Visit to Dereva

Yesterday I finally got to see the Dereva Hotel, which will be the conference location for the SAFE Course.  It is about one hour east of Kigali.  We selected a relatively isolated location with the hope that people would be able to focus completely on the course and also get to know each other.  

The hotel is not fancy but the grounds are beautifully landscaped.  The SAFE course is almost entirely small group workshops.  There will be eight stations running concurrently.  Some of the teaching will be in outdoor gazebos, so we hope there won’t be torrential rains.  

Our dear friend, Emmy, drove us to visit the Dereva and we also travelled with Aimée, who has been helping with the course.

We've spent the last three days doing faculty orientation by going to visit people at their hospitals.  Faye will write more about that.  It has been very helpful to meet the course faculty in small groups to make sure we have a common understanding.  

We will attempt to run simulated scenarios for groups of eight in these little gazebos. 

Emmy and Aimée - warm hearted and joyful.

Today we visited Etienne and Christine at Kigali Health Institute for faculty orientation.  Etienne is in charge of education for the anesthesia technicians.   He has been kind enough to receive the remaining 200 Lifebox pulse oximeters that will be distributed in Rwanda.  These will make an incredible difference to patient safety.  

We are, quite literally, hiring a pick up truck to bring all the equipment to the course.

This is Etienne with 200 Lifebox pulse oximeters.

Of course we had a little swim and relaxation at the Serena Hotel.

Alex has been having an incredible experience volunteering at the orphanage.  His blog is great reading:

http://rwanda2013.blogspot.com/

Love to you all,

Patty