Round's Report: Week 9: Classes, Cantering, and the Circle of Life

Well with week 9 being over that means that ¾ of my time in Uganda is also over yet it still feels like I was only just planning this whole trip. I’m sorry if you’re all sick of reading my amazement with how fast time has passed but it is true and on the bright side you’ll only have to hear it a few more times!

Last Sunday, Kash and I met up with friends from our Murchison Falls Safari again at one of the fanciest places in Kampala, the Speke resort. This is a giant resort that was built back in 2007 for the commonwealth conference that was held in Uganda so the presidents and prime ministers had nice place to stay. It is located on the outskirts of Kampala at the shores of Lake Victoria. There they have a gorgeous olympic size outdoor pool where for a small fee you can spend the day. That is exactly what we did, if we weren’t in the pool we were soaking up the sun and either reading or just chatting. It was a lovely relaxing day getting to see another side of Kampala. All of us there decided that if you were to come to Uganda and stay in a place like that you would have a completely flawed sense of the country. When we were there it felt more like we were at a fancy beach resort in some developed country not in Uganda where a 10 min drive away will lead you to people living without running water or electricity. I am grateful that I have had such amazing opportunities while here to really see what life in Uganda is like since even staying at the university is far from what most Ugandan’s experience.

AHHHH not too bad for being on a co-op placement

Alice and Brianna enjoying the best of both worlds, tanning while enjoying the refreshing pool

Kash going for a swim

On Monday, classes began for the ICMI diploma students. These are the same students that we went around and visited with Edward in May and June so it was very nice to see them all again and meet the few that we had not visited. These students are on their 3^rd semester of the program which has a total of 4 semester. Kash and I have been helping each morning with the class that Edward teaches, Organizational Development. The students also have Health Information Systems in the afternoon and Accounting in the evening taught by other Profs, but Edward recommended that it would be more worth our time to do other things in the afternoons/evenings. Helping Edward involves sitting in on his lecture which is from 8 until anytime between 10 & 11, and then helping the students with whatever work Edward has assigned them that day. Sometimes this is just answering some simple questions the students have or other times this means facilitating class discussions on case studies they have been looking at. Then by 1 or 2 it is lunch and after lunch we head off and do our own thing. It has been kind of nice being back in a classroom setting and taking things a little bit slower instead of long days going into Kampala. Monday, Tuesday, and Friday afternoon we just stayed around campus where I worked on my co-op project and studied for the MCAT and Kash worked on her med school applications. Although we were told there would be very little to no rain in July this week has had its fair share of rain, and it seems when it rains the Wi-Fi often stops working. It has particularly bad this week, often we will get one day a week where the Wi-Fi is down however two afternoons/evenings this week it shut off and then it shut off Friday afternoon and has not begun working yet (it is now Sunday evening). Luckily yesterday afternoon it began working around the classrooms and things and just isn’t working at our guesthouse so we have been able to get some work done but not as much as we would like.

Some of the students busy working

The pesky rain that ruins our wireless

Wednesday afternoon, we went to Mukono hospital. We had been told that Wednesday afternoon/evening is a time they do surgeries so we were hoping there would be procedures to observe. We were in luck as there were 4 procedures done that afternoon/evening. First we observed a hernia removal although once the surgeon got a look at the hernia he decided not to remove it as it was right beside major vessels and was not worth the risk. Next was a simple removal of a liposarcoma, the patient had developed a growth on their side which was just a sac full of fat, this was a very basic procedure of cutting off the growth and stitching up the wound. The next two procedures were C-sections which both resulted in healthy little girls. It is still amazing to watch a tiny person be pulled out of another human being and knowing it grew from a tiny egg, man the human body is crazy!! Kash and I were taking great pride in the fact that our tanned skin is basically the same colour as an African baby that has been in fluid for 9 months, the nurses and surgeon just laughed at us and began calling the first baby Mzungu. It was a very successful afternoon and we hope to spend the remaining Wednesdays we have doing the same thing.

After experiencing the beginning of life of Wednesday we saw the other side of the coin as a young boy at ACHERU lost his life Thursday morning. Kash and I left classes after the lecture as the students did not need any assistance so we had enough time to go out to ACHERU. As we arrived there was quite a commotion and they were loading the young boy into ACHERU’s truck to rush him off to the hospital. After asking some questions we learned that within less than 24 hours the boy had begun to feel unwell. The previous day he had been doing very well and was making great progress in his walking, they even figured he would be discharged very soon. Later that day he had barely any appetite and was beginning to look pale. The next morning he was doing better and had some breakfast however after breakfast things took a turn for the worse. We do not know the details but it was said the boy took a big deep last breath and then lost consciousness. This is when we arrived to the situation. The boy was then rushed off to the nearest hospital with his caregiver and a few staff members. Very slowly people began to return to their normal day’s work and we were helping teacher Juliet in the classroom. Not long after that a staff member arrived to alert us the boy had been declared dead upon arrival to the hospital. The truck then returned to ACHERU with the boy still there as the nearest hospital does not have any morgue facilities. It was heartbreaking to see the caregiver clutching the child’s body and then exiting the vehicle and collapsing on the ground where she remained crying out for quite some time. The child's body was brought into one of the examination rooms where the nurses worked to clean the boy up to prepare him to be transported elsewhere. This really shocked ACHERU as it was the first child they have ever lost and the whole facility was feeling it. The rest of the day, understandably, very little work was done and we returned to Mukono with some of the staff earlier than normal. It was unclear as to the cause of the child’s death but they believe it may have been a blood clot. It is my understanding that a post mortem was to be done to determine the actual cause but lots of the conversation was in Luganda and not English as that is more comfortable for them to speak. All in all it was a very tragic situation and the boy will be greatly missed, he was such a bright light in the world he always had a beaming smile and was one of the smartest children in the classroom.

RIP James, your smile will be missed

Saturday was a quiet day with a trip into Kampala to do some errands that are not possible to do in Mukono. Today (Sunday), we were off to a place near Jinja to do some horseback riding. Next weekend we are going on an overnight horseback trip where we will go through villages, plantations, and along the Nile. The company strongly suggested that we come the weekend before hand and do a half price hour long ride to stretch out the muscles and refresh ourselves in the saddle. It was a great ride going through the nearby village where we had opportunities to trot and canter with the horses. I have never done too much horseback riding so I was a little nervous at first but that quickly subsided as it began to come back to me. Kash had done quite a bit of horseback riding when she was younger so she was having a great time being back in the saddle as it had been a while since she rode as well. We are both very happy that we did the short ride today as already we are able to feel some slight muscle soreness and definite sits bones soreness. Next weekend we will be riding for 4-5 hours each day so hopefully we won’t get quite as sore then having got it out of the way this weekend. It also gave us a nice taste of what it to come next weekend so we are even more excited now.