Safari salaama

While Maggie was in Kampala I took the opportunity to visit the Family Spirit Centre. I had met the founder Isaac at the clinic and he had told me of the work he had been doing. He looks after over 20 orphans and vulnerable children from the age of 3 to 15. He has been doing this for several years and seems to have financed this on his own. As the venture grew he decided to open a school to give the children an education. He now has a school for 50 children and attracts some from the local village. These children pay a small fee which he uses to subsidize the orphans. He has some paid and some volunteer teachers.
I was impressed by the centre. The children all seemed well nourished and lively. I was given an impromptu concert of songs and nursery rhymes after a prayer led by a 4 year old! The children all seemed to have a good relationship with Isaac and many called him daddy. For a lot of the children he was the only father they could remember. There were 4 children who had arrived this week. The oldest girl was about eight and she was looking after the 3 younger children. They had been abandoned by their family and were sad and lonely among the other children. This process of vulnerable children being left is happening all over Uganda. The childrens’ families are destroyed by war, poverty or illness. It is left to people like Isaac and the staff of the centre to pick up the pieces and help these children.

As Chris says, I had yet another trip to Kampala. So far I’ve always managed to get a lift with Sallie; we stay over for two nights as she has business to attend to. This gives me a great opportunity to shop and stock up on supplies but, believe me, it is far from pleasurable! I’ve been persuaded to buy an oven and as I’ll be the only volunteer here with one I can see I’m going to have lots of orders for cakes and puddings (they’re non-existent in Masindi unless you count drinking yogurt in a bag). We return from Kampala feeling incredibly hot, sticky, dirty and tired. On a good day the trip only takes three and a half hours. Unfortunately yesterday was not a good day! We were already running late and didn’t leave until 4.30. As we pulled out of the car park onto the road, I looked out of the window and noticed that the front passenger side wheel was suspended in mid-air over a ditch. Sallie couldn’t move in either direction. Luckily help came and a few men ‘lifted’ the Land Cruiser back away from the ditch. On the way home we got a puncture. We were in the middle of nowhere, and the only traffic was the occasional lorry or bus pelting past at full speed. It was dark, very dark, as only Africa can be but a lady appeared from out of the bush with a lantern. We tried to find appropriate tools which meant emptying the boot - I wasn’t very popular with all my shopping! We failed miserably to change the tyre. The phone signal was intermittent but luckily we eventually managed to get hold of someone to send a mechanic. We then got a call to say that someone had seen the Masindi bus leaving Kampala after us and they would phone the conductor and tell him to look for us and help. So much for travelling safely in day time! The crowded Masindi bus arrived and came to the rescue. The car we were driving happened to belong to the owner of the bus. Networking here is great. In fact, everything relies on it.
Kampala is crazy at the moment. CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) is being hosted there this week and for months it is all everyone has talked about. An obscene amount of money has been spent to ‘beautify’ the City. The infrastructure is nowhere near ready and everywhere you go there are construction workers working around the clock. Some of the repairs on roads that will take our Queen from the airport have already been washed away with the heavy rains. It is easy to see which route the VIPs will take. A huge amount of money has been diverted from other essential areas just for these three days. A school and teacher training college in the centre of the City was bought (allegedly for 10 dollars!) by a Saudi prince so that he could demolish them and build a hotel for CHOGM. After demolition he changed his mind. Many hotels have sprung up (with worrying speed) specifically for this occasion but apparently some countries are not happy with standards and are even planning for their VIPs to stay in Nairobi and fly them into Entebbe everyday.
It is an everyday occurrence to hear of many injustices and nothing seems to shock anymore. It’s also easy to become cynical living here.
Perhaps I should go for my Sunday swim and relax a bit!

