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Health & Fitness

Reflections, Part II

Exerpts from my journal I kept during my trip to Uganda with UW-Madison

As promised, here are more exerpts from my Uganda journal.

January 8th

            Today was mostly spent traveling to Lyantonde, where John said the HIV/AIDS rate among women is at 60%.  This is the area back to which they can trace some of the first cases of HIV in the human population, and it makes sense that it’s so prevalent because it’s on a very popular truck route.

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            Our hotel here is gorgeous, and this evening has been very chill.  We’ve played a lot of Hearts, and Krista (who I’m rooming with here) and I attempted to do our laundry in a basin in our shower, which, as I’ve learned to expect, doesn’t have a curtain.

            People in the science group are starting to plan everything for their first visit to a primary school.  By whatever means, I was originally placed in the group, but Jordin wanted to do it more than I did, so we switched and I’ll be working with the women’s group that day, which I’m happy about.

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January 9th

            After being woken up by the hotel’s country music starting at 7 am, we spent the morning learning about water tanks and filtration systems, and we visited a community where UW’s Village Health Project had funded a water tank.  Unfortunately, the spigot was broken by an individual who was upset with the limited water each family is given (I think it was one jerry can a week), and the community was trying to raise 30,000Shs to get a new one.  Some of us were confused as to why we couldn’t all just pitch in, since it would end up costing us each less than a dollar if most of the group contributed, but John explained that the people need to feel ownership of it; otherwise, you see a lot more situations where they don’t take care of what they have.

            Later, we all spoke with another traditional birth attendant, who talked to us for quite awhile about what she does, and she showed us where she delivers the babies (as well as the pit out back where all of the placenta go).  From there, we went to Lyantonde hospital and met with the District Health Officer, Dr. Obo, and we learned about the usual things… staffing issues, whether they actually have drugs and tools that they need, etc.  We then spent a good amount of time cooking dinner with the mothers of malnourished children who were being taught about how to cook proper meals; they had to have a carbohydrate, a vegetable, fruit, a plant protein, and an animal protein.  All measurements are done with the hand because you might not have a measuring cup, but you do have a palm.  Some of the cooking was chaotic, mostly because of our inabilities to understand each other, but it turned out okay.  While we were waiting for things to cook, we took turns singing and dancing for each other.  Staying true to the Badgers, we sang Build Me Up Buttercup for them.  It was a lot of fun, and I also really enjoyed hearing the songs they sang, despite not understanding the words; they were just really soulful and cool to hear.  The women also liked touching my arms and back while I was sitting.  I imagine it’s because I’m as white as I am, since Marie was sitting right next to me and no one touched her at all.  It was a little awkward, but I ended up getting used to it, since it went on for maybe twenty minutes off and on.

 

January 10th

            We started the morning in the village of Chakabura, talking with a health care worker named Patrick and a family care worker named Patience who were associated with COBIN.  We learned that fifty homesteads use one water tank in the area, and the water can only be used for drinking.  Patience bore three children and cares for seven in addition all by herself.  The children are all between the ages of ten and eighteen, and while she makes some money by selling crops, her relatives must help her pay the children’s school fees.  It was encouraging to hear that education takes precedence like that for some families.  As a family care worker, Patience weighs children and teaches the community about nutrition, disease prevention, and hygiene.  She holds meetings, but unfortunately most people won’t attend them; they expect health care workers to provide them with material things, and they scoff when all she has to offer is knowledge, which is so discouraging.

            We visited a household where the great-aunt cares for a child, and then we went to see a family where the man has two wives and eight children between the two of them.  I was surprised to see polygamy in what is generally such a Christian nation, but I suppose this is just a remnant of tribal religion.  Patience had been working with this family for some time because of how malnourished the children had been.  Now they are on the right track, but they are still noticeably stunted.

            Imelda asked one of the wives about whether she practiced family planning, and she explained that she was getting the Depoprovera shot, but she was too late at one point and “it failed her.”  Imelda immediately responded that no, the family planning itself didn’t fail, it was the woman’s fault that she didn’t make a point of getting to the health center and staying on top of things.  Imelda likes to tell it like it is, but that did seem a little harsh.  I guess if it makes the woman more conscientious about things, it’ll end up being helpful for the family.

           From there, we went to a women’s group where we listened to someone selling biogas systems for much too long.  The idea is nice, but it sounded way too expensive and dangerous.  The way he pitched the whole thing and responded to questions made me think of a slimy used car salesman, just trying to sell his product.  From there, we learned how the women make ghee (and looked super awkward trying to shake the jugs ourselves), and we kind of wandered around in groups.  I ended up in the take-a-short-call-then-hang-around-doing-very-little group, which was fine.  Some people picked radishes and carrots, and others saw how they milk cows by hand.  (I was surprised that so many people—from Wisconsin—had never seen that before.)  Starving, we got on the bus and ate chapati, bananas, and pineapple for lunch before heading back.

