2 Weeks left

Greetings all,


SO as the title states, I have a little over two weeks left. So time has passed both slow and fast. I have become quite acclimatized to this place. I can preform all the duties in the lab with ease and don't feel out of place at all here. They are such welcoming people here...I would definitely recomend anyone to come here to Uganda.

I feel as though maybe I left a few things out for the people at home reading these. Things like what are the children like here (for those whose children are also reading this), the mothers of these sick kids I'm dealing with...I also attended a wedding here this past weekend so I'll comment on that as well. Just general life things that are different from home than they are here.

Its interesting the children I see most often are usually sick. Either with Malaria, or have enlarged heads due to Hydrocephalus (enlargement of the ventricles due to overproduction of Cerebral Spinal Fluid). In town, during the day I see a few kids...not many...and after work there a quite a lot of children taking taxis and bodas back to their homes. During the evening in towns, the street kids would come out and beg around the streets. The children are said to be orphans from the Karumajong tribes in North Eastern Uganda. The children in the streets are not well at all. Most of them when they come up to you and ask for money, they smell like gasoline (from huffing) or paint...Its really sad...the children are used to beg for money to give back to their parents or adults that have acquired them. It is very sad to see...the children are malnurished, in wrags for clothing and bare-foort. Its hard not to geive them something...but you don't really want to because you know it's not going to the right cause...if anything we get them Bananas because there cheap and we can get a bunch for the kids...Its sad to see the children like that but they're receiving some help. There is a place where the children stay and can get help...but whether or not they accept it is another story...


The mothers here at CURE are real troopers. The go through so much mentally and somewhat physically. I would say that their children suffer physically, but the emotional burden on these mothers is far more than anyone should have to bare. For them its seen as a curse to bare a child with illness, and when the head of your baby starts to swell...its not good...far out in the villages it was common practice to kill the child secretly and make it look like an accident...tragic, but for the mothers its that or segregation and emotional pain of raising the sick child. Mothers now are encouraged to seek help if there is problems with the child, and usually will come here to CURE hospital. For me I find it quite a challenge to communicate with them as they know no English and I really don't know their native dialect. They can say Hi, and express how their feeling but thats about it. So I try to interact with them the best I can. I mostly talk to the babies and comfort them, and tell the mom everthing is going to be OK. However...things aren't always OK....I witnessed a week ago a young child pasted away in ICU. I saw it myself...truly a frightening experience to say the least. An experience that few see and even less experience...it was hard but I realise that the child is no longer in pain and can finally rest in peace instead of struggling to survive here. The is a good network of social workers and counselors for these mothers to help them mentally.



Enjoy...i'll post some more later on....thanks

Tom

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