It’s been 12 weeks since I arrived in Uganda and it has been
such an amazing journey! I have learnt and seen so many things that have made
me grow as a person in ways I didn’t even imagine. I have come so far from
being homesick and feeling out of place the first week to now where the way of
life here has become second nature. No longer am I phased when I see a family
of 5 on the back of a boda or masses of goats and cattle being led along the
road by an 8 year old child. As much as I have enjoyed my time here there are a
few things I will not miss too much like eating endless amounts of rice, beans,
and matoke(steamed plantain) or being packed my sardines into a taxi and
getting stuck beside overweight or smelly people. The memories of my time here
will definitely last a lifetime and I will greatly miss the people that have
made it that much better!
This week was a short week as Monday was a public holiday
for the end of Ramadan. Taking advantage of the three day weekend, we hung
around Mukono enjoying another quite day of relaxation. On Tuesday and Friday
we were at ACHERU, I think this will be one of the things I miss most about my
time in Uganda. It has been such a joy interacting with the amazing kids and
staff. Being able to witness how far some of the kids have come is such a treat,
from being in a wheelchair or on crutches with casts when we first arrived to
now walking and running as kids should be and many even returning home. As you
can see below the last couple visits to ACHERU were filled with many many
pictures to cherish the memories of this great place, it was quite hard to
choose a small selection to share with you all. On Friday, Kash and I brought a
bubble solution and bubble wands that we had made for the kids to play with.
They were having so much fun creating the biggest bubbles they had ever seen
and then chasing them around popping them. It was a fantastic way to end our
time with the kids and they were all truly enjoying it.
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| Kash and I with the ACHERU staff taking tea |
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| Patience loves to pose for the camera |
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| Story time with teacher Kash |
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| With Gideon, he works in the reception area |
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| With teacher Juliet on the left and the accountant Brenda on the right |
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| With nurse Tom, physio Charles, and teacher Juliet |
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| One last meal of rice and bean...won't miss this too much |
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| Fun with bubbles!! |
Wednesday was our last visit to Mukono Hospital where we
observed three more procedures. The first was a simple C-section where
everything went smoothly and there was a healthy baby boy peeing all over the
baby table before we knew it. Next there was a young girl who had an obstruction
in her ear that was to be removed. The doctor was looking all over for a
paperclip to use for the procedure but apparently the hospital was all out. I
then remembered when I was at St.Georges Medical School in Grenada the ENT
doctor told us that a simple hairpin can be used when the fancier equipment was
not around for such a procedure. Luckily, I had a few pins in my hair so I was
able to aid the doctor and he quickly turned my hairpin into a tool for ear
obstruction removal. It turned out to be what looked like a bit of plant and
some cloth in the little girl’s ear. Who knows what she was doing to get that
lodged in her ear but I think most people have some embarrassing story about
things getting stuck in their ears or nose as a child. The last procedure we
saw was on the same man that was in last week for incision and drainage of his
abscesses. This week things were MUCH worse, he had severely enlarged testicles
with some of the tissue being gangrenous. The smell in the operating theater
was something else! The surgeon cut off the gangrenous tissue and removed the
pus and who knows what from the enlarged testicles, fortunately it didn’t look
like the testicle itself was rotten. The doctor packed up the wound and was
going to take another look the next morning to determine if the testicle
actually needed removal or if it looked like things would be okay now that the
gangrenous tissue was removed. It was a very interesting procedure to end our
time at the hospital with…I was feeling very sorry for the man as I imagine
that would be bloody painful and he would not have been very comfortable
leading up to the procedure or after it for that matter.
Thursday was our last visit to Mengo Hospital and my final
visit to the chaos that is Kampala city center. It was a fairly routine day at
Mengo, I was working in the lab taking blood samples from patients. There were not
too many clients so things were quite slow giving us lots of time to hang
around and chat with everyone for a final time.
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| The homecare and counselling triage area at Mengo |
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| With Sarah the technician who works in the lab |
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| One last monkey picture, they are eating ants off the wall beside the guest house |
Now I am currently at the airport waiting for my flight to
Kigali, in Rwanda, where I will meet up with my parents and brothers to begin
our two weeks of touring around Rwanda and Tanzania. I am really looking
forward to having some relaxation time and getting to see more East African
countries with the famjam. I will probably do a post or two about our vacation
so this isn’t quite the last blog post, just the last one about Uganda.
Hope everyone is doing well!
Jess
