Precious Uganda Moments

I woke up this morning and realized that in exactly two weeks, I’ll be boarding my plane for home. It is truly amazing how quickly my time has passed here. According to an email from my dear sister, I’ve been not good at keeping people posted on my adventures this week, so this is going to be my quick attempt.

I took a break from pharmacy today and spent the entire day teaching the grade school kids at one of the Catholic schools in Fort Portal. It was entirely exhausting, but absolutely worth it. The kids here have some sort of extra special happy energy and it’s contagious. They LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to sing. And when they sing, they’re not quiet about it. Every song has clapping or dancing or stomping or some sort of silliness to it. So what did I teach them? Songs from my American childhood of course! I can honestly say it’s the first time in my life I willingly stood in front of groups of people and sang solos (it might be the last too – Americans would be far more judgmental of my pitiful singing voice). The older kids caught on at lightning speed. So we moved on to stories of Christmas and fun question and answer sessions, all while I taught them the appropriate way to say American words.

The P2 class (2nd graders). These little guys were probably my favorite. Cutest songs and smiles. 

 Picture time was absolute chaos. One of the classes literally ran their teacher over when she asked them to stand for a picture. Another started standing on desks and on each other and trying their hardest to touch my hair. I was told by one little girl that I have hair like the Virgin Mary. Haha.

When the time for pictures came, chaos ensued. That mob of children standing on desks behind me were all fighting to touch my hair and hold my hand while this picture was happening.
The picture below is a few of the P4's who refused to go outside and play. The little girl on my right pleaded with me that I would greet my friends and family in the US for her. Adorable! 

 

When I left the school I had about 400 kids yelling at me, “Thank you, Madam, Kelly! Please come back soon!” Such a fun day!

The P5 class (5th graders) - a much calmer group than some of the younger students

Moving on (or back I guess). This past Saturday I went to a traditional Ugandan Introduction ceremony – meaning that a woman was introducing the man she has chosen to marry to her family for the first time. The people have tribes here, and thus elders as well. So this man arrives with all of this relatives (families are huge here) and they sit across from the woman’s family while the elders talk back and forth – the woman’s family deciding if the man is suitable for their daughter. The man’s family has to bring piles and piles of gifts. There’s traditional dancing. There’s a huge feast. It’s an all out party – similar to the actual wedding ceremony in America (the wedding itself isn’t as big a deal as the introduction here). The introduction lasted literally 8 hours. For the first 6, we sat the entire time. No lunch until 5 pm!

Can YOU dance with 5 pots stacked on your head? Becasue these girls did it, and sang too! I'm pretty sure it was some sort of magic....
The picture on the bottom left is my friend Tony - not much of a smiler for the camera, but precious in his party clothes all the same.

                                        

This is the bride. She cut the cake with her brother and then offered it to the elders of her family - part of the tradition. I'm sorry for the poor quality of photos. The pearls around her neck were one of the many gifts from her groom.

I was also able to visit the true village land of Uganda last week. BANANA TREES EVERYWHERE! I would have never dreamed Africa would be so green. I guess I always think Sahara desert  - but this is far from desert land. It is a gorgeous country. People are everywhere – regardless of how far from town you go. There’s no road without people walking and motorcycels and bicylces flying through. The village people have very little in terms of material wealth. The houses probably wouldn’t even qualify as houses in the US. But the people, are the happiest I’ve ever met. It’s an incredible place!

BANANA trees ....EVERYWHERE!!

 

 

Some of the children we met in the villages

This week I’m working at the government hospital. It’s super busy with hundreds of patients, because services are free. That means long lines, sometimes poor service, minimal availability of medications and tests and exams. The healthcare system here honestly breaks my heart – especially knowing all of the knowledge and medication that is out there. It’s an incredibly difficult thing to know treatments are available but to often not have access to them here. I’ve teared up and cried more than once seeing patients suffer and wishing I could bring them home with me and find for them the treatments that I know could heal them….

Eating Grasshoppers

While there are new things to experience and adjust to every day here in Uganda, yesterday I did something I would have never in a million years considered doing elsewhere. I ATE GRASSHOPPERS. I was so freaked out and grossed out by the idea that the whole thing was caught in pictures (my face doesn’t adequately show my fear). These insects are considered a delicacy here. They travel up from the Saherra Dessert and are only available for a month or two. People catch them, pull their wings off, and then fry them and chow away…eyes and all. Once I swallowed my pride and picked one of the dead bugs up to finally put it in my mouth….

