Sometimes a little politics over dinner is ok

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Tonight the Browns had a group of interns over for dinner. It was really nice to spend time with them outside of work. 4 of them are Namibian and Oshiwambo and the other one is from Zimbabwe. We learned about their culture and a little bit about their childhoods. Most of them went to medical school in South Africa where English is the national language, but one of the Namibians went to school in Russia where school is taught in russian (which if you'll recall has an entirely different alphabet) We talked about how hard that was for her and about how in her 7 years of schooling she was only able to come home twice. Can you imagine learning medicine in a foreign language (and alphabet!!)

They talked about the corruption in Namibia and Africa as a whole and about how in most countries here disagreeing with the ruling political party can get you killed. It was interesting to hear their views of the US as well. We compared experiences with different rotations in medical school and our relationships with the nurses and found there are many similarities. We also discussed how the Namibian ministry of health wants to transition from the passports (the little medical record books that everyone is supposed to carry around) to a linked electronic medical record. While this sounds like a good idea in theory, the interns astutely noted that sometimes they don't have oxygen or running water in the hospital so maybe they should focus on that before spending the money on computers. Also, they told us about how there are feeding programs for people with HIV and sometimes TB but families who are healthy but just too poor to buy food have very few aid programs available to them. One of the interns relayed a story about a young man who was upset when his HIV test was negative because he was hoping to be able to get his family into one of the programs that provide food to people with HIV.

Betty, our friend from Zimbabwe told us about how a few years ago the country had an economic crisis and a shortage of currency leading to hyperinflation. At that time they had 50 billion dollar bills and even a loaf of bread cost about 10 of those bills. She joked that you needed a wheelbarrow to bring enough money to go grocery shopping. It was really fun to spend time with them outside of work and get to know a little bit more about them. Next week another group of interns will be coming for dinner and we are really looking forward to it!

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