Playing god

This week Michael told me I was his second god. Michael, like many Ugandans, is a Christian - he is “born again” My status was achieved because I arranged for him to go to Kampala for treatment.
Michael is 35 years old and had had treatment for TB in 2006 but he had been troubled with a bad chest since then which was getting worse. He had seen several doctors in Masindi to no avail. When I saw him in the clinic he looked unwell and his chest sounded awful. He needed a chest x ray but as the hospital has no films at the moment he would have to have one privately. In the spirit of free enterprise the private clinic has increased the price from 10000 ush to 15000 ush as they are the only place to get x rays now. Michael had no money so using the donations I was given I paid for his x ray. His x ray was bizarre. He had complete collapse of the right lung with a pneumothorax and a fluid level. I am no radiologist and there is no one in Masindi to interpret x rays so I sent the film on the bus to Kampala. Godfrey the taxi driver picked it up from the bus and took it to the international hospital in Kampala. Grania another VSO doctor is my TB expert and has been a great help. She loves getting x rays from Masindi because they are always bizarre with gross pathology.
Grania felt that Michael needed his chest draining but agreed that it should be done somewhere safe and clean, not the male ward in Masindi. Grania oversees the charity ward at IHK and agreed to admit him there and look after him. This would all be at no cost to Michael as long as he could get there. Michael agreed to go but did not know Kampala. Luckily Sallie was going to Kampala and she agreed to deliver him to the hospital. So I gave Michael 20000 ush for his return fare and he went off to Kampala and he has already had the pus drained from his chest thanks to Grania’s expertise. He is very grateful to the muzungus’ network and to those people in the UK who gave me funds to use. Unfortunately without that help he would have just been left to get on with things.
If god is some one who has money and connections then I have been playing god all week. Because we have had no x rays I paid for another man to have an x ray. This confirmed TB so we could start him on treatment. The woman with a probable liver cancer needed money for transport to go to Gulu for further investigation so she and her daughter had 30000 ush. The 4 year old girl, who last week had been bitten by a dog that subsequently died, needed anti rabies treatment. She had been given one injection but needed four. There is no free treatment available and the family had no money so they came to the muzungu doctor for help. There is not much choice in that situation so she has been given the money for her treatment. It is not sustainable and the government should be providing the vaccine but it is hard to refuse when we have access to money.
But often you can not help. I could not solve the problem of the woman with HIV still breast feeding her 9 month old child because she could not afford any other food. My playing god could not help the 16 month old infant with HIV who weighed less than 5 kilos. His life will be short he is too weak to benefit from treatment and I am afraid he will die soon like his mother and father.

We have had visitors this week 2 very welcome and one not so. Susan and Shaun arrived for the weekend from Kampala and it was great to have them. Our unwelcome guest was a snake. On Friday night we arrived home to be told by the askari that Rose, our cleaner, had seen a snake in our bedroom. Searching for a snake at 10 at night with no power is no fun. We could not find it so went to bed. It was a strange feeling wondering whether there was a snake in our room. It certainly improves bladder control when you dare not get out of bed until it is light. We have not seen the snake , we hope it has gone back to where it came from but we keeping looking!

Twitching

We neglected the blog last weekend as I (Maggie) was in Kampala for various reasons but most importantly to meet John and Rena (friends from home) who have been staying with us this week. As always, the week has passed very quickly and we said goodbye to them this morning. We had previously visited John and Rena during their four-year stay in Nairobi so it was good to be able to reciprocate and host them here. It helped Chris to have some moral support for the work he is doing and also to be able to talk shop with people who understand what he’s talking about! We did our bit as tour guides and it was great to have John as a fellow ‘twitcher’! We ended the week with a three hour guided bird watching walk through Budongo Forest which has boosted my list of different bird species to over a hundred now. Who needs, TV, cinema or live theatre?!! At Murchison Falls National Park John managed to inadvertently see the highly sought after Shoebill Stork which many people from around the world come here to find (and quite often fail). So I’ve only got 11 months left to see it for myself. It was a real tonic to have John and Rena here. Our chats with them has made us think a bit more about what we would like to do upon our return from Uganda and also about what we can take from our experiences here and use in the next chapter of our lives.
After a steady stream of visitors for the last few months, it’s time to settle down and concentrate on work, though I keep hearing rumours that Christmas is looming - how can that be when it’s hot and sunny and feels like July? I haven’t heard a single carol, seen any Christmas trees, there’s not a bauble to be found in the shops and there aren’t any houses covered in fairy lights! There’s a distinct lack of turkeys here too; I wonder what stuffed Shoebill tastes like? (Chris just said I’ll get lynched for writing that!)
Here are a selection of our photos from the week. The budding twitchers are Rose’s youngest two children, trying to learn how to use binoculars for the first time!