 

January 11th

            Today half the group went to do science projects with elementary schoolers, and the other half (myself included) went to the women’s group.  Most of us started the morning off hoeing the land to prepare for planting, but Marie, Monica, Georgette, and I got sent to help prepare for lunch, which meant a LOT of peeling.  We attempted to peel matooke and got seriously laughed at.  It was difficult!  The women were so fast and and could do it so smoothly, and we were just making fools of ourselves.  Georgette mentioned to Dan (who was acting as our translator) that she’s much better at peeling potatoes, which encouraged the women to bring out potatoes for us to peel.  They said we looked much more natural doing that.  Once all the peeling was done and we had awkwardly sat around for a little while (and Tally played with the puppy), all of us at the women’s group started chopping dead leaves off of banana trees with machetes.  My guess would be that that’s the only time in my life anyone will ever trust me with one, and it was pretty fun just to wield a freaking huge knife.  Partway through that, the science group joined us, and we all worked on the trees together for a bit.  When they were all done, KaHoua and I helped mash the steamed matooke.  It was really hot and pretty painful, and I’m sure the women were making fun of us for our sensitive hands.  In any case, eventually the meal was ready, and it was pretty good.  After we were done eating, Imelda presented the group with 50,000 shillings.  I was surprised to see her do that after we hadn’t been able to donate anything to the community with the broken water tank, but John later explained that this was more like us showing them that we were impressed by how well the community worked together, which made sense.

 

January 13th

            Our day started off with talks from Dr. David Sserwadda and the dean of MUSPH, Dr. William Bazeyo at the School of Public Health.  Dr. Sserwadda’s talk focused on HIV/AIDS and the intervention that’s going on.  He was a really captivating speaker, and I feel like I learned a lot from him.  I had a harder time keeping track of the topics the dean was talking about… He was sort of all over the place, and he had opinions on just about everything.

            From there, we walked to Mwanamugimu Child Nutrition Unit at the hospital.  We discussed the program with a woman who I think was some sort of nurse/administrator for a while; she described the process the patients go through and also the state of malnutrition in the country in general.  It sounds like for the most part, in the rural areas malnutrition stems from parents not knowing what to feed children, while in urban areas it’s more of a lack of money.  Like everywhere else we’ve been, the clinic was understaffed and underfunded.  I was really impressed when she said their mortality rate was only around 11% for the problems it sounded like the children came in with and what stages many of them were already at when they were admitted.

           Soon after, we went on a tour, and this might have been one of the most difficult parts of the entire trip for me.  It was the only ward anywhere we’ve been that was noticeably decorated for children; there were Disney characters and all sorts of colorful animal scenes painted on the walls.  We started in the Giraffe Room, which is where children are sent when they’re first admitted.  All of the patients despite their age sleep in cribs.  It was really difficult to see some of them.  Some of the little babies looked like aliens with their eyes bulging out, and a number of them couldn’t support their own head.  I’m sure they were all older than they looked as well.  There were children with excessive swelling and skin conditions, and I felt bad almost gawking over them, especially when most of the mothers were right there.  The worst, though, was at the very back of the room where the woman in charge showed us a girl who was literally nothing but skin and bones.  I probably would’ve guessed that she was five or six years old, but when someone asked, the woman said she was ten.  The woman pulled back the girl’s clothing to show us her ribs and her hip bones, and I felt so bad for the girl… Not only was she obviously suffering terribly, but she was also like an animal on exhibit at the zoo.  As a ten-year-old, I can’t tell you how self-conscious I would have been in that situation.

             One thing I hadn’t thought about before walking in there was what would be an appropriate way to outwardly react.  I was definitely upset by the whole situation, but I still tried to smile at the children and at their mothers, though I’m not sure how they interpreted that.  In any case, what’s done is done.

             From there, we went to the Zebra Room, the second stage of the children’s stay, where all of the patients looked more alive, to be blunt.  There was even a set of triplets who belonged to a wife in a polygamous marriage, and it sounded like her husband just wasn’t able to—or maybe didn’t make an effort to—provide for everyone.  Next we went to the Elephant Ward, the last stage before children are able to leave, but most of them were at lunch.  It was nice to see that they have an area for “play therapy,” since I’m sure a lot of the malnutrition leads to developmental delays.

