Sarah

The very first time I took the short walk through the village to Lake Victoria, I was bombarded by little kids screaming "mzungu" (of course). There was one little girl, though, that stuck on my hip the whole way down to the lake. She held my hand firmly the whole time, although she never looked up at me or spoke a word. I noticed that she, like many of the other village kids, had a white fungus all over her head. I was so charmed by this little girl that I decided I would take her to get treatment for her fungus. (The fungus is caused by drinking unclean water, most likely from the lake). Little did I know, it would be the beginning of a great friendship. 

Sarah is a 4 year old beautiful little girl. She has the most radiant smile and contagious laugh I have ever heard. She is the second oldest of 4 sisters and her mom is 21, like me! She has scars all over her head and often has cuts on her face because her mom beats her and her sisters a lot. She lives in a one room dirt house with her mom, dad, 6 month old sister, Nulu (2 year old sister), and Kadijah (5 year old sister). 

Although Sarah only speaks about 5 words in English, and I the same in Luganda, we don't have any trouble communicating. I spend a few hours with Sarah everyday and give her a lot of attention that she doesn't receive from her parents. The first time I ever gave her a hug, she didn't even know how to react. Many people here consider children to be a burden and thus don't give them any affection. I find it ironic that most people don't like kids yet almost all of them have 5-10 children of their own. For example, when I got here 2 months ago, I noticed that Sarah's little sister Nulu had a terrible respiratory infection. I was waiting for it to either go away or for her parents to take her to the clinic, but neither happened. I finally brought her to the hospital this week and got her treatment, despite the fact that everyone told me that her parents would weather neglect to give her the medicine or sell it somewhere. I guess I'll have to see. 

HIV/AIDS outreach

A few weeks ago, my organization decided to go out into the field and conduct HIV/AIDS testing and counseling. At around 1 in the afternoon, we arrived at a nearby village to find about 40 people waiting in line to be tested. The majority of the people there were women, which isn't too surprising considering that culturally, many men don't really care if they have HIV or if they spread it. We immediately began to set up our makeshift clinic under a tree, which consisted of a few benches and the testing supplies, and began testing. 

I was considering taking part in the HIV testing until I saw how the other nurses were doing it. To begin with, the whole process was completely disorganized.  The people were in no particular order and were getting very frustrated that the process wasn't going faster. To compensate, our nurses decided to take multiple people's blood at one time... Without gloves. Quite frankly, it was terrifying to watch my coworkers do their work. They would take blood from a patients arm, (again, without gloves......), set the syringe  down on the table without a cap, and then move onto the next patient. Finally, they would put some drops of blood on the test strip, but 9 times out of 10 they couldn't remember whose blood it was. I was so nervous about the situation I decided to remain recording the data on another bench. 

Although the outreach was a little scary, I would like to think that it was worthwhile. At the end of our 8 hour day, we had tested 65 patients for HIV and found 8 to be positive, or 8%. This is a little higher than the national average of people with HIV, which is 7%. 

Unfortunately, after all that work, we were not able to supply those who were HIV positive with the Antiretroviral therapy (ARV) drugs. There are certain organizations, who with the Ugandan government, supply these ARVs to public hospitals for free. Our clinic is private, and thus we don't have access to these drugs, which creates big problems in our community. Historically, villages that lie close to Lake Victoria have higher rates of HIV/AIDS, which holds true to our village. Because we don't have these drugs, we have to refer our patients to alternate hospitals that are about 8 miles away. Most of our patients don't have the means to get to this hospital and thus are forced to suffer with their disease. 

African Time

In the one month I have been in Uganda, I have learned so much about the culture, American culture, and about myself. There have been many times that I was so frustrated by the way things work here, but these were countered by instances that made me love Uganda more. 

It is said here that everyone runs on "African time" meaning that nothing and nobody runs on a strict schedule. For the first few weeks, I truly enjoyed working on African time, waking up late, taking naps in the afternoon, and never being in a hurry to do anything. After about the third week, I realized how frustrated I was by this whole "African time" mindset. I came to Uganda to work hard everyday in hopes to make an actual difference in the community, not to sit back and enjoy the scenery everyday.

Another thing I have become acutely aware of is the difference between American work ethic and Ugandan work ethic. The people I work with at SOVHEN are very brilliant and inspiring, but they don't have the drive and determination that I see in many Americans. For example, they have developed a way to create sanitary pads out of banana plants and have even developed a business plan to circulate their product. The idea is genius, yet there are thousands of unfinished pads sitting in the warehouse without plans to do anything with them. Also, many people here are perfectly content to work 2 or 3 hours a day, while I am stuck going stir crazy because I don't have enough work to do.

 It has taken a lot of wasted days for me to realize that I need to take matters into my own hands, instead of relying on others, if I really want to make a difference. One of my colleagues and myself have identified a serious problem in our village in that many people don't have latrenes and must resort to open deification. This can cause major health complications because it is not sanitary and also pollutes the nearby Lake Victoria, the peoples main water source. We have begun to research and identify possible solutions for this problem and I have high hopes that we will be able to make progress before I leave. 

Although there have been very many times that I have been frustrated by work here, I truly am enjoying my time in Uganda! The people here are very warm, welcoming, and kind. I live in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I walk down a dirt path for 5 minutes and find myself on the banks of Lake Victoria.  I eat fruits and veggies that have never been touched by a chemical and com from my front yard. Life is complicated, but life is also good.