Hi everyone,
Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged -- internet access is so flaky and then some weeks I just don't have the time! So let's see -- a quick run down of the work I've been up to:
After Sipi Falls we had some pretty HIV/AIDs focused weeks. We did a sensitization, a drama group from another village came, then St. Mary's came to do the actual testing. We had 219 people show up! (Incredible attendance for my village! Of which, 74 were men. 7 women tested positive for syphillis, and 2 women tested positive for HIV -- everyone else was negative! They will get their appropriate therapies and support now. Which is really awesome. We've also done a female reproductive health and hygiene sensitization for the girls 11 and older at the primary school, and then a general sanitation sensitization for the whole school (which I led! pictures to arrive after I come home). It was fun -- we learned about Germy, the evil bug who tries to make you sick if you don't stay clean and naba mungalo buli lunaku! (wash your hands every day!) After the school wide sensitization (and because we visited the local health center earlier in the week), we dewormed the kids -- I had my hands in like, over 170 kids mouths to ensure that they actually chewed the tablet. Should I have been wearing gloves? Yes. Did I think of that prior to know that I would be distributing the pills? No. Awesome. It was pretty damn cute though. Some kids liked them, and some didn't. I think the pills taste awful, but to each his own. (Yes, I dewormed myself.)
One of the days we accidentally stumbled upon a funeral, which was an incredibly different experience than one at home. It was a Muslim funeral, firstly, so women could not see the burial site. That means I sat on the ground with Grace, and Eva whilst Jeomar and Patrick were expected to be at the burial site 10 feet in front of us. It was the death of a two year old girl. Her mother and twin sister were sitting solemnly on the ground with us, while every single other woman there was laughing, gossiping and completely acting nonchalant about the loss of this individual. It's just exemplary of how normal Death is in Life here. Even a funeral is like a ritualistic obligation rather than a celebration of life and a time to mourn.
I spent that weekend in Kampala. Cat, Leslie, Modar, and I ran away from our teams (so hard to live with the people you work with... so so so sooo hard) and went to the Big City -- Kampala! It was terrifying. A claustrophobe's nightmare. We visited the Ba'hai Temple (one of the 7 in the world - one on every continent), however, and absolutely loved the peace in the building. We also visited the Entebbe botanical gardens... fairytale trees made up the whole park. It was beautiful.
I loved eating in Kampala. I had pancakes with crepes and chocolate, tuna and cheese melt sandwich, vegetables!!!, and a coffee float (omg, coffee). And Ice Cream! It was so delicious!
The next few weeks flew by. I went to the district hospital in Iganga -- which could be an entire blog post in itself. Especially because I was simultaneously reading Pathologies of Power, by Paul Farmer, one of the most incredible books I've ever read. And I was living... or directly observing might be a better use of words... exactly the kind of extreme poverty and resulting health inequalities that he discusses. If anyone's interested in poverty, social justice or health, this book is magnificent. If I like you, it'll prolly be your Christmas gift. Anyways... the hospital was intense.
About this time I went through a real emotional funk. I was struggling with my team (pretty radically clashing personality types, and as time goes on it gets harder to smile through it all), and I had just visited the hospital, which really affected me, we lost another child in the village, and I was reading both Pathologies of Power and The End of Poverty and everything combined was a lot of blah.
Anyways, to keep this relatively short, this week we've been doing a sanitation push. Door to door, building tippy taps (I realized I never explained these. They're little structures with jerry cans on a foot pedal that you build outside of the latrine and near the kitchen so people can wash their hands. I'll post a picture sometime.), digging pit latrines, digging trash pits, beginning to build plate stands, etc. Basically, we begin the process of creating a healthy house.It's hard work. Slow, hard, manual work. That's all there is to it. It's good -- yes. I fully believe in its goodness, especially because we spent to much time ensuring that the villagers understood what we were doing and how to repair things if they broke, and how to finish building the things we began (hence why it took so long). It enhances sustainability, for sure. But it won't have an impact on this generation. The follow ups that they do after these pushes are often depressing. It's not until you come in with a Health Inspector, a UGX50,000 fine and jail time that people start changing -- just like in the States. This whole experience has really pushed me back towards medicine. But then I feel really selfish for being someone who wants a quick fix solution... (saving a life rather than preventing the disease). But I don't think that I could give emotionally as much as you need to give for such little result, as this field requires. Definitely not for my whole life, at least. Ugh. We'll see.
Lots of thoughts.
Oh! By the way, last week, Eva fell extremely sick with two strains of malaria and has spent the entire last week on an IV line. She says she'll be back on Monday, but I can't imagine she'll be doing the hard sanitation push labor. Patrick the Ugandan intern, just overcame malaria as well, and worked for the first time all week on Friday (and he definitely was not allowed to do manual labor). So my team's been down a team leader and two Ugandan interns (Eva being both). It's been really rough on everyone, but I've struggled a lot without her. She's kind of like my saving grace, grounding friend and I miss her.
Anyways, today officially marks the 7 days left till we move out of the village. That will be sad. Two days later when my team leaves, I am pretty sure I'll be elated. (Haha... I'll miss them, but I definitely need a break.) And then Eva and I can finish up the report and I'll be home on the 9th! YES. I'm so ready to be home.
I miss you all. Keep the emails comin', they brighten each day. :-).