            Afterwards, we had an absolutely delicious lunch prepared there at Mwanamugimu.  Even though it was just the same menu of matooke, beans, rice, and chicken like usual, something about it made it really good!  In the afternoon, we went souvenir shopping at a craft fair and got coffee from 1000 Cups, which was very Western (and definitely something I’d been missing).

 

January 16th

            Spending the day at Lweza Primary School was exhausting but fantastic.  When we first got there, we hauled bricks all over the place so that they could build pillars, getting us sweaty and dirty to start the day off right.  Eventually a good number of people from the area showed up, and we all headed into a classroom for what?  Speeches.  At least most of them were half in English.

            I think most of us were as antsy as the P1s to finally be released to start the science projects.  Officially, it was only supposed to be the oldest kids doing science, but we ended up with a lot of little ones too.  I went with Tiffany, Jordin, and Rachael to act as the official photographer/to watch the experiments, since I hadn’t seen them.  The kids who understood English (the majority, conveniently) seemed to be pretty engaged, especially when you could actually see things react.  It was like pulling teeth to get them to volunteer, though, and Jordin said that it had been even harder at the first school.  But on the whole, the kids were great, and some were really bright.  A boy who I think was P7 was sitting behind me, and he would say the answer to almost every question they asked under his breath.  Every once in a while he would raise his hand and give the answer (he knew that batteries had acid in them, super impressive), and when he didn’t say anything aloud, I tried to encourage him to share what he knew.  I’m not sure if he was shy or embarrassed or what, but I really hope that he’s able to go farther in his education because he definitely has a lot of potential.

            The kids LOVED our cameras… I ended up with something like 80 pictures taken by a new friend named Ivan, who I would guess was probably P5 or so.  The only reason it wasn’t more than that was because he filled up what was left of my memory card.

            At one point in the day, we planted a bunch of trees out back and then along the road in front of the school.  I was terrible at hoeing so I sat and talked to some of the kids instead.  I really enjoyed talking to one girl, Gloria, who was in P7.  She had a little brother in P1 and a baby sister, which struck me as a small family.  (At the same time, this whole area felt more well-off than a lot of places we’ve been, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were more educated about family planning and just in general.)  Gloria said that she wants to be a nurse, and I was so impressed and happy.  Her English was also fantastic.  She and her brother must have left while all of us were eating lunch (the kids had eaten earlier), and I’m sad I didn’t get to officially say goodbye and good luck like I feel I should have.

            The rest of the afternoon, while some people were in a meeting about the Village Health Project, a bunch of us hung out outside and basically played the role of camp counselor.  We did Little Sally Walker, attempted a few call-and-response songs, and taught everyone the Chicken Dance, which was definitely a favorite among all of us.  We sang and danced and got climbed all over by the little ones, and it was tiring but so much fun.

            When the meeting let out, we started getting all of the supplies out of the van and car.  I missed the presentation of the soccer balls, but I got to help unload all of the school supplies into one of the offices and I have to say, I was really impressed with all of us.  And we had already given away maybe a quarter of what we had brought!  I do wish that we’d been able to donate to some more schools, especially since this one seemed pretty well-off, but it was still a great feeling giving piles and piles of school supplies to people who really needed them.

            Saying goodbye to all of the kids was surprisingly difficult after only having known them all for maybe seven hours.  It was a really poignant moment, driving away, and I can’t imagine what it would have felt like if we’d been working with them for awhile.

 

January 17th

            Even though it really wasn’t, we’ve been treating today like our last day.  We started out giving our presentations at the School of Public Health.  I was impressed with how diverse they all ended up being, especially considering how similar some people’s topics were.  I ended up getting the last slot, probably my last choice, so I kind of awkwardly rushed through mine, since we were all anxious to get to the US embassy.  I think it went fine, nothing special, and I’m glad I have my notes together because it’ll make it that much easier to put my project together when I get home.

            Home is a really weird concept right now…  I’ll spend two days at “home” home before going back to Madison, but I feel like both will seem much less like home than I was initially expecting them to.  Without a doubt, I’ll be happy to shower with a curtain and sleep in my own bed, but I don’t think I’m ready to be there just yet.

            This afternoon we got into the embassy surprisingly easily—no one even looked at our passports.  Of course, once we got into the conference room, an alarm started going off telling us to “duck and cover, avoid all windows and doors.”  The woman who was with us (whose name I want to say was Shelly but I’m not positive) told us it was probably a drill because they were on such high security after a recent anthrax scare, and immediately following, there was another announcement over the PA system saying, “This is not a drill.”  Apparently there was a suspicious vehicle (which I still would put money on being our van) near one of the entrances, but a minute later there was another announcement saying that it was a false alarm.

