Bwindi trip

We ended the last entry with the words mpora, mpora (slowly, slowly) but just to prove that some things can happen quickly I thought I would mention our trip to Bwindi. Chris and Pam wanted to visit a health centre in Bwindi where two VSOers are working and apparently having a positive experience and really making a difference. Communication with that part of Uganda is difficult and we made several attempts to contact Paul and Vicky. On Saturday we received an e-mail saying that this week would be good for a visit so within a few hours we had a car and driver booked and set off on the 4 hour drive to Kampala (overnight in Kampala) and then a 10 hour journey down to Bwindi. It's right in the south west about 1 mile from the Congo border (see map on right!). So, we are here for a week, returning to Masindi on Sunday. I'm sure there'll be lots to tell but it will have to wait until the following week! Have just managed to get a slot on the internet (it's apparently no good when the sun shines) but thought we'd let everyone know that all's well and we're having a great trip. Until next week ..............

April Showers

The last few days have been cooler and the rains have started so it is not dusty just muddy! There is power this morning and the computer is working so only a day late with the blog.
The Gift Shop at the hotel is thriving. Word is getting around and people are coming out of the woodwork (or, more accurately, the bush) to sell me their work. Some of it is really creative and good but some is less so and I don’t like having to turn people away. The aim of the shop is to provide good quality, Ugandan crafts and to provide an outlet for people to market their products.
This week I decided to stock up on certain things but, like everything else here, that is not such a simple task. One of our suppliers is a project for women producing beautiful bas-ketware. Everything is made from natural resources, including the dyes. The women are taught the necessary skills and then they work from home and have a guaranteed income. The only problem is that their village is near Fort Portal which is an 850k round trip from Masindi via Kampala. As Sallie was going to Kampala early on Tuesday morning I ar-ranged a lift down with her. We eventually set off at 4 p.m. and arrived late in the evening and booked into a hotel for the night. Sallie’s driver, Godfrey, was taking me from Kam-pala to Fort Portal the following morning - we finally left at 4.30 and arrived at 8 p.m., far too late to go to the village. The bonus was that I got in touch with our VSO friends based in FP and they were celebrating Barbara’s 70th birthday. I gatecrashed their dinner party and stayed the night with them! It was great to catch up and hear how they are getting on. Unfortunately, Godfrey had to return to Kampala early that morning (we’re now on Thurs-day!) so on Wednesday night another driver, Sulliman, had to come all the way from Masindi to pick me up and do the last leg of the journey. He had a dreadful journey down - the road is made of marum (no tarmac) and treacherous when wet. His brakes failed about 50k out of FP so he had to rely on his handbrake. Consequently, the vehicle spent a couple of hours in the garage in FP on Thursday morning. This was the vehicle I was re-turning in so I didn’t feel too confident about the journey home. The garage, along with it’s mechanics, didn’t exactly fill me with confidence either though it was quite amusing when a lady brought out a stool for me and asked me to sign the visitor’s book! Late Thursday morning, after all the frustrations, we finally set off to the village to buy the bas-kets. After two days of travelling I was relieved to be able to do what I had come for - or so I thought………..we arrived at the shop to find it was closed! So Sulliman and I just did what every Ugandan would do and sat and waited. A lady from a nearby shop produced two chairs and I was harassed the whole time by a gentlemen who had obviously been sampling the local brew and seemed to think I was his Auntie. Quite entertaining actually. Patience paid and the shop did eventually open. I practically cleared the shelves - I had no intention of coming back for a long time! We took the short route home but had a 5½ hr bone-shaking journey along very wet, muddy, hilly roads with the car sliding all over the place, but at least the brakes held out. This road is only really passable with a 4 x 4 but the other option is a two day journey back via Kampala. I can sense all my friends in the UK reading this blog and wondering why I didn’t just order the goods by mail order. Things just don’t work like that here and nothing is ever paid for by credit card, only cash.
The one compensation is that the scenery in that part of Uganda is stunning. FP is in the foothills of the snow-capped Rwenzori mountains, also known as the Mountains of the Moon. The climate is cooler with more rain, but very green. It’s home to Uganda’s tea plantations, established in the 1930s by Europeans and Indians. Mineral water from the mountains, cooking oil and soap are also produced there.
Chris is still pleased with his vehicle, the Pajero, for work. It’s been spotted all over the place delivering goods, etc. but, more importantly, taking staff out into the rural communi-ties. Chris and Pam have been able to get out to the district health centres. It has been used for outreaches and this week in one clinic over 200 people were seen. The Pajero’s had three punctures this week because of shonky tyres but we can’t get hold of any new ones until May due to lack of funds at the district. Hopefully it will keep on the road next week.
Our motto is mpora, mpora (slowly, slowly, in the local Runyoro language) but sometimes you think you are not going slowly but going backwards!

