Walk to the local health clinic

Patients waiting at the Save health center

This morning I walked to the near by health center in Save with Sister Lousia.  She is the animatrice, a french word that I don’t think has much meaning to most Americans or those who haven’t attended boarding school.  The animatrice is essentially in charge of the students during every non-classroom minute.  She makes sure that they rise on time, do their home work, eat their meals, do the laundry, handles discipline problems and takes them to the health center or hospital when they are sick, which as every parent knows is frequently in the middle of the night.  Suffice it to say that her days are long.   Because the student body at Immaculate Conception High School is over 600, she has four assistants.

School just started a few days ago and therefore Sister Lousia needed to go to the clinic to make sure that all the students’ health records and insurance cards were in order.  She graciously let me tag along.  We met Sister Berta who is the pharmacist at the Save health clinic along the way.  The Benebikira staff many of the health centers across Rwanda.  Sister Berta told me that the most common thing that brought people to the clinic here in Save is malaria.

Sister Berta in the pharmacy storeroom at Save health clinic