            After that excitement, we ended up having a discussion of sorts with a combination of seven different people who worked in different fields within the embassy.  I was impressed with how straightforward they were, and I appreciated how much they really wanted our insight.  I think I want to try to do a pen-pal program that they mentioned they’re trying to set up with university students in the area.

            We didn’t have enough time to get back to Mulago before our dinner at John Kakitahi’s house, so instead we stopped at a beautiful resort on Lake Victoria.  We attempted some jumping pictures and just generally enjoyed ourselves on the beach for a little while despite the clouds.  Then those of us who were there ran into everyone else at some tables where the faculty were placing bets on how soon a certain couple would get together.  We saw ice cream being served, so some of us went on a hunt to find it and ended up at the outdoor restaurant attached to the resort.  Rachael and I ended up splitting ridiculously expensive crepes suzette, which, to my dismay, weren’t even on fire when they brought them out.

            Then it was off to Dr. Kakitahi’s house.  Or, I should say, one of his houses.  We had a terrific dinner and really enjoyed ourselves, and the bus ride back to Mulago was unbelievably loud and hilarious.  Most of us went up to the other big house when we got back and played a lot of Most Likely To and just chatted for a while.  I really love this group, and I hope we’re able to stay close when we get back to Madison.

 

January 18th

            NOW it’s officially our last day.  It’s kind of surreal.  Kim, Rachael, and I lazed around in the morning after most people left and eventually made our way into Wandegeya so that they could both mail letters from the post office there.  That was definitely the most we’ve been creeped on the entire trip, and I didn’t appreciate it.  We did manage to get cheap chapati and bananas for lunch, though.  When everyone else got back, we all packed and talked.  We went in shifts to the canteen at the hospital in an attempt to not overwhelm them like we did last time, which worked pretty well for the most part.  On the way back, Jordin and I both impulsively bought 5,000 shilling mats from one of the little shops outside the hospital.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, but for now I’ll declare it a good investment.

            Getting to the airport wasn’t bad, but saying goodbye to Ron (our tour guide) and Dan (our driver) was rough.  We really all need to make an effort to stay in touch with them.  Now we’re sitting around not doing much of anything, though I did manage to finish my second Sudoku ever.  We’re all exhausted, I think emotionally as well as physically, and I want to get on the plane only because it means I’ll be able to sleep for a little while.  [Post-trip note: Yep.  Got on the plane and immediately passed out.  I even missed breakfast, which apparently was difficult to do.]  It’s kind of tough to process something like this being over, and I don’t even think I want to try right now.  I’m just going to play some solitaire, maybe talk for a little while, and do more reflecting once I get home.

 

Post-Trip Reflection

            Wow.  When people have asked me how my trip went, I literally cannot come up with enough words to describe it.  At one point, I said that any emotion you can imagine, at some point on the trip, I felt it.  This was amazing, enlightening, heart-wrenching, hilarious, sobering, amusing, and everything in between.

            The trip absolutely gave me a new perspective on Uganda.  From rural to urban, it’s as diverse as the United States in many ways, with many, many types of personalities, though almost all are friendly and personable.  I still can’t get over just how willing people were to interact with us all the time.  We also saw a huge range of levels of education, which I suppose I should have expected but never really thought about.

            Being an outsider definitely also gave me insight as to how immigrants to the US might feel.  We got gawked at, awkwardly touched, and cheated (regarding prices) because we were different.  Some of it I can understand; we’re a novelty and we’re relatively wealthy, but that doesn’t make any of it less uncomfortable.  At the same time, though, Americans could stand to learn a few lessons from Ugandans, like to move a little more slowly and actually be willing to interact with people you don’t know.

            I don’t think I can begin to pinpoint a certain moment as the most rewarding.  Getting to interact with the kids at Lweza and elsewhere, connecting with the mothers at the first nutrition program through song and dance, taking a chance and talking to someone about themselves and really learning who they are as a person… there are so many moments that culminate into this really unbelievable experience I had.  I would love to go back at some point (on a different anti-malarial than doxycycline, preferably, so I don’t burn quite so much) and figure out some way to be a part of a community like that again, if only for a little while.  This trip has given me so much in terms of knowledge, emotional growth, and general life experience.  I’m so thankful that I had this opportunity.  No matter how hard I try though pictures and telling stories, I know that I won’t ever have an experience quite like that again, and I need to let it be what it was and let it reach me on a deeper level than I think I’ll ever really be able to process.

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