(origineel bericht op be-more.nl)
Big update
Day 9
After an itchy night full of weird dreams (that’s Lariam for you), I got up early-ish, had some breakfast, read some pages, and went to the hospital around 8:30. There we immediately split up, and I went to the ward rounds. There were a couple of women, some hypertension, some cervical cancer (HPV is common here), and one thing, that would wake everyone up in the early morning. Some gangrenous foot, attached to an old lady. Not the nice dry kind, it was the smelly, oozy, disgusting wet type. The woman had stepped on a stick of some kind, 2 weeks earlier. The wound had festered, and now her foot was all black and disgusting, ready for amputation. And that smell…
We were happily invited to join the surgery, later in the afternoon.
Then to the lab. Same old, same old. More and more responsibilities.
Off to the nutrition ward. It was crowded with a lot of tiny underfed kids. One of ‘em was in such a bad shape, it hadn’t had any decent type of food in 2 months, and it’s entire skin was covered with lesions and ulcers, not a nice sight.
The kid was abandoned by the mother, because the father had left her. It died an hour later.
Back to the lab! More fun with staining, TB, and all sorts of things. Then the call I’d been waiting for. Nasty surgery.
It smelled even worse than before. When the old woman was stripped down, and put on the bed, she was in all kinds of agony.
She was anesthetized, poorly. When the doctor touched her food, she was still screaming and moaning. Some more then, all by iv. Still not that helpful.
In injection here and there, seemed to sort of fix it, temporarily.
The cutting. The major part of her foot was just dead rotting tissue. That smell… When the surgeon started peeling of the skin layers, the flesh was just falling off. A gush of blood here and there, an awful lot of gauze, agony, pain, a joke here and there. Oh. And that sound when they cut through the bones with blunt gardening scissors. Delightful.
None of the surgery was performed in a sterile environment, with people walking in and out as they seemed fit. Weird. But then again, they don’t think she’s going to last anyway. Part two of the surgery tomorrow (they stopped somewhere halfway).
Anyways, time to get some cash, internet, and dinner. Lovely beef. It was actually flavoured with spices.
That was that. Tomorrow some ploughing in the field.
Day 10
The farmer’s life is one of blood, sweat, tears, agony, and waking up early. We were picked up at 8 in the morning, after which we drove 35 minutes to ‘Kim’s place’. Kim is a Dutch woman, who has been living here in Uganda for 6 or so years, although at the moment she was back in Holland to visit family, or so. She is the one in charge of the nutrition program here at the clinics, and has set up multiple job opportunities at her farm, for the women who had kids at the nutrition ward, to learn how to farm food, among others. Her boyfriend, called Sunday, and another boda boda driver came pick us up, and dropped us off at the farm, where we were put to work instantly. This is really not the Uganda way. Way to efficient.
So, since the dry season has started, it is important to water the fruit plants and vegetables. That’s what I did. Seemed a waste though, ruining fresh rain water on the plants. After about 50 liters, that was about it.
Then, for the remainder of the day it was ploughing the corn field, in the burning sun. It was dusty, it was intense, it was exhausting, yet fun. I think.
Lunch, tea and dry bread. Ploughing the field is considered a woman’s job in Uganda, hence the weird remarks when there was a guy standing in the field, doing just that. Weirdly enough, it felt really masculine. Perhaps I should become a farmer…
Anyhow, back to the Mzungu house, where we were met by the official project coordinator, a man called <em>Bennon</em>, or however you write that. Extremely happy, enthusiastic, outgoing guy, always saying he is from Breda, whereas he only has visited the place. He made some calls to fix a couple of minor issues on the house; the water stealing, some wooden covers on the window in my bedroom, and the digging of a pit for the garbage. Here everybody just burns their trash.
After that I went to the market to do some grocery shopping. I was going to cook that evening, some lovely tuna pasta salad, and needed some actual vegetables for that. I wondered what it felt like to eat vitamins again. Although the means were limited, I must admit, not that bad; there are only two butane canisters, and old cooking pots, and no fresh herbs.
The remainder of the evening consisted of some reading, and an early night.
Day 11
Morning, breakfast, hospital. When I entered the lab, they were in the process of cleaning it, so I thought, I might as well join in. After a half an hour or so, the first patients were allowed to enter, to have their tests done. One issue though, they ran out of syringes and typhoid subtype antigen. That made some of the tests impossible, and it would take at least 2 days for a new supply to enter. That is the Uganda way. Work with what you have until you run out, and only then order new material.