I discovered they actually weren’t that bad. Maybe even almost good. I’d be more apt to say that if they didn’t look and feel so nasty in my hands.

Besides eating insects what have I been up to you ask? Well I have a new best friend. Albert, from my last post, one of the pharmacy nurses’ sons, comes to the pharmacy after school every day (around noon). I had brought a coloring book and crayons with me from the US and gave it to him on Saturday. His joy over this simple gift was too beautiful for words. Just look at his little face!

 

He now walks into the pharmacy and searches immediately for me, grins, grabs his coloring book and pulls up a chair as close as he can next to me. Yesterday I had my Ipad out for drug research, so when he came, I turned a Disney movie on for him and he thought it was pure magic. He kept alternating between beeming at the computer and turning to grin at me. I taught him to give high fives (I hope that’s culturally acceptable) and he can now recognize fish (He was watching the little Mermaid) – in his words, “FEESH!.”

Tomorrow I get to talk to one of the sisters who teaches in the grade schools. I asked if I could come work with the children a day or two and we’re setting that up tomorrow. I’m super excited! I’m also going with one of the pharmacists on a patient home visit. This man was just released from the hospital, but is not well still. I have been labeled the American asthma expert and am being summoned to his home to manage his case.

Random fact, but people here have no idea what daylight savings time is, which means that I am now 1 hour farther from home than I was before all of you Americans fell back and hour.

One more.  Here in Uganda, people don’t “honk” their horns when cut off in traffic, they “hoot” them. J

Uganda Happenings

I am sitting under my mosquito net inside my “master suite” here in Uganda. My lights are flickering and likely to go out any minute. Apparently sometimes the people in this village of Fort Portal sometimes go months without electricity. My preceptor, Sister Rovina, left me "special seeds" tonight to keep coachroaches from coming. Such a friendly gesture, but until she placed them in my hand, I had never considered the possibility of coachroaches and I got entirely freaked out. Hopefully they really are magic seeds.

Meanwhile, three days of travel was waaay too much. When I arrived in Uganda late Tuesday night, we stayed in the capital city of Kampala. It is a giant dust bowl of what seemed like millions of people and an equal number of taxis and motorcycles flying everywhere. The people drive on the left sdeide of the road here, like in Britain, and between that and absolutely no traffic rules to speak of, I am completely amazed there aren’t daily traffic accident deaths – it’s honestly a miracle! Regardless of the hour of day, people are out swarming the streets everywhere in this country. It was a 5 hour drive from Kampala to Fort Portal and the road was never empty of people walking that entire journey. Fresh produce markets are everywhere and if your vehicle is stopped, you will be swarmed by children and adults trying to sell you their produce.

A tiny glimpse of traffic in Kampala. This does not do the scene justice at all. But just know that this was not a traffic jam and people are not moving slowly and their are 80 more motorcycles within sight flying in and around cars.

People don't just carry fruit on their heads - they carry heavy boxes of pharmacy record books too. Quite Impressive.

Bananas are the staple of the diet here in Uganda. I am not exaggerating when I say they eat them with EVERY meal. I was told that without a banana the meal is not complete. They cook them in so many ways I never knew were possible. But I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know there was more than one type of banana in existence...and I may wish they didn't exist anymore at the end of my 6 weeks. :)

The adults here speak English if they’ve gone through school. The kids who haven’t had a lot of school speak very little English, but they are all so happy to see white people. The little kids get so excited and wave excitedly, yelling “Hal-lo!” Because they don’t understand me and I can’t speak Rotoro (I’m spelling that like it sounds…) we find other ways to communicate. I taught a four-year-old to make funny faces today and he absolutely adored seeing his image on my camera. His mom told me I was his new best friend.

My new friend, Albet

The pharmacy is sooo much different than in the US. People don’t need prescriptions to get their medications and we as pharmacists get to be their doctors. Actually, nurses get to do the same. Pharmacists don’t even have to be present all the time for medications to be dispensed. I also visited the hospital today. That was super humbling. No IV lines. No sterile rooms. Very little equipment or staff or medication availability. Eight hospital beds in one general ward. We visited some patients who thought that I was an American doctor who was there to offer them miracle treatments. That was so humbling to see and so disappointing as well to realize the disparity between the facilities and practices we have in the US and those they have in Uganda. If only we, being so privileged, could be as happy and grateful as these people!

Virika Pharmacy - Sr. Rovina at the dispensing window helping the Bishop of her parish.

Visiting patients at the hospital. They were all excited for pictures and asking me to help fix their illnesses.

I am off to learn how to wash my own laundry. Should be an interesting lesson...