Dr. Julius' village

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Julius took the group to his village today. He has wanted to introduce us the entire time we have been here but seeing as everyone was so sick we haven't been able to all make it out. His village is fairly close to the hospital so we left from there and walked a couple of miles. We passed this old airstrip. Julius said that in the 70s and 80s there were a group of American doctors who came over and helped start the hospital Freda Carr. They use to land there and bring supplies. They would also work on and off in Uganda during the year. In the 80s however, there was some kind of civil unrest or civil war or something and so they stopped coming and the medical supplies stopped coming as well. Now it is all overgrown and you would never know it was an airstrip in the past.


We got to his village and Maureen, the nurse I have worked with at Freda Carr was there. I guess Julius and her are engaged. It was fun to see how they interacted outside of work. Julius' dad James was there as well.


I had found out that James was Julius' dad quite awhile ago and we have this ongoing joke where he says, "Apese Biyai ijo" (Girl, how are you?) and I say, "Akono Ejokuna" (Sir, I'm fine). We all had learned Biyai ijo but when he through in "Apese" I guess I looked so confused that he thought it was hilarious so he kept it up. He's a wonderful man with the only blue eyes that I have seen in all of Uganda.


Their compound was huge. Four or five buildings and very clean. Beautiful spaces. They had a big garden and also a big pasture for their cattle.


They served us lunch. It was a feast. In Uganda, it's rude to have someone to your place and not serve them food. Rice, Noodles, Chicken, Pork, vegetables, cabbage, chicken soup, fries, sweet potatoes and more. We were blown away. We hadn't even expected to eat so luckily we were all starving.


Afterwards everyone from the village and surrounding areas came over and introduced themselves. Julius' family is huge and most of them live within the compound that contains maybe 5 building. Two grandmothers, a mother and father, a sister and her child, a couple of nephews, cousins, Julius & his wife and so on and so on....


We felt really honored to be taken to his house and given such wonderful hospitality.

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