Shania's Mbarara Adventure: Week 10

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Hello avid blog readers. It’s been a minute since you’ve heard about my latest adventures. But fret not, I have been having plenty and learning lots! As most of you know about a month ago we returned from our rural community placements back to the city of Mbarara. I was not exactly pumped to be spending six weeks in one place, but Mbarara quickly began feeling like ‘home’. We have been here 68 days now and almost consider ourselves locals. Many of us are professional barterers at the local market (so we don’t get ‘muzungu’ prices). For those of you who don’t know what Muzungu means it’s an eastern African term for a person of foreign decent. Translated from Swahili it means “someone who roams around aimlessly”. The amount of times we hear “Muzungu how are you!?” a day is unfathomable. We get called Muzungu so often it’s starting to become like a second name. Nonetheless Uganda’s people are super friendly and have such an enthusiasm for life. It’s contagious! The people respect you a lot more when you attempt to speak the language (some may also laugh at you, in good fun). My two most frequently used phrases are “Agandi” meaning ‘how are you?’ and “Webare” meaning ‘thank you’. Thanks to my friend Kennedy for teaching me proper pronunciation.

Our group has become a lot closer since returning. Last week we hit our halfway point and we were all feeling bouts of home sickness. We find it comforting having deep bonding conversations about food. It’s what we all miss the most about Canada! And our family and friends of course. Getting over the half way point has been much easier though. Even though our power was off from Friday to Sunday (longest we’ve been without power since arriving in Uganda) this particular week was my favourite in Mbarara so far. We’ve each come to know little tips and tricks of our house. For instance, we must manually fill our toilet because it just decided to stop filling itself one day. Our shower is either straight burning hot or straight cold. You mustn’t enter the shower room without a bucket of cold water just in case its only hot. I dream about my first perfect temperature shower once returning to Canada. Now that I’m done complaining, I’ll be honest it really hasn’t been all that bad. We’re pretty accustomed to it all.

We spend our mornings working in the hospital and afternoons doing community work. So far, I have worked on the Paediatric, Malnutrition, Maternity and Paediatric Oncology wards. During my time in Paediatrics and Malnutrition Chelsey and I shadowed a great physician, Dr. Andrew. Who we now call a friend. He is very hard working and busy, yet still took his time to teach us. We also made his job a little easier by taking all the patient’s vital signs and measurements. He was very grateful. There are surprisingly far more doctors than nurses, so it is a common occurrence that physicians do all of their own assessments and medications. The maternity ward was extremely busy and hectic. I did a lot of observing and not much hands-on skills. I am hoping to spend more time on this ward. Paediatrics oncology was one of the most difficult. It was however, the nicest ward in the hospital. It has uplifting murals painted on all the walls and is very clean! We got to observe chemotherapy treatments in the clinic room on Tuesday and Thursday. It was pretty heartbreaking considering some chemo medications are via an intrathecal injection (into the spinal canal) without anesthetic. In Canada, a local anesthetic would likely be used to ease pain before this procedure. We tried cheering the children up by offering them stickers after their treatments. We we’re able to get a smile out of some of them. This Saturday our group is partaking in the Uganda, 5 K colour run for cancer! Most of the proceeds go towards the paediatric oncology ward for treatments, medications, supplies, etc. I am most likely going to walk the entire time, running 5K in the Ugandan heat? No thank-you.

Community work has been super rewarding. Our favorite places to volunteer include the Divine Mercy Orphanage, Bright Futures Transitional Home and the Hospice. This week we devoted some time to making flashcards with pictures and words to help teach the children at Bright Futures English. Our flashcards were no match for them, they are so smart! They have a big playroom with lots of toys, games and crafts. Quite the opposite from Divine Mercy which has four times the children and far less resources.

This week was filled with adventures. On Monday, our friend Damien took Brooke, Kari, Cyd and I out to this neat river/waterfall place. It was gorgeous, we spent some time admiring the views while listening to the water fall. For those La Ronge folk reading it reminded me of a mini Big Stone rapids. Except with dirtier water. Though that didn’t stop the local boys from swimming. For the sake of this blog I shall name it “Ugandan Bigstone”.

