Extra Curricular Activities

Not only is the course called “Social Medicine”, I am finding that my classmates are all VERY social.  There is actually a social committee in charge of planning events and they take themselves very seriously. Thursdays we go to BJZ (a club pronounced “B.J.’s”) for trivia night.  One of the Ugandan students was talking quite a bit of trash about his trivia skills. He is actually on a team and they are the raining trivia champions of 2010, something they are very proud of (although I’m not sure if there was a trophy involved). 

So here he is (I think there are only 3-4 people on his team) up against 2 teams of 10-12 American and Ugandan medical students (85% of which are “gunners” in my opinion).  Needless to say, his team got rocked!  What was more surprising to me was that Jim, yes MY Jim is a trivia powerhouse!  Between him and  Ugandan Lucy (the trivia “queen”) our team won by a landslide.  Jim and Lucy won us a case of beer.  Here are the celebratory pictures:

Leslie, Nicole, Natalie, Katherine, and Anna celebrating.

Lucy, Robert, Ham, and Richard (celebrating with non-alcoholic malt beverages?!).

Notice the case of beer: our prize!

1/2 the guys here have beers!

Our second social event was a “goat roast”.  Unfortunately, I missed the butchering process (during which one of my American cohorts proceeded to dissect the uterus…only a med student would geek-out during the butchering process), but snapped a couple of shots of the remains and party to follow:

Gloria, Anna, me (only one drinking...)

As I’m not a night owl, there have been quite a few activities that I have missed including dancing and concerts. Other activities include Salsa dancing lessons, American’s cooking an American Breakfast for dinner (French toast), and enjoying dinner in town at the Indian and Ethiopian restaurants (which is a huge ordeal, i.e., it took 1.5 hours to get served one night...I'll have to write more about that experience later).

We had a dual baby shower for one of the students Jackie and for Amy, our course instructor.  We ate dinner at the Ethiopian Restaurant followed by medical students’ variation of baby shower games which included Pin The Sperm on the Egg.  Lucy drew a very anatomically correct picture of a uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries.  The egg, of course was near the entrance of the uterus and I have to say that by far, the men in the class were most entertained by this activity.

Many of the girls in the class have had a fun time going to the market to purchase beautiful African-print fabrics and having tailor-made dresses and skirts.  I can’t exclude myself from this group of girls and look forward to showing off my new digs when I return home.