Ruhija Community Placement

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Early Saturday June 2^nd, we packed all our belongings and made the move from Mbarara to Ruhija, where we would be spending the next three weeks on our community placement. There were seven of us Canadians heading to Ruhija – Chelsey, Chris, Cydnee, Gaby, Kylee, Stephanie and Terri, along with 8 Ugandan students. We were all anxious to get to Ruhija, as we had heard stories about the community from past students who have visited, and were excited to check it out for ourselves. Ruhija is a small community that sits on the edge of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest – home to the mountain gorillas, and many other protected species. We had heard from past students that the area was beautiful, but cold and we would be living without bathroom facilities and electricity while we were there. While we were expecting it to be pretty, none of us were prepared for how breathtaking it would be, and we couldn’t believe our surroundings as we traveled higher and higher up the mountain. Our final destination was a MUST/ITFC residence 7600 feet in the air.

Upon arriving we checked out the facilities. The residence consisted of four very simple buildings. The main house was building number one, which was our main sleeping quarters. It included three bedrooms with four bunk beds in each room, and one common area with a fireplace, and large table. We had all six Canadian girls in one room for the full three weeks. The room was smaller than most of our rooms at home, and we had no room to unpack our belongings, but surprisingly we had no issues getting along. We are all quite familiar with each other now, as privacy has been non-existent for the past 21 days. In addition to the tight quarters, we also faced the challenge of not having bedding on any of the bunks. Before leaving we were told there would be bedding supplied, but upon arriving all we had was a mattress and blanket. As Ruhija is very isolated we were unable to purchase bedding in the community, and spent the first two nights sleeping fully clothed and creating makeshift pillows out of sweaters and scarves. Finally on day three Kylee was able to travel to Kabale – the nearest town 1.5 hours away, and purchase 6 sets of sheets for all us girls – along with vegetables, pringles and chocolate 😊. It felt so good to finally have clean sheets, and this was one of the first things we realized we would never take for granted again.

Second to the main building was the kitchen, which consisted of a shelf to store food and another bench to cut and prepare. Because we had no electricity we did all our cooking by charcoal. None of the buildings had running water, and all water was collected by two large rain tanks on the property. All drinking water had to either be treated, boiled, or purchased in town.

Building number three was the shower shed. Picture your backyard shed, empty with a bucket – we all felt really accomplished every time we bathed. Showering got even more exciting when our monkey friends would come visit the shower shed while it was in use. Cydnee was not a fan.

The fourth building was the latrine aka “poopoo hole”. Stephanie was not a fan. We all joked about dehydrating ourselves for the next three weeks to avoid its use. Some of us handled the squatter hole better than others, and some of us relied on the makeshift toilet seat we could put over the hole. To get to the latrine was a challenge in itself, especially in the dark (headlamps/hatlamps were a necessity during our time in Ruhija) as the latrine was quite far down from the house. All in all, the poopoo hole was okay, other than at 3 am if you had GI distress, then it was less than ideal and the forest became extra scary.

The first couple days were spent getting settled in our new surroundings, which included hiring a cook. It takes quite long to cook with charcoal, so we sought out the help of a cook to allow us to spend more time at the health care centre during the day. In Ruhija the seven of us Canadians lived with eight Ugandans, and had very little conflict except for the disagreements we had when it came to the starch to veggie ratio at meals. The Ugandan’s were shocked at how much vegetables we could eat, and we were shocked at how much starch they ate. Eventually we learned to compromise, and our amazing cook Emmanuel learned to prepare enough vegetables for us Canadians.

Over the next three weeks we spent most of our mornings helping out at Ruhija Health Centre III. These mornings in the health centre displayed the huge difference between Canadian and Ugandan health care in terms of resources and staffing. It could be very frustrating at times, as we are all used to a different standard of care. Staffing was an issue as many of the 16 staff at the centre stopped coming to work because they knew we would be there for those three weeks. Because the clinic was a level three facility, they didn’t have much in terms of services, and we mostly found ourselves helping out in the pharmacy, reception, taking patient heights and weights or in the antenatal maternity ward doing exams or administering HIV and syphilis tests. Unfortunately, lots of us were disappointed with the health care experience in Ruhija, but understood it was the reality of the rural health care in a developing country. We wish there was more we could do, but unfortunately the lack of resources prevented us from administering the standard of care that we are accustomed to in Canada. As frustrated as we were at times, we took it was a learning opportunity, and are grateful for the standard of care we are able to deliver and receive with public health care in Canada.

