One of our rhinos is missing

Maggie and I decided to have a weekend away from Masindi at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. The original plan was a romantic weekend for two, but it is too hot for that sort of thing so all the Masindi volunteers decided to come out for the Saturday night which worked really well.
We arrived on Friday after work to find that one of the female rhinos had given birth to a still born calf that week. There are only six rhinos in the sanctuary and the hope is to breed them to restock parts of Uganda that previously had wild rhinos. Every one was sad to lose the first calf a month premature after a 15 month gestation. To add to the concern three of the rhinos had escaped from the ranch when the villagers cut the fence to gain access to the grazing. The rangers had to track down the lost trio and found them several miles from the ranch. Finding them is difficult but more of a problem is to persuade them to turn round and return. You can not just say shoo to a rhino they are big and definitely have minds of there own. At one point they charged the rangers who had to climb a tree to keep safe. Some how they managed to return them to the ranch and repair the fence.
We spent Saturday sitting on the verandah , reading and watching the birds and butterflies around the house. It was idyllic. We did manage a short walk but realised that we were not sure of the correct procedure if we met a rhino. The rhinos roam wild and there was plenty of evidence of their presence with great piles of rhino dung around the place. They certainly do not suffer from constipation. At one point on our walk there was a crashing in the bushes so we decided to retreat to the verandah for another cup of tea.
Sunday it was decided we would all go off and see the rhinos with a ranger. The 2 groups of three rhinos are all supposed to be watched by the rangers all the time so there whereabouts are known. After about 20 minutes off road driving we parked and the rangers pointed out the beasts in the bushes trying to find shade. We were able to walk to within about 30 yards of the group. Luckily rhinos have poor eyesight and locate you by smell. We can’t have smelt too bad that day as they took no notice of us.It was a great weekend after a pretty awful week at work and we returned to Masindi refreshed.
This week has been better. The mouse and stray bat that invaded us last week seem to have taken the hint and left. Maggie seems to take all our little visitors in her stride but was very annoyed that the mouse had dared to chew a corner of her Green and Black chocolate. She managed to overcome her disgust and eat it, needs must I suppose.
Last week most of the staff I work with had been on a diabetes course leaving me to run the clinic and the ward. It is much easier when the whole team is available. Unfortunately Monday was another difficult day. During the ward round we found the 10 yr old severely disabled child of one of the patients fitting. She had stopped taking her phenytoin as they had run out. It took 3 doses of diazepam and over an hour for her to stop fitting. There were no other drugs available either in the hospital or in the pharmacies in town. It was awful to see this child fitting with nothing available to help. She may have had malaria so she was given quinine. It took 2 days for her to really come round but by Friday she was back to her normal self. She has no sitting balance and a left hemiplegia but she has a lovely laugh when she is tickled. What sort of future she has is debatable especially as her mother has terminal liver disease. There are so many tragic stories here.
Monday also was the day that we asked Raymond to stay away from the clinic. Raymond has been the mainstay of the clinic for several years. He is an expert patient and chair of the local group for people living with HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately he also has open TB. He has had 5 treatments for it but is still positive which almost certainly means he has drug resistant TB. There is no treatment for MDRTB in Uganda. The best we have been able to do for him is to register him at Mulago hospital so if a donor starts a programme with the necessary drugs he will be able to access them. It was sad to see Raymond go he will be sadly missed but the risk to other patients and staff is too great .
The Tuesday clinic was quiet without him and not as efficiently run as there was no one to do his job but the patients were all seen.
On Wednesday I managed a trip out to the community. This was in a UK ambulance donated by the rotary club of Hereford and Wye. The siren was useful at scaring children and cows!. We travelled to a village where 2 children had died from diarrhoea and vomiting in 3 days. The concern was that it may be the start of a cholera outbreak. From the story it is possible that it was cholera but could have been any diarrhoeal disease. Unfortunately the parents had not taken the children to the health centre and they had died from dehydration. The village is several kilometres from the health centre. It has very poor sanitation and poor water supply. Many of the houses have no latrines and the water comes from the local river. There is a market in the village which attracts many people. There is no latrine or washing place for the market. It is not surprising that diarrhoea is common. Death of children is common here and is an accepted part of life.
Everyone is aware of the need for improved sanitation, in fact this week is national sanitation week, but the resources are not available to deal with the problem in the villages.
On Saturday I visited the Family Spirit Centre with Pam our latest VSO volunteer. The centre has 57 pupils , 35 of them are orphans or abandoned children who live at the school. They range from 18m to about 13 years. The centre was started by a small group of concerned parents to try and provide education and shelter for vulnerable children. In spite of no official funding they manage to feed and clothe the children. The children all seemed happy and well cared for. The centre is always short of money but never short of children. They desperately need more accommodation and a fence around the compound. They have just dug a new pit latrine as the old one is nearly full. They needed money to complete the programme and I thought that it would be a good use of some of the donated money I brought out to Uganda. For 800,000 ush the building could be complete, that is about £240. They were very grateful so we had kids singing and speeches in the African style. It is an inspiring place. One of the best things about it is that it is a purely Ugandan response to a Ugandan problem. Yes they would like help from any one who can give but the inspiration and drive is coming from ordinary Ugandans who recognise that there is a big problem..

No pictures the system has crashed 3 times!