Chocolate heaven

The most important news this week is that a lone bar of Galaxy chocolate arrived at our Post Box much to Maggies delight. We have had a post box for the last 4 weeks but this is our first delivery. It arrived safely if a little misshapen after only 1 week. Thanks to Kare for her trust in Ugandan Post. We have a post box but so far do not have a key for it. Maggie goes every week to ask for the key to be told 'the man' has not made it yet so come back next week

Last weekend we had a visitor, Dada from the Philipines one of the VSO volunteers working in Kampala came to Masindi as part of her work on environmental issues. She and Daryll, another volunteer, cooked a wonderful Filipino chicken dish and we all watched Motor Cycle Diaries round the laptop. Who says you cant have fun in Masindi? This was the first time we had bought chicken here. You have two choices: buy a live chicken from the market or off the back of a bicycle, kill it, pluck it and then cook it, or go to the Shell garage and see if there is any frozen chicken in their freezer. At least Shell have a generator so you hope the freezer has not defrosted too many times. We opted for frozen.

Maggie has been busy at Court View Hotel. Sallie, who owns the hotel, has been in the UK and she asked Maggie to keep an eye on the place especially the kitchens. The first food hygiene courses were held this week and well received. One of the biggest challenges is to get the rats out of the kitchens. Another challenge this week was that Masindi had run out of gas for a few days so everything had to be cooked on charcoal. (notice we have adopted VSO's way of saying 'challenges' rather than 'problems'!) We are thinking of asking Gordon Ramsay to visit and advise. It would make a good TV programme. Court View is probably one of the best kitchens in Masindi but it is not quite to UK standards! Maggie is quite enjoying working with the staff who seem pleased that someone is taking an interest in their work. It is off putting eating there after Maggies description of what happens behind the doors but the food tastes good and we haven’t caught anything yet.

The HIV clinic is the main focus of my work. We see about 50 patients on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This week we have had 3 visits from the ministry of health . They are continually checking on what we are doing and looking at the documentation. Unfortunately this usually means stopping the clinic and keeping patients waiting for a couple of hours. Ugandan patients seem willing to accept long waits. We have supplies of ARVs but most other drugs are not available so it can be very frustrating trying to deal with patients' problems. This week I have needed to admit 2 patients from the clinic; one was dehydrated with dysentery and another had pneumonia and oesophageal candidiasis. Luckily we were able to access drugs to treat them. There are lots of patients with dual infection with TB and HIV. One of my tasks is to better coordinate their treatment as they can easily default from treatment which is a risk for the patient and the community. Another young patient at the clinic has cervical cancer as well as HIV. She was referred several months ago to the cancer specialist but as it is in Hoima 2 hours away she has not gone. She has no money for the fare and no prospect of being able to afford to stay in the hospital for treatment. Treatment is free in Uganda but you need to supply your own food and have an attendant to cook it and look after you. This young womans family can not support her so she will almost certainly die from her cancer if she does not succumb to the HIV. Another young woman with HIV on the ward has developed a stroke probably due to infection with toxoplasmosis. The treatment for that is not available so she has been taken home by her family to die.
The reality in Uganda is that many people are dying and it appears to be accepted. Patients are not demanding better treatment. There is a fatalism and people just say “this is Africa”. There is a lot of faith and that gives people the courage to carry on but sometimes it appears that it also prevents them from looking for solutions.

These are pictures I took in the HIV clinic - you can see how cramped it is. This was a quiet time. The guy in the fetching yellow outfit is a prisoner; we see lots of prisoners each clinic. The prevalence of HIV must be very high there. The man squatting has Stage 3 HIV and had dysentery. He looked alot better 2 days later after some antibiotics and fluid. His long term survival is unlikely I am afraid.

I also managed a trip in to the field to see some health centres. These clinics should provide most of the primary care but are sadly neglected. Staff are poorly motivated and often absent themselves from the job. The worst clinic we came across was anHC III which provided obstetric care. the delivery room had a foul smell which we traced to a dead bat in the corner. So much for infection control!

These pictures show patients at a health clinic plus the pile of used drugs and needles left on the windowsill.

Pictures of the market the clinic and health centres seem to go where they want and the captions go somewhere else. It is hard work being a blog virgin this posting has taken over an hour so hope you enjoy it.

It is Sunday morning and we have just had a walk round town but it is very hot. Morning coffee beckons and we have just had an invite for afternoon tea. It is tough in Masindi!

