Sim Centre Opening: Zero Pain and ice cream

More from Mary:

We had a beautiful 3 hour drive across Southwest Rwanda to Butare where the conference took place. We were pleasantly surprised that our accommodation at the Maison Sifa was situated on a hillside with an incredible view and was within a 10-minute walk to the conference venue. The word “walk” does not do the experience justice. It was a walk through gardens and sunflower fields with European style stone walls covered with flowers and cobblestone streets with birds singing all around and yes this was in the middle of deepest Africa, not that far from the origin of the Nile which Chris, Stephen and Jon may find this coming weekend.

Our first stop after we checked in to our Mansion (whoops did I say Mansion, I meant to say Maison) was to have lunch at one of Patty’s favorite spots the Inzozi Nziza, a cooperative run by women. Here we met up with Dave who had been on site for a week helping to get things organized. “Lunch” does not capture the experience. We ordered Tacos with avocados (some with egg). What we received were full plate sized scrumptious, thick, slightly crusty crepes with super tasty avocado filling spilling out onto the plate, just straight up slightly salted avocado mashup. Rwandan avocados are the best!

After lunch we headed to CHUB (“Say-ash-u-bay”) the University teaching hospital of Butare. Here we met Wilson who took us to the pediatrics and general surgery wards and showed us the measures of pain posters on the walls of these units. They included the faces of pain scales along with further detail in a very user-friendly format. Most importantly these posters were prominently displayed and are guiding practice.

Dave then led us to the potential site of a future Sim Center to be located at CHUB. En route we were entertained by a very playful group of monkeys. Of course us Mzungus all stopped to take photos. The possible site for the Sim Center has definite potential. After our tour we all agreed an ice cream stop back at Inzozi Nziza was needed. After some coffee ice cream with cookies crumbled on top (for photo of this delicious treat see Patty’s earlier blog entry) several of us went to the museum to learn about the history of Rwandan culture, farming and beekeeping, housing and traditions. I was amazed to see how the bee hives actually look like long skinny baskets, hung in a sideways fashion. Rwandan honey is excellent, it is slightly darker and thicker and more flavorful than Canadian honey. I have been testing a lot of it.