WEEK 5: Uganda be kidding me

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Our project goal this week is to finish meetings, testing and vaccinating for clostridium in all 17 communities, make sure people who want to receive goats know that it’s their last chance to get ready, put together solutions to all the problems communities have been facing, and set up a plan for things paravets need to learn again for the paravet refresher training according to their needs. This way when we come back from the safari we can jump right in looking for healthy goats to buy, preparing for and doing the paravet refresher training and doing the goat pass-out!

Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned in Africa (they most often don't actually).

It rained for a good 2 days, and not “kindof” rain, but nonstop thunderstorm rain. And we can’t go out when this happens because it’s too muddy and dangerous to drive or boda in the villages and really difficult to get anything done. And of course we lost power for 3 days (#TIA) so it was a little bit of a bummer. BUT because we lost those 2 days, the 3 last days of the week were SUPER productive. We split into groups again and got most the communities done! I was going around alone with Joseph (such a big girl now!) and I was super happy because these last communities seemed to be a lot more ready and willing to take care of their goats, so there was less convincing happening and more doing!

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On Tuesday it was the day of the African Child, which celebrates the day when education was made available to the Africans. Elementary schools use this as an opportunity to invite parents to a day of festivities at the school, where they raise awareness on issues important for the kids. Topics covered include not overworking children (setting limits), hygiene, HIV, child abuse, violence, education, the children’s rights, etc. We had each brought a couple of things from back home to give away at some point (soccer ball, stickers, markers, pencils and sharpeners, coloring books, clothes) so we took the opportunity to go to Rutsya elementary to participate in the event and have a little bit of fun with the kids. This school is really special because it’s one of the few that cater to disabled children. There is a whole section dedicated to the deaf, and there is also boarding for kids who can’t go back and forth every day.

The kids preformed little plays, dances, and prizes were given away to the ones who had the best academic standing. When all the speeches were given, we went out to the soccer field to play around a little bit and the kids were ecstatic. They literally completely surrounded us and we had a child mob going on. Started taking some pictures and showing them and they loooved this! They touch and grab you from everywhere and all want a picture. I tried to take a selfie and got swallowed in the crowd lol. It was an interesting and cute experience.

This school is having a little bit of difficulty with water. They have recently received a big water tank filter to supply water to the children but are not able to pay for it yet and monthly payments start in October. Also their water supply has been cut because of poor management of the prior managers and accumulation of debts that needs to be paid. Currently their only water source is what accumulates from the rain (and it doesn't rain much at all) and a far away swamp water source that they actually pay for but makes the kids sick. The only thing that they are doing right now to raise the money is asking for the parents to donate but I don’t know how they expect this to work because most of the parents barely have enough to send their kids to school. When asked about their plan B they said they didn’t have one and that they were just praying for the parents to give enough. We were thinking about starting a fundraiser for them but we were told that it’s not a good idea because then we permanently become their emergency fund. It will not be sustainable, and they would probably fall back into the same rut. So the next idea is to organize to teach them a skill (sowing, making reusable pads,…) that can help them to raise money and continue raising money. So that’s something we are looking into now.

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Sooooo… we adopted a dog! Well we picked him up from this old ladie’s house and paid her for it and we want to nurse it back to health and give it to Sylus (he’s Franks brother, and has been looking for a puppy to adopt because he needs a guard dog). We had seen him a couple of weeks ago and he was limping from a leg, his stomach was completely bloated with worms, had ticks and fleas walking around all over, all his ribs were showing because of how skinny he was and was completely dehydrated. So we took this on as a side project, went and got a dewormer, some antiparasites, rabies and base vaccines, some food we could make for him and are keeping him all week until he’s in shape, to give to Sylus when we leave for the Safari.

He started out super scared and with very little energy, pretty much sleeped all day, had diarrhea and was throwing up after we fed him. But after those worms came out (soooooo grosssssss), he became a brand new dog! Poor little guy was probably soo uncomfortable. He’s now super playful and getting more and more in shape! We originally named him Chance since we had found him by chance but we had been calling him Puppy so much that we changed his name to Puppy 😊. We’ve all grown attached to him, even though he pees all over our place lol, going to be sad to give him away!