Better late than never!

It’s taken Maggie a month to brave a ride on a boda boda. These come in two varieties: a motorbike and a pushbike. As the road from town to our house is up hill, she decided not to inflict herself on the cyclist and opted for the motorbike. VSO actually advises against using these but when it’s scorching hot and you’re carrying big bunches of bananas, pineapples, bottles of water, etc. etc. it’s easy to give in. (She hasn’t yet mastered the technique of carrying everything on her head!). The other problem is returning after dark (7pm). It’s unwise to walk but, if you want any sort of a social life, a boda boda is the answer. Bear in mind these roads are just dirt tracks, full of craters and potholes and treacherous when wet, but exhilarating all the same on the back of a boda boda!
It’s worrying how excited we get when the power comes back on. There’s a mad scramble to rush round the house charging phones, laptops, cameras, putting the water heater on and even washing and blow-drying hair (Maggie that is, Chris doesn’t bother!). The latter is a bit risky as sometimes it’s off again before finishing.
The other highlight of the week has been the arrival of a Rocco Set (3 piece suite), dining chairs and shelves. (We have such an exciting time!) We actually managed our first bit of entertaining of the other VSOers though catering was a bit limited with a two ring burner. We’re finally getting our house staff together. We’ve already got Solomon who patrols the grounds at night looking very fearsome with his bow and arrow. He doesn’t like using his torch as he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there and decrease his chances of using his weapons! Some other volunteers are leaving Masindi this week so we’ve taken on Rose, their house girl (not exactly a girl as she has five children), and Sam their gardener. Rose and children will live in the quarters in the garden but Sam will live out and come three times a week. Last night we went to the departing volunteer’s leaving party which was quite an experience. It was modeled on an English wedding with a top table. The outgoing volunteer and incoming volunteer cut the cake together whilst being sprayed with some sort of sparkly dust and the speeches were interspersed with outbreaks of Celine Dion.
In desperation of not wanting to just eat tomatoes, onions and aubergines forever more, Maggie plucked up courage to buy fresh Talapia from the market (caught in nearby Lake Albert). It’s a bit off-putting when it’s exposed to the sun and swarming in flies but it’s very fresh and not a problem if cooked straight away. The meat will have to wait a bit! This is a picture of Christine’s shop which is literally at the end of our garden(oh no it isnt we can not upload it for some reason). It doesn’t have the choice of Sainsbury’s but we can buy fresh eggs from the chickens which have had free range of our garden!
For anyone who thinks we’re getting on a bit to learn a new language, they’re absolutely right! It’s fair to say we never have been natural linguists. We’re struggling with our weekly Swahili lessons but struggling even more with the fact that only some of the population speak it and the rest speak the local tribal language of Runyoro. By the time you’ve established who speaks what, a conversation has already been struck up in English!
Chris finally managed a trip into the district. It’s supposed to be a weekly event but has only been achieved once. Even then, it was touch and go whether he would make it but a vehicle finally turned up two hours late to take him. The HIV clinic is extremely busy and will take some time to organize. The first priority is to sort out management of pregnant patients. It appears they they are not getting preventative treatment which is a tragedy when you can prevent children being born with HIV.
Maggie is still spending a bit of time each day trying to improve the catering and service at the hotel. She’s running food hygiene sessions but has had to go right back to basics. It’s certainly a challenge but hopefully only a short term one. We’re slowly finding out about projects in the area where there might be a possibility of helping.
Generally, life is okay here. The weather is very hot (due to get hotter!) and there are storms most days, though these are short lived. The scenery is beautiful and it’s very easy to ignore it when all around you is such poverty. We haven’t encountered any nasty creepy crawlies yet! The house is starting to look more like a home and we met our immediate neighbours recently. One is the gentleman who lives in the hut at the water tower with I don’t know how many children and he tends the compound. Next door is a carpenter, so we know where our next order of furniture is coming from! The locals are all very friendly; the small children address us very politely in English and then fall about in fits of giggles when we reply.

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