Mixed week in Masindi

This week has been dominated for me by the arrival in town of the Elton John Pajero. This is the vehicle that was given 4 yrs ago for work in the community. It had been off the road for over a year but I gave some money from the donations I brought out to have it repaired. It has been a complicated process but it is back on the road. The first I knew of it was when I saw it delivering children at one of the local schools but after a few days chasing it was delivered to the hospital and handed over.
After the trouble we previously had getting out to the health centres it was great this week to travel in relative comfort and safety out to Kyateri health centre. I spent the day observing and working with the clinical officer, a young women of about 23 years. There were the usual cases of malaria and diarrhoea. One child had a pneumonia and probable malaria In the UK she would have been admitted to paediatric intensive care but here she was sent home with amoxicillin and Co Artem. The area has a high maternal mortality rate even by Ugandan standards. Although most women attend ante natal very few of them deliver at the unit, most choosing to stay at home and be delivered by relatives or friends. If there is a problem, then transfer to Masindi hospital 20 km away is the only option and that is if you can find transport. Theoretically there is an ambulance at the hospital to collect patients but this rarely seems to happen.
The health centre seemed to function quite well and was providing a good service to the community.
On Friday we used the vehicle again to visit a patient who had not attended clinic to pick up his drugs. He has TB and HIV and was ill the month before with a haemoglobin of 5.9.When he sent a supporter to pick up his drugs we were concerned that he might need admission so we arranged to go out to see him. This is just the reason why we wanted to get the vehicle back on the road.
He lives near Biso about 24 km from Masindi. The homestead was several km out of Biso down several cycle paths only just passable in the 4x4. Eventually we came to a group of mud huts where we were greeted by Godfrey the patient and forty of his relatives, several of whom spoke perfect English. Luckily he was improving and the last few days he had started to eat again and was feeling stronger. His family are originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo just the other side of Lake Albert. They fled in 1983 to avoid the war and had to flee again from Buliisa to avoid famine. They now live together in this homestead of 42 people. It was remarkable how well they all seemed to get on. Godfrey’s father had had 40 children but Godfrey only had 6. When the children arrived home from school they all knelt down before the old women as a sign of respect. At 6.00 pm Godfrey called one of his sons to get the radio and he tuned in to BBC world service. He said he always listened to World Service as he liked to know what was happening in the world.
We were introduced to a little girl of 8 years. She was severely stunted and Cushingoid. She had been put on steroids at a year old for arthritis and the family had been buying them ever since. The drugs had severely affected her growth and now it is doubtful she will ever be able to come off them safely. Godfrey’s brother was very concerned about epilepsy as one of his sons had developed fits. It appears that this is a common situation in the locality and no one is sure why there is such a high incidence. Hopefully we can go back there and collect some information to clarify the situation. Unfortunately anti convulsants are not readily available here.
On Saturday we were invited to our askari’s home. He was keen to show us what he had spent the 300,000ush loan on. Soloman has been our night watchman since we moved into the house. He comes every night at 7.00 and leaves at about 6.30a.m. His job is to protect us and the property. He is a likeable chap who does not seem to mind working 7 nights a week. This seems to be the normal situation here and he is glad of a job. He lives with his 10 children and other family members on a large plot of land which he farms. His father obtained the plot many years ago when he came to Masindi with the British from the Sudan. Soloman considers himself Ugandan but his roots are in the north. He has been building his new house for 9 years; whenever he gets any money he does a little more. The money we loaned him in January he used to buy iron sheets for the roof. He now has half the roof covered and he has moved into half of the building. He proudly showed off his land and his crops. He obviously grows enough to feed every one but there is no spare cash and I expect part of his reason for showing us his home was to ask for a raise or another loan. As we left he scooped up a duck, placed it in a carrier bag and gave it to Maggie for our meal. It is hard to refuse a live duck! We took it to Court View and persuaded the chef to kill and pluck it. We muzungos prefer our meat on Perspex trays wrapped in clingfilm.
Today we have walked the Masindi trail. This is a 3 hour walk around Masindi which was originally worked out by previous VSO volunteers. It incorporates some of the historical features of the town and was good fun but very hot in the sun. The Masindi volunteers are planning to organise a sponsored walk using the trail in June to raise money for a local HIV/AIDS charity and to raise awareness locally of the issues.
There are some photos attached.If you look carefully at the one of the pick ups you can see the second driver. Soloman our askari is the one with a big grin and his long suffering wife is beside him.The others are from the trail.