Although the conditions at the health centre were less than ideal, thankfully we found a local leader named Tina, who was able to connect us further with the community, and involve us in lots of her projects over our last two weeks. In 2015 Tina started a project called “Change a Life Bwindi”, with the mission to empower women in the Ruhija area. Tina explained how in Ruhija public schooling only goes up primary school year 7, and there is no high school in the area. If students can afford it they may attend boarding school which offers a better education, but unfortunately many families cannot afford boarding school, or the exam required to continue to secondary education. Tina said that because most girls stop going to school after P7, many girls end up getting married very early, and having children shortly after. Because of this Tina wanted to create a project that gave young women a safe space to spend their days, and allowed them to learn a skill such as tailoring, basket weaving, honey making and many other craft projects, to give the women career options and provide them with an income high enough to afford education for their children. We were really excited to meet Tina and see her projects, and she was amazing to us over the last couple weeks and provided us with many awesome opportunities. One of our favourite days was spent with the local Batwa people – a community that traditionally lived in the Bwindi forest, but has been moved out by the government due to forest conservation efforts. We were able to spend a day with them, and gained an amazing insight into their traditional culture. Tina went that day to oversee the building of a mushroom hut to facilitate a new project, and we “helped” cook lunch by sorting rice, and hauling water and firewood with the local children. We all recognized that we didn’t do much to help the Batwa people on this day, but it was amazing cultural opportunity for us to learn more about their culture, and spend a day in a beautiful setting overlooking the Bwindi forest.

We couldn’t believe how fast the last week came and felt the pressure to finish up our community projects with Ugandan students, and our own personal projects. Group A focused on maternal preparedness for safe delivery and gave a lesson about mama kits at the health care centre on Tuesday morning. Group B focused on diarrhea prevention, and gave a lesson on proper handwashing at a local school on Wednesday morning. The Canadian students also had some other projects we needed to complete before leaving, including the administering of 80 afripads, and finding a use for the money we raised through our gofundme before leaving.

The money for afripads was raised by a girl’s group at St. Luke’s elementary school in Saskatoon a few months before we left. The girls at St. Luke’s are around the age of 12, and did a fundraiser to raise money specifically to purchase afripads for girls in Uganda. It is recognized as an issue in Uganda that many girls stop going to school when they get their period, as many girls don’t have ways of managing their period, or are miseducated about their period. The girls at St. Luke’s were able to raise $360 USD, which allowed for the purchase of 80 afripads. Thursday and Friday morning we prepared teaching materials and visited a primary school and gave a talk on period education to over 80 girls in total. The girls were so happy, and it was heartwarming to see the looks on their faces when we told them the pads could be used for over a year. We all agreed the afripad experience was one of the most rewarding ones we had during our three weeks in Ruhija.

Along with the afripads we also had a large chunk of money to invest in community projects, and were able to help a primary school build a chicken coup to provide food and funding for the school, fund all the P7 and female P6 exams for secondary school, purchase two charcoal stoves for the Batwa community we visited, and purchase a new sewing machine to help Tina’s tailoring project. We were really happy with how we used our money, and are happy all the projects we funded are sustainable.

Our time in Ruhija was amazing and eye opening for so many reasons. We all became appreciative of things we never gave a thought to before, including sheets, pillows, running water, drinkable water, warm water, handwashing stations, electric stoves, microwaves, electricity, accessibility of food and many others. We even found ourselves all getting very selfish with our own resources, as we had to find a ride to Kabale to purchase many of our snacks, and even toilet paper. Due to our limited food choices, we found ourselves getting consumed in conversations about all the food we missed. Despite all the things we learned to live without, we were all surprised at how happy we were during the whole three weeks. Ruhija was very quiet, and it was nice to have a break from the city. Along with how fulfilled we felt, we also noticed how genuinely happy the community members seemed as well. Lots of these people lived in very simple conditions, but still seemed to be in genuinely good spirits whenever we interacted with them. It was a very refreshing experience to go off the grid, and realize how content you can be with so little.

In addition to all the things we will never again take for granted, we also learned so much regarding community development over the last three weeks, and especially how hard community development is in a foreign country. We have learned about it in school, but it was shocking at how difficult it was to make connections, implement and monitor a community project in three weeks. We realized quickly that it was unrealistic for us to make major changes in our community, but recognize that this is okay as true change ultimately has to come from the community. We are so grateful for the experience we had over the last three weeks, and know it is one that will influence us during our last 6 weeks in Mbarara, and for the rest of our lives.

Xoxo,

Cydnee, Gaby, Stephanie and Terri



https://www.changealifebwindi.org

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Photos

Village meeting.

HCIII Pharmacy

A typical meal of rice, matoke and beans - eaten out of our green buckets we purchased the first week, and then used for every meal.

The shower shed.

Our favourite children who would greet us on the way to work every morning.

Afripad education.

View at Cuckooland.

Living above the clouds.