Dembe’s Persona
Dembe is a nurse working in the only medical clinic in Kamuli with emergency medicine capacities. The clinic is a level IV centre and is affiliated with Rubaga, the Kamuli Mission Hospital. She is expected to work in several different areas of the clinic, but prefers and feels some expertise in the area of pediatric nursing. She finds her work with children with HIV/AIDS particularly rewarding.
She has wanted to be a nurse since ever since she was young child, when both her mother and father were diagnosed with AIDS. Her father died when she was eight, and her mother died when she entered nursing school directly after secondary school. She is 27 years old and has been a nurse for 5 years. She still feels enthusiastic about her job and is happy that she is able to make a difference in people’s lives, the way one sympathetic nurse made a difference in hers. She is sharp and quick to make decisions, and has a soft and caring bedside manner that her colleagues admire. She is dedicated to reducing the high incidence of infant mortality in Kamuli and is eager to share her knowledge with the young mothers and the children in her care. She has been having a particularly difficult time convincing the women to come to the clinic for regular prenatal care and to deliver their babies rather than delivering at home; it’s almost as if they don’t consider themselves “real women” unless they can push the baby out on their own. She remembers feeling the same way at some point but now understands the dangers, especially when the labor is complicated.
She has two children, Kizza, who is 3 years old, and Kwame, who is 5 months. She is very busy. When she is not at work she takes care of her children and her husband, David. Her children are in the care of her mother’s sister while she is working. Her husband works hard at a remote factory in Jinja and is often away from home due to long working hours and the travel time (Jinja is a little more than one hour away from where they live).
Dembe’s energy and alertness at work belies the fatigue she feels when her workday is done. Only her family sees how tired she really is from her responsibilities at home and the pace she keeps at work. She often has to be away from them for days at a time when she travels to some of the rural clinics. In fact, next week, she is scheduled to spend four nights on Bavuma, an island on Lake Victoria where there is no permanent medical clinic. The last time she was there, she and her colleagues must have easily seen 1000 patients. Those visits are particularly difficult for her because there isn’t enough time to carefully examine anyone. She has to use her instincts to quickly determine what is wrong with each patient and dispense the necessary tablets. People refuse to leave without some medicine – many had traveled far and placed great faith in the healing power of medicine. If she sent them away without a prescription, they would just join the line again and hope to get someone else who would prescribe something.
Dembe is known for her cautious manner, and likes to be well prepared before tackling new or challenging activities. When she has a question at work, her first impulse is to ask Mussa, the supervising nurse with whom she is very close. Mussa has more than 20 years experience and is a valued resource in the community. On rare occasions, Mussa will direct her to the manuals to find the answers she is looking for, but this is not Dembe’s first choice for finding information. She finds the manuals somewhat removed from reality, frequently out of date, and cumbersome to use. Dembe feels similarly about technology, and has a hard time using computers. Although she is getting better at checking email and keeping in touch with her relatives in Mbarara, she doesn’t feel comfortable using the computer for anything else. She knows she needs to become more familiar with the technology if she is going to continue to excel at her job.
She enjoys the role her clinic plays in the community and the interaction she has with her neighbors as a result of her work there. She wishes she had more time to visit with her friends, however, but social time is nearly impossible with such a busy home and work schedule.
Dembe Scenario
Dembe is coming to the telecentre to improve her computer skills and for continuing medical education. She has been told by Dr. Titus, the medical superintendent who runs the clinic, that she needs to get the newborn care and best practices certification. Although this is an area in which Dembe feels very knowledgeable, she acknowledges that this is a hurdle she has to overcome before she can move forward in her nursing career. She has stopped by telecentre on two other occasions, once to find the address of the ministry of health to send in her exam work and evaluations, and another time to look up images of a rash that her child had but Dembe did not recognize. She was unable to find the images she was looking for.
Dembe learned about a certification course three days ago at the clinic where she works and arranged for her aunt to sit with her children an extra three hours so that she could participate. She is tired from working all day but is willing to try to make the best of the experience. Dembe’s previous experience at the University Teaching Hospital in Kampala was interesting, but she feels that she learned practically everything that she uses everyday while on the job and not from books. As a result, she has low expectations for the usefulness of this course. She is mostly motivated to get the completion certificate. She is also pleased that she will not have to go at it alone like she’s done in the past. The class will be a great opportunity for her to socialize with some of the nurses from work and from the other health centre in town. She can’t remember the last time she saw Afo or Ann.