Photo success

Have taken advantage of good network and uploaded a selection of photos! The 'fishy 'ones were taken on a recent trip to a remote fishing community on the shore of Lake Albert. There is one of Chris' car being towed away by the ambulance to be repaired (see earlier blog!), one of my craft shop and one of our camping friends.

Six months!

It has just dawned on us that we have now been here six months. When thinking about what to write about on the blog, it seems that incidents that happened five or six months ago deemed worthy of comment but those same situations now seem less out of the ordinary and not worth mentioning. So, although it’s difficult to think what to write about, a lot has actually happened and the days have passed really quickly.
A parcel of somewhat squashed mini chocolate eggs from Becky and a box of ‘bits and bobs’ from Kare were most welcome. The eggs were fine after a few hours in the fridge! We’ve had various visitors this week - some more welcome than others! Somehow a couple of baby bats escaped from the roof into our bedroom (one lodged in the mosquito net and scared me to death), followed by a mouse and then a frog - geckos don’t count anymore! Our invited guests were Grania and Dan from Kampala who came to stay with some of their friends from the UK and camped in the garden. We had a good night with them all and the monkeys behaved themselves and left them alone. Work has been busy for both of us this week. Every day brings new challenges and frustrations. The notion that life would be simpler here was way off the mark. Nothing ever goes according to plan and just the simplest things become so complicated. Fortunately there aren’t any complicated things to sort out. Adapting to not being able to achieve as much as you would like is one of the hardest lessons. It’s not all doom and gloom though! It’s good to be able to walk down the street or around the market and be recognised by people who want to greet you and wish you well. There’s never any hostility but plenty of curiosity!
Being English I feel it’s my duty to mention the weather! The temperature has dropped a few degrees this week and the rains have started in ernest. It’s interesting to see the local people in their thick padded jackets and woolly hats and babies in several layers of knitted garments and quilted blankets. We are still walking around in t-shirts which prompts a few comments.
Now that the ground is wet Sam, the gardner, has been really busy planting my vegetable and salad seeds which arrived from the UK (thanks Steve and Denise). The only problem is keeping the monkeys and the mongoose off them. It will be such luxury to have lettuce again. I’m easily pleased these days - who needs radicchio, lollo rosso, curly endive, little gem and rocket when a good old iceberg will do?
This is going to be a brief blog as I want to try and upload some photos that we’ve been unable to do the last few weeks due to poor network. We’ll see what happens!