It is truly a pleasure to be able to say once again, "Hello fellow citizens of the first world and beneficiaries of modernized medicine!"

There were some clear snags in getting reconnected with you guys once I had landed in Kigali, Rwanda (last post was written from Qatar). In short, the wifi we were told we would have in our academic facilities was, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent and the local internet cafes were expensive and unreliable. BUT, through wonderful and mystical powers of satellites and USB modems, I am back to writing (hopefully NOW everyday).

To recount my first week in the beautiful city of Kigali: Lets see... I got eaten up by mosquitoes on our first night here (despite a perfectly good mosquito net; thank you antimalarial), I got heartburn starting two days ago (for the first time in my life; thank you pepto), I cut myself on some rusty barbwire (thank you antiseptic and tetanus booster), and I shocked myself with a submerged boiling pin (thank you body). AND I'm having the time of my life! I've played soccer with local children, showered by bucket everyday (or the days when the water has been running), learned how to repair baby incubators and oxygen concentrators (kinda), and I've effectively made small talk with my host family children in both French and Kinyarwanda!

My partner, Ibukun, and I are living with the Barigengi family, who live on the IPRC campus in Kicukiro, Kigali, Rwanda. Our host father, Ben, is a school administrator, an employee of the university like all of the other host family men. This has made it wonderfully easy to see the rest of my travel group. The rest of our family consists of Madame Maria (mother), Quddus (oldest, boy, 7), Glory (second oldest, boy, 5), Linda (second youngest, girl, 4), and Hope (youngest, boy, 2). Gotta love hope; he can't pronounce "Taylor" so he calls me Sangu (an old Korean friend of the family apparently). Though I have now grown comfortable in my host home, I remember the initial shock as I dragged my check luggage down dirt trails and through its front door and realized how little this family had. No air conditioner, no refrigerator, no television (that has  changed). I sleep in a room with virtually no walking space along with Ibukun, I drink tea for breakfast and eat Kusaba and rice and bananas for dinner almost every night (I find my lunch in town). To shower I need a bucket and to wash my clothes I need my hands and soap. And I mean to communicate to you fully that this has been wonderful in both the immediate sense as well as the long-term one. 

We go to class every day from 8 to 5 (this is our June training):
8-10: Kinyarwanda class

10-12: French class

1-3: Medical technology and repair lecture

3-5: Equipment repair lab

I've learned how to interact with the townspeople successfully, how to repair circuit boards, and even how to count to one thousand in Kinyarwanda (The second most useful language in America; nimwe, kabiri, gatatu, kane, gatanu, gatanatu, karindwi, umunani, icyena, icumi...)

I've been to a memorial for the genocide in the Eastern Province and seen the clothing, coffins, and skulls of countless men, women, and children who died in this bloody massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutus. I also went to a reconciliation village in which I cried as I listened to firsthand accounts of murderers and victims who had learned to forgive each other for this horrible past. I cried partly because of the beauty of such a coexistence, but partly because I could not fathom that level of love and peace and hope that could arise out of so much evil in the world, much like I have felt in regards to the life of my Savior. And this is quite a perfect feeling. We drank some banana wine (just a little), played with children, and danced the traditional Rwandan dance with these humble village folk (video to follow). I can't describe the peace that I felt here, but this day was by far my favorite so far. These people simply wanted to know that we all, myself included, would help be ambassadors to the world, in order to remind them that this travesty DID HAPPEN, and it was more of a nightmare than many of us could ever imagine. And yet, where there was once fear, hate, and darkness, peace and love and hope now had triumphed. So please, always remember this and the lesson it holds.

I may include some more stories of my (small) victories and (many) misadventures as the days go on, but I believe I have given you a fair picture of the growth I have already experienced in my short time in the Land of a Thousand Hills.

Thank you for reading; please continue to do so as I learn more from this very special, though wanting place. 

Until next time,

William "Taylor" Farrington

P.s. LOTS of pictures; before I upload, I need to figure out a good method of compression to conserve data.

Hello AGAIN, fellow citizens of the First World and beneficiaries of modernized medicine!

Hopefully you got this URL from my Facebook or email and are ready to share in the educational and professional experiences this summer will afford me. And whether you do so as a family member, a friend, or just an interested reader doesn't matter in the slightest! I highly recommend that you read my first (and verbose) entry as it will give you, the reader, a "big picture" understanding of my goals and responsibilities  during my time in Rwanda.

WELL... here we go. We left Houston Intercontinental Friday, May 24th and made safe passage to Qatar, where we are currently housed up in a hotel waiting for our connecting flight to Kigali, Rwanda. For those of you who have never heard of Qatar, it is here, just north of Saudi Arabia. AND for those of you who are not sure where Rwanda is, it is here, smack dab in the middle of Africa. There is not an entirely large amount to report right now, but I can tell all of that my anticipation has continued to build long past the time that I left the ground in Houston. I can't wait to tell all of you what I feel and see and do and, hopefully, how that irrevocably changes the way I view myself, medicine, and the global spectrum of the human condition. Please keep "clicking in" to read!

Lastly, I'll be keeping a running album here on my Facebook (I'll include the link in every blog post), so be sure to visit there for pictures and videos by returning here and/or befriending me on Facebook! Right now, obviously, the pictures are only up through our time in Qatar, so don't be confused.

Until next time, William "Taylor" Farrington

Hello fellow citizens of the First World and beneficiaries of modernized medicine!

My name is William "Taylor" Farrington and I am a biomedical engineering student at Texas A&M University and an aspiring physician. The purpose of this blog is to detail my experiences daily as a training, hospital-employed biomedical engineer working in and around Kigali, Rwanda, Africa for the summer of 2013 (May 26th - July 28th). I will be embarking on this challenging and hopefully cathartic adventure with eight other team members from my future alma mater as well as a few from the east coast, whom I have yet to meet. During my time in Rwanda I will be:

• Studying conversational and medical French and Kinyarwanda
• Receiving hands-on bioinstrumentation and bioanalytics training
• Working in a hospital to
• repair broken medical equipment and
• build, calibrate, and integrate various modern medical technologies
• Learning firsthand about the stark health disparities between Rwanda and the U.S.
• Teaching preventative medicine to locals
• And, hopefully, so much more!

What I really hope to document for the rest of the world with this daily "chronicle" of my experiences are the destitute health conditions pervading this nation and the quite literally awesome potential of technology to efficiently and gracefully combat them.

Yes. This blog is, in part, my way of remembering my experiences overseas, the way they made me feel at the time, and the lifelong convictions they effected. But what will truly make writing this blog worthwhile is the knowledge that globally-conscious individuals like you are returning daily to gain more insight into the world as it is without the gift of modern medicine and technology. Your continued desire to discover and acknowledge the medical needs of the developing world will give me hope for the First World and the Third World alike. I look forward to relating accounts of the trip preparation in the near future!

Until next time, William "Taylor" Farrington

P.s. In addition to viewing the images and videos posted here, you can find additional ones on my Facebook profile, here. A link directly to the album will, of course, come soon.