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Well I have just been liberated. Ugandan Sugar cane spirit - Liberty with the slogan “Experience freedom”!! And I think I just have! The last two days have been a little challenging with homesickness setting in. There has been no power in the village for about 8 nights in a row now. With 4 hours to kill between finishing work in the clinic and when dinner is called, there isn’t a whole lot to do besides read, think, write and think too much more!
So I thought I shall fill you in on what has been happening in Uganda for the past two weeks - without Luke! I do appologise however for no photo action this time as Luke has the digital. You just have to use your imagination!
JOEL
Joel has put on 1kg since we have been feeding him. Now weighing in at 8kg! 3 weeks ago we took his haemoglobin (to test for anaemia), which was a very low 7.2g/dL. In Australia he would receive at least a few units of blood. So some iron tablets and a few vitamins later and his Hb is now sitting at a healthier 10.6g/dL! Fabulous! He is still smiling at Mzungu Molly but gets a bit confused when I nurse him - a little uncertain about this one still! He is still receiving ½ litre of cows milk a day and 2kg of soya porridge every 5wks. The g’ma knows the deal, and that is that she is on her own as from June 8th - my last day in the village. That was the purpose of the goat!
GEOFRY
I am sure you are all waiting for news about our Geofry (even if his parents spelt his name a little unorthodox!). I met with him and the doctor at the local hospital (10 bed unit) on Wednesday, where he has been going every 2nd day for the dressing of his super-duper wound. If only we felt ethical about posting the scary photo of his wound a week after surgery on the blog, you all would have seen how major this surgery was - removing the biggest bone of your leg….completely! But I was so impressed to see during the week that this huge wound has nearly healed! And this means that he is one step closer to the next stage of helping him to one-day walk again. The next stage is more surgery to straighten his leg. At present his left leg is permanently stuck in a bent position - not conducive to walking! So the aim is to have him walking by January 2008, in time to walk to the first class of the term! So 2 weeks from today we are driving back to Kumi Hospital to see the surgeon and hopefully admit him as an inpatient for this surgery before I leave. I have spoken to many people from his village who have all reported that he is a much happier young man! As you would be without pain and yellow stuff oozing from 2 places on your leg! Yuk!
SHORT STORY COMPETITION
For those of you who donated school supplies, you may be interested to know that I have created a “Short Story Competition” in the village for children aged 12-14yrs to distribute the remaining stationary. I printed 34 application forms with lines at the bottom to write a story, and these all went within 3 days! So the stories have to be before Monday 28th May, and the winner announced a week later. This leaves me a week to read 34 short stories (probably about love as most of the applicants are teenage girls!) in broken English!! But every participant gets a prize (5 coloured pencils), and there are 4 main winners who receive a big stack of stationary. So a bit of fun to be had for sure.
TRADITIONAL HEALING
During the week Juliet and I made a visit to CURE, the private children’s hospital in Mbale who do some very good work. The purpose was to take a 2yr old girl called Aidah for surgery who has a birth defect of her tongue, disabling her to talk. At the arranged time and place, there was still no sign of this little girl and her g’ma, so after taking a trip to the field, we soon learned that her g’ma had taken her to a traditional healer the day before who had “cut” the tongue. This was a very big set back, as I was hoping to make Aidah the patient in the Adelaide - Mbale Children’s Health Fund for the month of May. But this is just an example of the challenges of African village life.
Instead we took a severely disabled girl, Justine, who is 19yrs, but appears about 18mths. Her mother has been hassling us for weeks now about assisting her to hospital. Although we were certain that nothing could be done, the mother was only going to listen to a doctor. So after waiting for 3 hours, a 10min consultation revealed that there is in fact nothing to be done for Justine. However for just $10, the mother now has peace of mind and can learn to work with Justine’s problems instead of trying to change them.