The power was not working either, save from some solar panels on the roof, so the centrifuge for separating the blood layers was not working. Just one of those days.
I got a call around 10 o’clock, saying that the guy to fix my window had arrived. Inge, (the volunteer that had opened the door) had been kind enough to hide my valuables. Now, I had the amazing opportunity to watch and support some amazing Uganda style craftsmanship.
Alright, so the guy had the window shutters pre-made, and only had to put them in. Sounds easy enough.
He tried to fit them in, adjusted them by shaving of layers of wood, nocked the windows out of its frame, and 3 hours later (Seriously), after covering my entire room in sawdust, he finished. I don’t presume to know anything about carpentry, but I am convinced I could have done a better job.
Nevertheless, albeit it slightly crooked, I have no shutters in the windows (or what’s left of them), to shield off unwanted night creatures and other things.
Great, time for lunch. I made some omelettes as a variation on the beans and rice, and that was that. There was a discussion going on whether we should go out on food training. Last week, it was fun with the balloons and all, but it took ages. Would we want to sit through the same thing again?
Back to the lab, some more work, although restricted due to material shortages.
3 o’clock, time to go on food training. They kind of expected at least some of us to come. When we finally left around 4:30 (Uganda timing, once again), it took an hour of insane driving on the boda boda, to arrive at the location.
Seriously, it’s a weird combination to, on the one hand, hold on for you dear life, and on the other waving back and smiling at kids.
When we got there, the sun was setting already, and there were about 15 men waiting for us. No women and children this time. Same routine as last time, although a lot faster, and suddenly after an hour or so, one of the men asks the following question; “couldn’t you come back another time, so that the women and children are here?”. Are you kidding me?
In the end there were about 35 people, of which about 10 women, and that was that. Back home
Cooking, lentils with potato and veggies, and barbecued chicken strips. I’m getting the hang of this.
Relaxing evening.
Day 12
Recapping on something that happened a couple of days earlier is rather difficult. Today is day 15, and I haven’t been doing my daily writing. Anyways, here we go.
After breakfast we set out to the hospital, I jumped into the lab, and did the same old work again. Inge and I were to get picked up around 1, for the vaccination outreach. Being all ready to go, we left at 1:15. Mzungu timing.
After a 20 minute boda boda drive we arrived at the place, which was next to a small cottage in a tiny village, that I’ll not even try to pronounce.
Supposedly about 15 kids ought to show up, somewhere between that time and 4 o’clock. Some general vaccinations for polio, DTP, and others. Great fun. Administration, a lot less.
In between the cases, we had to wait, and decided to entertain the local kids with balloons.
A few moments later, about 40 children were standing around the Mzungus, eagerly awaiting them.
Some photos with them wearing our sunglasses later, it was already 4, and time to leave. The taxi would come and pick us up to go to Masaka.
After having our laundry dropped off, we were good to go.
Some 45 minute drive, with Celine Dion and and Witney Houston, and we were back at the Masaka Backpackers. That night some fancy dinner in town, some beers, and a campfire, and time for bed again.
Day 13
The night before I chatted with Pat, (the Englishman), and he asked me whether I could help out with constructing the bar area at the backpackers. In return, Jospeh, the owner, would make sure I didn’t have to pay the bill that weekend.
In the end, I spent the entire morning and afternoon, labouring in the hot African sun, separating tiny pebbles from dirt. They needed the tiny stones for evening out the floor, so that concrete could be poured on top of it. Or at least, something like that.
That, some beers later, and once again fancy dinner in town, and the day was done.
Day 14
Today Joseph would take the people that didn’t go on the safari to some lake. I was one of them, since my safari trip is planned next month.
Chilling at the lake, we ran into a random old white dude, who happened to be Irish, late sixties, and also had recently got in touch with Robert, the one of last weeks’ orphanage. The orphanage ended up being illegal; as in, Robert never fixed the paperwork, meaning that all orphans were there illegally (although not held against their will). However, Robert was allowed to continue with the orphanage, as long as Pat would work with him. He is also not allowed to sell the premises either. Pat had spent the week talking to the social workers. Good that that’s sorted out.
I’ll go back on Sunday to fix the water tank. This one’s a 6000 litre tank, meant for sale. 20 litre (jerry cans) would sell for approximately 500 shilling the piece (about 20 euro cents). Since there’s a clear water spring on the land, and a pump already there, it would cost about 30.000 to fill up the tank. That’s some decent profit right there.
After taking the truck back, another lazy evening, with campfires and all.