of communicating is likely the way forward. Considering the amount of information I gave mum, strategies for her to use of the coming week and the possible emotional distress of the news given (early in the session she said “I can’t wait to hear my baby speak”) she was incredibly understanding of everything and extremely thankful for the service I am providing. Again, like other times I always feel really quite humbled and embarrassed considering the amount of time and effort she has spent raising her son in an environment with likely little support or information and yet she is praising me for doing something I’ve been trained for and have come out here to do as a job… Maybe I’m just bad at taken compliments but still find it weird to be thanked for stuff!
Wednesday - Supervision!
My supervisor/best friend in Kenya (!) came to clinic to observe my work to make sure I wasn’t doing anything horrendously badly. It was also an opportunity for me to continue my ongoing training in oro-motor exercises as a lot of children I see require this to increase stability, movement and control of the jaw, lips and ultimately tongue and having Rachael down allowed for me to see her giving advice to parents. Afterwards we went through the day with some lovely positive feedback J and some things to improve on which is lovely to know when out here on my own most of the time! We also went through the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists Competencies which is something expected to complete afterr graduating within a year of your first job. As Rachael is RCSLT qualified and has the experience, I’m lucky enough that if she thinks I have the competency of certain points in the guidelines (there are loads!) they can be signed off whilst I am out here working. All require evidence and some simply aren’t possible due to the work I’m doing here but the good news is I have already has 2 signed off! Woooo hooooo! We also discussed some of the others I hope to achieve once Rachael sees more of my work and I can provide solid evidence to the RCSLT. A lovely day finished off with a lovely drink :)
Thursday - Prep for Saturday, Ultimate
Today was all about prepping for Saturday so I won’t bore you about making things and how great I’ve become at using a photocopier. In the afternoon I met up with some fellow mzungus to play a bit of ultimate (a cross between netball and american football played with a Frisbee. I’ve just read that back and it sounds both mental and a pretty bad explanation of the game but as I type away without deleting stuff it’s staying in!). Was real nice to meet a few new folks and have a bit of a stretch out of the legs - will hopefully be playing weekly and seeing some of these guys regularly (the main man with the discs has a birthday tomorrow evening that I’ve been invited to).
Friday and Saturday - Drinking, walking and stammering.
Finally the weekend has come around and Friday evening myself, Leigh (my newish neighbour / person who will get bored of seeing me in approximately 3 weeks), 2 of her mates and Rachael all went out for a buffet-tastic Indian where we joined up with a couple of the guys from Ultimate and their friends. Following eating until I felt almost ill we headed to Josh’s (American Frisbee throwing birthday boy). 60” T.V plus Rock Band and beers = where am I cos it’s not Kenya. A palace of a house which is nicer than any I have ever been in anywhere in the world filled with a nice gathering of mzungus was a bit weird but the homebrewed beer, passion fruit vodka and home-baked cupcakes and pies made me relax a wee bit! Got home at 2am before dashing through some sleep and waking before 7am for a cancer charity/awareness walk which I roped the aforementioned group of folks who I went to the Indian with along to. Arrived on time as wanted to get cracking, head home for food, shower and stuff before zooming across town for the stammering event. Don’t even know why I thought it might kick-off on time cos nothing does here… the guest of honour arrived an hour and a half late so we picked up a massive sweat whilst doing an extended warm up with a crazy mr motivator type (non brits - look him up) and the ever increasing hotness of Mr.sun. Luckily the walk itself was only about 6 km I reckon rather than the “10km” it was meant to be so had plenty of time to get home, sorted and worried about the stammering event!
Special thanks go to Leigh, Rachael and Stella who came to help out at the stammering event aswell as Josh, Jen and Sam who came to learn a bit about stammering and entertain the kids J So with these guys at my back the event went well with about 60 adults and children turning up to collect information (which I encouraged them to read on the spot so they could ask speech therapists any questions whilst there), come to brief presentations I did on stammering and listen to a few adult stammerers speak of their experiences. The adult stammerers were the big hit of the day with their presence provoking a lot of questions and discussions which was great as it is so important for the kids, parents and teachers (though was a little disappointed with the turnout of this group of people from Joel Omino School itself :( ) to see that stammering should not affect your ability to get through school, get a good job, get married and do all the other mundane things we achieve before passing into the next life! The people who came heard about the event through different means including some who heard about it on the radio (!), but the thing that probably made me smile most, bar some lovely feedback from folks, was approximately 20 children from a school I visited coming by school bus, half of which were stammerers and half of which wanted to know more. It’s always nice to know some of the people you chat to are this receptive and motivated to take on board the information I gave out, encourage their students to come along and provide transport. Fan-blooming-tastic! :)
And on that smiley note I’m off! As mentioned apologies for lack of photos (for the moment) and I hope no-one is being driven nuts by early Christmas paraphernalia and songs on the radio yet.
J xxx
For more information on the teeny speech and language charity I’m working under please check out: http://www.yellowhousechildrens.org/
Top 3 Itunes songs on shuffle whilst writing this:
1. Dashboard - Modest Mouse
2. I won’t back down - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
3. Sunrise, Sunset- Bright Eyes
No comments:
Post a Comment