HIV TESTING
We also took a trip to AIC (Aids Information Centre) to request an outreach day for Natondome Village. As they have run out of money until July, I have offered to pay so that testing can be conducted before I leave. Although the testing is free, the wages of the counselors is $8 each for the day. So Wednesday 30th May, 5 counselors are coming to the Health Clinic to perform over 100 free HIV tests and offer voluntary counseling too. This will be of great benefit to the villagers as many people are unable to visit the AIC office in Mbale too find out their HIV status due to financial restraints prohibiting transportation. At least if people know their status, they are more inclined to use protection and receive ARV treatment to control the progression of the virus.
MOSQUITO NETS
A generous company in Australia (1001 Bed Nets) donated 10 huge nets to us before we left. They have been finally been hung in 10 of the most in-need families in the village. The families had to show severe signs of financial hardship and have several children under the age of 5. Assisted by the Community Health Worker of Natondome, Beatrice, and Juliet, I was very happy with the final selection of families. One family had 2 parents and 9 children all living in a 4-roomed mud hut. Both parents were HIV positive as well as the 2 youngest children. The other 7 had not been tested yet. Another family of 5 children and just a mother who earned a living hitting rocks into stones for 10hrs each day at the local quarry to feed her family. The extent of poverty became more evident when I entered into these tiny huts, in darkness, where many bodies were to sleep every night. Each bed net was able to sleep up to 5 children beneath it, and will ultimately prevent malaria amongst this vulnerable population.
THE CLINIC
Is still going strong with an average of 12 patients per day. As the days are passing by, I am stepping back more and more and leaving Juliet in charge of taking a health history, examining, working out a potential diagnosis and creating a plan for each patient. She is now doing the ordering of stock at the end of every month, and going to the pharmacy herself to purchase the goodies. I am very proud of her, and she has been wonderful to work with. I helped her set up an email account during the week (which took 1.5hrs!) so that hopefully she can communicate to me at least once a month when she goes to Mbale town to order the medications.
ABORTION
This is illegal in Uganda, although you are able to pay a surgeon a large some of money in secret. But as you can imagine, this leads to numerous unwanted pregnancies. There has been a horrific case in the village during the week where a mother suffocated her newborn in mud and deposited her down the latrine of Beatrice - the Community health Worker. The case is gathering evidence and they have taken a suspected woman to hospital to test if she was pregnant recently. We are so lucky in Australia.
GENERAL INTEREST!
As the weeks slip by, I am becoming more oblivious to the once unbelievable! Just the other day, I had a goat walk into my hut, a dog bound into the clinic, a frog jump across my feet in the computer room (which made me jump up on my chair and I consequently strained my back and couldn’t move for 12 hours!) and cockroaches under the seat of the toilet. Yes, truly village life hey!
To pass the time in the evenings I have been helping mai Jessica’s girls prepare dinner. This takes about 4 hours and is done squatting around 2 charcoal stoves, with light from a paraffin lantern, with one knife, in a mud brick room opposite the house. I have cooked goat stew, G-nut sauce (satay tasting) and rice wrapped in banana leaves! So an African dinner party is on the schedule for September when we get home! Maybe with a taste of some Ugandan Waragi - the local liquor that really knocks your socks about!
I know that there is much to read, but this is just a snippet of my experience and am hoping you are enjoying sharing some of it! Would love to hear your comments too!!
Much love, Celeste xx
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Helen & Alex
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Your travelblogs have been soooooooooo interesting - I can only imagine how difficult life has been for you both at times. The most important news to come out of Adelaide this week is that ------THE CROWS WHOPPED BRISBAND LIONS by 30 odd points. They went in as the absolute underdogs coming off a huge loss to Collingwood the week before. That's our boys!! Alex and I are due to leave for Europe on July 31st so not a lot of time now before we leave - not excited yet but it will start to kick in soon. Hope your remaining 3-4 weeks in Uganda are good ones and we look forward to that African dinner party when you get home. Love Helen and Alex xxxxxxxxx