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For the weekend, we decided to go to Queen Elizabeth again, because Dr. Siefert needed some Napier grass for the communities there and offered to take us out with him to dart a lion and change it’s radio collar (he keeps track of them for his research) and dart an elephant to drain it’s huge abscess! Sarah saw a random white girl at the grocery store and asked her if she stayed at the university, liked dogs and wanted to feed ours for the weekend and the girl (who’s name is Anna) was actually super down lol! So we got up at 5am Saturday morning and drove up get there super excited and headed out that morning for the elephant. So the rangers go out first as we wait in the fields to find the elephant and come back to get Dr. Siefert when they are ready. Then he heads out to dart it and gets us when the elephant is down and it’s safe. We waited in the savannah fields, taking funny pictures, giving each other riddles to solve, sitting around for 5 hours with no news. Turned out it was the wrong elephant and they had no idea where the one they were looking for was. 😞

We went back a little upset but still pumped that we would be doing the lion in the morning! I’m going to skip to the punch… never found the lion either. Double fail!

Got a taste of the realities of being a wildlife veterinarian.. lots of waiting, lots of unpredictability, sometimes you can find your patient, sometimes you can’t. Sometimes your patient charges at you, sometimes they attack tourists, sometimes they eat the nearby villages’ goat and cattle, you gotta go with it…

Although it really sucked that we didn’t get to do neither, we saw some really cool things! Went to stand right by the water (but not to close cause theres gators and they might jump out of nowhere to eat you) and there was a huge group of hippos just chilling and swimming around! While we were there, a van came out of nowhere with like 20 kids squished in there, they just kept coming out of the van I was shocked how they all fit! So we all took a picture together. Apparently they had stopped specifically to take a picture with us muzungus, not to see the hippos. White people are cooler than hippos here. Another extremely cool thing was seeing the lions and seeing them mate! So the lion mating process lasts like 5 days, and I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking the lions are boss and good for them! But it doesn't seem that great. They basically just lie next to each other and sleep and wake up about every 20 to 30 minutes and mate for about 5 seconds and then go back to sleep. When the lioness wakes up, she plays a little hard to get even though we all know it’s going to happen, she kind of walks away and the lion goes after her and roars and they just move around for a bit and then she finally lets him go for it, 5 seconds later, they lie back down and go to sleep! I got a lot of good shots and probably saw something that most people will never get to see so that’s awesome!

We ate at a really nice Safari hotel in Queen Elizabeth and it was actually quite sad because it was so amazing but completely empty. And I mean we really must have been the only people in there. Apparently Ebola, ISIS, and all that stuff have really affected tourism in Uganda and it’s dropped by more than 70%. On top of it, the wildlife population is decreasing and the parks there are not “delivering” so people are going elsewhere. It’s honestly really sad and makes me angry with humankind for destroying our planet.

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On our way back, we dropped off Suzane, the only vet student part of the LCP program (the one with the nursing students) off at her place in Rugazi at the health clinic they are working at. Two main things I was thinking while taking the tour was “I really hope I don’t get hurt while I’m here”, and “I’m sorry for complaining about our health system.” The biohazard waste is collected in orange bags and piled up at the back. It’s apparently burned once a week and there is a horrid smell among the whole area. The maternity area is just a whole bunch of mattresses in one room where all the pregnant people are and if they are ready to give birth they go in a tiny room section separated in the corner where there is usually two ppl birthing right next to each other (see pics). And you have to bring your own plastic sheet to cover the table. The floors see water maybe once a week. Needless to say there is very little equipment and medication. The “isolation” section, should literally have quotation marks because the doors are kept open and anyone can walk in and out. They no longer do any surgeries so if there is an emergency, people will take a boda (A BODA, like a SCOOTER), to the hospital that is wayyyy out of town. Like you could be dying and they’d put you on the boda. It’s scary.