On Friday morning, we headed out to a community called Karebere to join the Vets Without Borders (VWB’s) crew in their goat pass-out. It’s an annual event where some lucky community members receive goats for free to breed. Dr. Claire (Veterinarian) explained to me the recipients were chosen based on highest need. It was a really cool day they gave out a whopping 45 goats. Gaby and I named two of the goats Daisy and Guiness because they slightly resembled our pets. And we really, really miss our doggos! While the Vets we’re finishing up some last-minute immunizations before the pass-out. A few of us nursing anf kin students took blood pressures of community members and advised them to see a physician if they we’re too high. There was so many women who eagerly lined up to get their blood pressure checked. Following the goat pass-out Chris presented a cooking demonstration to the community. A local man commented “men don’t cook”. It is not the cultural norm for men in Uganda to spend time in the kitchen. However, we tried to get him to understand a different point of view. Gender roles are very different in Uganda compared to Canada (my poor feminist heart).

Our group absolutely loves kids and never pass up and opportunity to interact with the local children. There was a school right near where the goat pass-out was taking place. The children stared at all of us in absolute awe, many were grabbing our hands, smiling and giggling. Our group decided to teach the kids the Canadian game “duck, duck, goose!”. I was taking cover in the shade observing for a bit. When I finally decided to join the game. The children thought it was a good idea to repeatedly “goose” me. We all had a ton of fun. Other games we played included “what time is it Mr. Wolf?” and a dancing game the kids taught us. Hanging out with the children was definitely a highlight of the day.

I dedicate one morning a weekend to handwashing my laundry. It is quite the chore. I can now say I am getting a lot faster at it but I still wouldn’t consider myself a professional hand washer. Still takes me a solid two hours to complete. Thankfully it is dry season in Uganda and dries super-fast which also means its super-hot (you win some, you lose some). Following my laundry day our group headed out to Igongo Cultural Centre which is apparently one of the nicest museums in Uganda. Not going to lie I forgot how much I dislike museums. However, we enjoyed a delicious super following the tour and the views were beautiful. One of the quotes in the museum in big, bold, red letters read “no cows, no banana planation, no wife”. Traditional marriages or give away ceremonies are common in Uganda. The man usually offers the in-laws some sort of payment e.g. cows, goats or money for their daughter’s hand in marriage. Paying for your wife in cows is extremely common here.

I am finishing up my blog after spending the day in the field working with Vets Without Border’s. Gaby and I had the pleasure of heading out with three Vet Med students and some local Para Vets who trained us in immunizing and drawing blood from goats. Though it is a lot of fun, I prefer immunizing humans over animals. Most humans don’t squirm as much as goats. My favourite part of the day was meeting the adorable baby bunnies, sheep’s and goats. I have mad respect for the VWB’s workers who spend 6/7 days a week vigorously working in the blaring heat. I am exhausted from just one day in the field, I couldn’t imagine doing it every day! Not to mention the road conditions were terrible. Safe to say I will never complain about the Saskatchewan driving conditions ever again (well I’ll try not too).

We are keeping very busy these last two weeks in Mbarara. This upcoming Friday we are heading out to a community school to present about AfriPads to school girls. The following Monday we will present about breast health and teach woman to perform breast self-exams. I hope ya’ll enjoyed reading about my adventures! Until next time,

XoXo,

Shaaaaaaaania (Ugandans pronounce my name like Sha-KNEE-ahh)

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Photos

Guiness and Daisy!
Casually walking goats, pretending they we're our dogs.

Baby Bunnies!
Have you ever seen a jerry can full of bunnies!?

What time is it Mr. Wolf?
Karaberere School Children

River
"Uganda Bigstone"

Bright Futures Transitional Home
Nice big play area!

Baby Goats
Too cute not to share.

Baby Bunny
Wanted to keep him!