Something about Kigali (II)

Monday at the Hilltop Hotel, Kigali Rwanda started on a very cold note (for me coming from the tropics). I headed out just in time to grab a quick breakfast before heading to our seminar room at exactly 9:00am. By now, almost everyone (including participants and GHA officials) were seated. Later that morning, we would have ODL students from Kenya and another from Uganda arrive for the summer school. 

The day started with a warm welcome from the Summer School organizer, Lisa Wood, who we all later agreed was one of the most organized person in the world!  Afterwards, we all a good time introducing ourselves (all 20-something of us) giving short details on our course of study, area of work, countries and a little bit of fun-facts here and there.

Dr. Liz Grant then gave a welcome speech in which she reiterated the need for a multi-disciplinary one health approach to solving Global health challenges; a core focus of the Global Health Academy, University of Edinburgh. She also discussed the newly established Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which she mentioned as a very core part of our lives as students and health professionals, as we work to make the world a healthier place for all. She also chipped in a short note on her passion/work in Palliative care and gave a brief introduction on Dr Mhiora Leng, our upcoming keynote speaker for the welcome dinner coming up later that evening. Generally, I found Dr. Grant’s speech quite moving and inspiring especially when she got to the topic of Palliative care and medicine. I had never given the subject that much thought until then and at that point, it suddenly became more meaningful and important to me. 

A short coffee break followed and then we had Professor Michael Thrusfield lecture us on some basics in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Of course, this was not the first time any of us had any encounter with Epidemiology and basic statistics but apparently, a good number of us had struggled with it in the past. However, Professor Thrusfield was such a patient and detailed teacher, as he took his time to start from scratch and give us building foundational blocks on Epidemiology and Biostatistics. We had frequent short practice times which were very helpful in applying our understanding of the topics. I met with him after the class for further explanation on some problems I had with the topic and he was indeed obliging.

After lunch (and lots of networking!), the sweet soft-voiced Ms. Marshall Dozier handled an interactive session with us where she spoke on tips and tricks of Literature search as a student of The University of Edinburgh. Ah… we learned so many erstwhile unknown tricks ranging from the use of Mendeley and endnotes to organization of files to accessiing full text of abstracts in journals etc. it was altogether a cohesive and interactive learning experience and Marshall was ever so patient to answer all of our questions.

This ended our session for the day but there we still a social event to later in the evening – the welcome dinner!

The Welcome dinner was one of the Summer School highlights for me. Now, without exactly planning it, Yusuf and I came dressed up in our traditional Nigerian attire. This caused quite a scene and in all modesty, I guess it added some color to the overall social gathering. After the initial networking session, Mhiora Leng was invited to give her speech on Palliative care and medicine. In the speech, she gave us some insights into her work especially in Uganda and around East Africa. She enlightened us on the need to promote Palliative care and institutionalize it in health systems in African communities. She also explained that Palliative care takes into consideration the emotional, spiritual, psychological and socioeconomic factors of health-care especially in cases of terminal illnesses. It was quite impactful and I am sure that everyone who listened had one or two key points to take away. I did.

 Yusuf and I in our ethnic Nigerian attire 

Excerpts from "Auld lang sang "

Picture credits - Charity Waweru

Thereafter, to keep the “party” going, we had song presentations from each table representatives. James Akoko taught us an interesting Kenyan folk song, I presented (after some “sabotaging”) a Yoruba song from my native Nigeria and Mhiora gave a nice rendition of an English song. Thereafter, Mhiora made us form a big circle (“….. like your mother’s cooking pot” - as said from my place in Nigeria) and we sang “Auld Lang Sang” while doing the accompanying Scottish dance. 

Later that evening, I thought, even though I was slightly frustrated with the hotel for their somewhat erratic internet connection and for the hot water tap that kept gushing out cold water, I was still glad to be in the beautiful city, Kigali.

.... Till the next series of #KigaliSummerSchool, Ciao!