Week 11: Classes Finishing, C-sections, and Cats

This week has been pretty low key so it will likely be a short not too exciting post, sorry in advance if it bores you.

This week lectures finished on Tuesday and then the student had their exam for organizational development on Wednesday. Kash and I put together to multiple choice section of the exam again. This time we made it much simpler with more basic English and not testing as many definitions. This proved to be successful as many of the student had near perfect marks on our section and nobody was close to failing the section. The students were much happier with us, it was a good last impression for them to have of us.

Around the UCU campus

 

Fairly typical lunch in Uganda, I will not miss having this everyday

Wednesday evening we were at the Mukono Hospital again to observe surgeries, this week there were 5 procedures we got to see. The first was a young man who had had his fingers crushed, the tip of his pinky was missing and the tip of the ring finger was only partially attached. The surgeon did his best to repair the partially detached finger and then stitched up the pinky to try and make it cosmetically pleasing. Next we saw an inguinal hernia repair on another young man and two C-sections. The first caesarean as an added bonus to the woman the surgeon removed quite a bit of fat tissue from her stomach as he had her open and he figured she would appreciate it. He also worried that the fat would hang over the wound and disrupt the healing but really he wanted to make her skinny. The second caesarean was a bit more exciting as the baby would not breathe on her own. After both the midwife and anesthesiologist being unable to get her to breathe the surgeon tried and luckily was eventually successful and the stubborn little one came around and took her first breath on her own. The last procedure was an abscess incision and drainage on a man who had quite a few abscesses around his groin. It has been awesome getting to see so many different procedures the past few weeks but it is a shame Mukono hospital is not bigger as most of the really cool procedure are done at the national referral hospital in Kampala.

This is the main road in Mukono

Thursday we returned to Mengo hospital where we had not been since classes had started. The staff there were happy to see us as they had thought we had gone home already and didn’t say goodbye. There I was working in the triage and Kash was taking blood. I was working with a nursing student who was very interested in Canada and was asking tons of questions about life in Canada. In high school here students take geography and one of the things they learn about are the Canadian prairies so they are always proud to show off their minimal knowledge of Canada.

The craziness that is Kampala, there are always so many people no matter what time of day it is

 Friday I spent the day at ACHERU giving the kids their weekly test. It is going to be sad to say goodbye to that place as the kids and staff are so amazing and it is always so fun being there. There was a new young boy there this week who I was doing some colouring with, the only problem was that he did understand that I don’t speak Luganda. He kept saying “teacher” and then rambling on in Luganda, I had no clue what he was saying so he would say it again and again until the actual teacher would come over and tell me what he wanted. It’s strangely fun interacting with the kids with limited talking as the young ones know very little English and I know even less Luganda. I have gotten quite good at communicating with some of them without using actual words.

This past week the cat, Bubbles, that belongs to Save the Mothers, another Canadian organization, has been extra friendly. Typically she will come around once or twice a week but this week she’s barely left our guesthouse and barges into our rooms when we open the doors. This may have something to do with us starting to feed her… However we are rather regretting feeding her as she is still a kitten and quite a nuisance, she loves chewing on cords and anytime there is food around she tried to eat it. Yet it is nice to have an animal around to cuddle while we watch movies and stuff.

Bubbles burrowed in my duvet not wanting to be kicked back outside

We have come a long way from our microwaved noodles and eggplant the first week

Well that’s all for now, it has been a quite Saturday spent studying for the MCAT. I am now entering my last week here in Uganda before I go to Rwanda to meet my family for 2 weeks of vacation there and in Tanzania. I am so excited to see my family and travel around but it will also be sad saying goodbye to this place I have called home for the past 3 months!

Jess