Kwesi’s Persona
Kwesi is a 15-year-old secondary school student who was born and raised in Kamuli. His favorite subject is mathematics and he is an avid sports fan. Like all of his friends, Manchester United is his favorite football team and he often pretends to be Patrice Evra, Manchester’s newly acquired defender from Senegal, when they play football after school. Kwesi has 3 younger siblings (2 sisters, Namazzi and Nantale, and 1 brother, Akello). Kwesi dreams of attending Makerere University in Kampala and studies hard to make sure he can accomplish his dreams. It is very difficult to be admitted to Makerere as it is the biggest university in Uganda and one of the best in all of Africa. Although his parents’ dream of him becoming a doctor, he is not sure what he wants to study. However, he knows that Makerere will open many doors for him. His father is an office worker at Citizen Link Development Project, a local NGO, and his mom prepares food for the kids at the elementary school and digs the family land.
Kwesi’s parents have made many sacrifices to ensure opportunities for Kwesi and his siblings’ success. Kwesi is very grateful for their sacrifice and works hard in school to make them proud. He is intrigued by technology, but he has very limited access to it. He often spends what little money he has to go to the local telecentre to do homework, play computer games and follow English sports and pop music. There aren’t usually many kids his age at the telecentre so he doesn’t really interact with anyone there. He often just emails his friends in Kamuli, looks up sports scores, and learns about new music for about 30 minutes. He would like to spend more time on the computer, but he cannot afford it. His favorite web addresses at the moment are www.mak.ac.ug, Makerere University’s website, and www.manutd.com, Manchester United’s official website. When he is at school, he daydreams about what he is going find on the web the next time he goes to the telecentre.
Kwesi Scenario
Kwesi has just heard about the new telecentre from his friend who said it was half the price of the one they go to. He is very excited because now he can surf for twice as long! And maybe now he can convince some of his other friends to come with him. He decides to stop by on his walk home from school, since he has one hour before he has to pick up his brother and sisters from primary school. Manchester United played against Everton yesterday so maybe he’ll be able to catch clips from the game on their website. The telecentre is very empty and very quiet when he arrives. He walks around to the back and sees that they have a big field – he can’t wait to tell his friends about it because it would be perfect for a game of football. He is so hot that he wishes he had stopped by the store to get some water before coming in. He sits down at one of the desks, waits for the computer to warm up and types in www.manutd.com in the internet explorer browser window.
Kwesi Walk-thru
Kwesi runs over to the telecenter after school. He's excited when he runs into his friend, <insert Ugandan name here> because now, he not only can look up soccer scores, he can actually play soccer with Friend! They go to the telecenter and borrow the soccer ball from the front desk. They play soccer for half an hour, then decide to go into the telecenter to play a game Friend has found online. On their montitor, they see an announcement for "Try these games!" it links to http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/interactive_area/flashgames_index.shtml. They're games on health, so they're sort of disappointed, but they still try the body walk through. Kwesi says when he goes to Makerere, he's going to be a doctor, though he hasn't really thought about this much, and really wants to be a soccer player. They go on to play their space-alien shooter for the rest of the half hour they have.
Later, Kwesi's mom comes in to take a nutrition course. She tells Kwesi to go read in the library or play more soccer. His friend had to go home, so he decides to bring a sports magazine into the courtyard to read. While he's in the library, he sees a poster of David Beckham. In the poster, David says, "Prevent Malaria and Stay in the Game!" He's holding a soccer ball in one hand and a malaria net in the other. Next to the poster is an malaria net and a sign that says they're for sale in the store. Kwesi's little sister sleeps under a net, but he doesn't anymore. He wonders for a minute if he should ask for one, but doesn't want to sound like he's afraid of mosquitos.
He goes back out to the courtyard to watch some older boys play soccer. He smiles because he knows that later that week, he will get to watch the first game of the World Cup on the wall in the courtyard, where they project the games. Last time, there was a short film before the game, and continued during the intermission about an doctor in Kampala who worked with cancer patients. The patients all seemed so grateful to him for what he was doing to help them. Maybe being a soccer player AND a doctor would be cool after all.