Blogs from Western Region, Uganda, Africa - page 11

Our day-to-day life is pretty awesome in Rugazi. During the weekdays, we are busy with both our clinical and community work. Evenings and weekends seem to be filled with different versions of homework, errands and social gatherings. I do a lot of stretching and yoga. In fact, today when I went to do yoga, several of the other students came out and more or less followed along with me. It was fun trying new poses together. I’m really glad I brought my yoga mat to Uganda. This past Saturday 5 of us (Joline, Britany, Dayna, Julius and myself) traveled to Mbarara. Dayna had chipped her tooth and really needed to visit a dentist. The rest of us accompanied her and picked up supplies. We bought supplies for the clinic using money that we raised through a ... read more

Another week down! That leaves two remaining here in Rugazi, and ten total in Uganda. I enjoy the pace of life here, I enjoy the cuisine, and even the heat is becoming much more tolerable. My skin is changing, though I’ll never be the brown summer tone of my siblings or parents, no matter how much time I spend on the equator. The only thing I miss intensely is my man and my family. Sometimes I feel a sense of anxiety when I count the days down, other times it gives me peace… I close my eyes, and I see Tyler perusing me over his cigarette, head tilted back, eyes half closed with a look that tells me all my secrets are no longer secrets to him anymore. It’s both comforting and unnerving to be known ... read more

Hello! Coming up on four weeks since I have left and I have learnt very recently a great phrase-TIA or rather, This is Africa. This little phrase is used to explain everything from the beauty in this country, to why the power randomly goes out, the HUGE bugs we see here, and anything else that the locals see fit. It has been a great point for some of us Canadians to learn to let go of what may be bothering us in that moment or to make light of a situation. I caught myself using it quite a bit this week while doing my rotation in the maternity ward here at the Rugazi Health Center IV. Which has been quite an adventure! The week started out great and use muzungu pushed our way into the hearts ... read more

Hi everyone, For those of you who may not know me, my name is Ian Niu and I’m part of the University of Saskatchewan - Queen Elizabeth Scholar group that is in Uganda for the summer of 2016. It is my greatest honor to introduce James Bayne (Nutrition), Montana Zacharias (Nursing), Richele Berzolla (Nursing), and myself (Veterinary Medicine) as the 4 QE Scholars who have been placed in the Ruhija community placement group. For the next month, we’ll be living in the rural and remote sub-county of Ruhija on the outskirts of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park along with 5 other Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) students. After the month-long rural community placement, we’ll be returning to MUST for hospital placements for another 5 weeks. We welcome you as you join us along our journey ... read more

A week ago we left Mbarara for Rugazi, the district where we will be working until June 26. I arrived at the university to catch the bus at 8:00am, not 7:00am as requested; we departed at 11:15. It took a while to load everything onto the bus, a retro Mercedes Benz about 30 years old. The strong boys heaved the girls’ huge bags onto the top, along with mattresses, cooking supplies, and other necessities, all tied down with pieces of rope. Our journey began, comfortable enough when we were on the highway as we had a breeze, rather stifling when we had to stop. We stopped once, to pick a student up along the way, another time because a man forgot some of his things, and his wife caught up to us on a boda boda ... read more