Best wishes,
Puma
Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged -- internet access is so flaky and then some weeks I just don't have the time! So let's see -- a quick run down of the work I've been up to:
After Sipi Falls we had some pretty HIV/AIDs focused weeks. We did a sensitization, a drama group from another village came, then St. Mary's came to do the actual testing. We had 219 people show up! (Incredible attendance for my village! Of which, 74 were men. 7 women tested positive for syphillis, and 2 women tested positive for HIV -- everyone else was negative! They will get their appropriate therapies and support now. Which is really awesome. We've also done a female reproductive health and hygiene sensitization for the girls 11 and older at the primary school, and then a general sanitation sensitization for the whole school (which I led! pictures to arrive after I come home). It was fun -- we learned about Germy, the evil bug who tries to make you sick if you don't stay clean and naba mungalo buli lunaku! (wash your hands every day!) After the school wide sensitization (and because we visited the local health center earlier in the week), we dewormed the kids -- I had my hands in like, over 170 kids mouths to ensure that they actually chewed the tablet. Should I have been wearing gloves? Yes. Did I think of that prior to know that I would be distributing the pills? No. Awesome. It was pretty damn cute though. Some kids liked them, and some didn't. I think the pills taste awful, but to each his own. (Yes, I dewormed myself.)
One of the days we accidentally stumbled upon a funeral, which was an incredibly different experience than one at home. It was a Muslim funeral, firstly, so women could not see the burial site. That means I sat on the ground with Grace, and Eva whilst Jeomar and Patrick were expected to be at the burial site 10 feet in front of us. It was the death of a two year old girl. Her mother and twin sister were sitting solemnly on the ground with us, while every single other woman there was laughing, gossiping and completely acting nonchalant about the loss of this individual. It's just exemplary of how normal Death is in Life here. Even a funeral is like a ritualistic obligation rather than a celebration of life and a time to mourn.
I spent that weekend in Kampala. Cat, Leslie, Modar, and I ran away from our teams (so hard to live with the people you work with... so so so sooo hard) and went to the Big City -- Kampala! It was terrifying. A claustrophobe's nightmare. We visited the Ba'hai Temple (one of the 7 in the world - one on every continent), however, and absolutely loved the peace in the building. We also visited the Entebbe botanical gardens... fairytale trees made up the whole park. It was beautiful.
I loved eating in Kampala. I had pancakes with crepes and chocolate, tuna and cheese melt sandwich, vegetables!!!, and a coffee float (omg, coffee). And Ice Cream! It was so delicious!
The next few weeks flew by. I went to the district hospital in Iganga -- which could be an entire blog post in itself. Especially because I was simultaneously reading Pathologies of Power, by Paul Farmer, one of the most incredible books I've ever read. And I was living... or directly observing might be a better use of words... exactly the kind of extreme poverty and resulting health inequalities that he discusses. If anyone's interested in poverty, social justice or health, this book is magnificent. If I like you, it'll prolly be your Christmas gift. Anyways... the hospital was intense.
About this time I went through a real emotional funk. I was struggling with my team (pretty radically clashing personality types, and as time goes on it gets harder to smile through it all), and I had just visited the hospital, which really affected me, we lost another child in the village, and I was reading both Pathologies of Power and The End of Poverty and everything combined was a lot of blah.
Anyways, to keep this relatively short, this week we've been doing a sanitation push. Door to door, building tippy taps (I realized I never explained these. They're little structures with jerry cans on a foot pedal that you build outside of the latrine and near the kitchen so people can wash their hands. I'll post a picture sometime.), digging pit latrines, digging trash pits, beginning to build plate stands, etc. Basically, we begin the process of creating a healthy house.It's hard work. Slow, hard, manual work. That's all there is to it. It's good -- yes. I fully believe in its goodness, especially because we spent to much time ensuring that the villagers understood what we were doing and how to repair things if they broke, and how to finish building the things we began (hence why it took so long). It enhances sustainability, for sure. But it won't have an impact on this generation. The follow ups that they do after these pushes are often depressing. It's not until you come in with a Health Inspector, a UGX50,000 fine and jail time that people start changing -- just like in the States. This whole experience has really pushed me back towards medicine. But then I feel really selfish for being someone who wants a quick fix solution... (saving a life rather than preventing the disease). But I don't think that I could give emotionally as much as you need to give for such little result, as this field requires. Definitely not for my whole life, at least. Ugh. We'll see.
Lots of thoughts.
Oh! By the way, last week, Eva fell extremely sick with two strains of malaria and has spent the entire last week on an IV line. She says she'll be back on Monday, but I can't imagine she'll be doing the hard sanitation push labor. Patrick the Ugandan intern, just overcame malaria as well, and worked for the first time all week on Friday (and he definitely was not allowed to do manual labor). So my team's been down a team leader and two Ugandan interns (Eva being both). It's been really rough on everyone, but I've struggled a lot without her. She's kind of like my saving grace, grounding friend and I miss her.
Anyways, today officially marks the 7 days left till we move out of the village. That will be sad. Two days later when my team leaves, I am pretty sure I'll be elated. (Haha... I'll miss them, but I definitely need a break.) And then Eva and I can finish up the report and I'll be home on the 9th! YES. I'm so ready to be home.
I miss you all. Keep the emails comin', they brighten each day. :-).
Best wishes,
Puma
View of the first 
View of
Bottom of the first fall. Wow. 
View of 1st fall from the caves... later on in the hike.
Team Leaders at second fall showers.
Julius, Reagan and I at the 3rd falls...