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The whole Muzungu thing is getting old. It’s cute when kids say it and run after you but I can’t go anywhere without full grown adults screaming out Muzungu Muzungu and continuing to call me until I look at them and then have nothing to say. It’s like I’m white, get over it!

The city here is full and hectic all the time, and not very clean! Sometimes when I’m walking to the market, I literally have trouble breathing because the air is so polluted. On the bright side, some of the ads here are so funny, I’ve been starting to try to take pictures of them to make a collection! I’ll share them all at the end.

But can’t see much of the adds these days because there’s one add that’s taken over the city. The freakin crusade adds that are covered everryyyyyywhereeeeeeeee. The evangelists are coming this weekend to steal everyone’s money and give them “miracles”. It makes me sick to my stomach. Not only do they brainwash these people and take the little that they have away from them, but they preach things that are completely opposite of what the people here should be doing like don’t use condoms its bad (lets all get aids and a bunch of children we cant take care of instead), and gay people are bad (It's a better idea to beat, suppress and completely ostracize them than develop an open mind and embrace humankind’s individualities and differences). It’s just really really really messed up. It’s being held right across the university on a big field and people from all over leave everything to come watch and give money to this white guy who we can overhear sometimes “making a blind person see” and “making an old man walk again”.

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Restaurants are quite the experience here. Interesting things happen in Africa that would never happen back home. With the help of Brittany and Sarah, I’ve collected and compiled a few of them that I thought would be funny to share:

o We sat outside and the table had a layer of dust on it so I asked if they can give it a wipe, she came with a cloth, wiped half the table then dropped it on the floor (the nasty dusty dirty floor) and picked it up with the layer of dirt on it and continued wiping

o Ketchup as pizza sauce

o Sweet and sour sauce with red food coloring as ketchup

o Anything with veggies is canned veggies

o We will be a group of 4+ and they only give us one menu because they are shared between the whole restaurant

o Waitress brought the wrong plate of food and after taking the first bite we realized it wasn’t what we ordered (curry type dish so it was hard to tell by looking at it) and she tried to blame us saying we should have known and not taken a bite lol

o Ordered an avocado and tomato sandwich, received a sandwich with bread and onions (no tomato or avocado)

o Ordered a burger that came with no patty (thankfully with this one when I asked about it, it’s just cause they had forgotten to put it and it was already made in the kitchen :P)

o Waitress came and took our condiments away for another table in the middle of our meal

o At one of the restaurants we regularly go to, a waiter keeps asking us about getting a sponsorship to come to Canada. We keep telling him we have no idea and we can’t help him but he hasn't given up.

o Two of us order the same thing and they come back to say they only have enough for one of us (happened twice with two different dishes)

o This is consistent in most restaurants, pictures in menus are probably just taken off the internet because they in no way match what’s on their menu

o Ordering the same dish, at the same restaurant, on multiple different occasions, and it coming out different every time

o Dinner interrupted by an elephant running by

o Two of us ordered the same dish, same day, same time, came out with two completely different sauces.

o Two of us order the same dish, and they come 30 minutes apart

o They have 10 different banana plates on the menu, yet if you ask to buy a banana they can’t do it.

o Forget asking to substitute anything for anything or slightly changing something on the menu

o Complete inconsistency on wait time (Anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour)

o Things on the menu that you order that they say they don’t have, nor will they ever have, nor have they ever had.

Hope a couple of those got you to chuckle. I can’t stress how badly I’m cravings foods from back home. I’ve already been promised my sister’s lasagna, my mom’s fessenjoon and kutlets, lp’s taking me out to baton, going for sushi with marls, whoever wants to add to the mix hit me up! Avenue? The Keg? McD’s? I am going to be an eating machine the whole month of August! Embracing our variety of Montreal cuisine!

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So that was a long one, lots of ranting sorry about that haha, over a month in Africa and I’m really missing home! We are leaving for our safari this Monday the 23^rd for a week then spending 5 days in Zanzibar (google it, it’s paradise!) so I will be out for a while but that will be the next post! After that, one week and a half left on the project, Calgary then home on the 23^rd of July! See you then!!!

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