Tonight I sat down for my dinner and for really the first time, I had to ASK Esther what I was eating. She clearly didn't know the word for it, (her English is not that good, pretty much limited to OK, shower? and you eat now) and so went off to get what it was and show me. She returned with an egg. I tasted the stuff. It was like egg with tomatoes and onion all cooked together. Now you're thinking she made me an omelet and I'm an idiot. The egg looked almost like cheese... I'm sure there wasn't cheese in it, since we don't have such things (lack of refrigeration)... cheese with chunks. Or cat vomit. So I tried it. It really wasn't that bad, but just the look of it... I moved on to the pasta and potatoes she had made and didn't look back.
This led me to think, I should write about the food here. So here we go.
Breakfast is the most consistent meal. When Esther makes me breakfast, she makes tea (African tea is great, when she makes it for breakfast, she just makes hot water, and so I add as much sugar as I want (about one percent of the amount they add typically), and a hardboiled egg. The yolks freak me out, so I just salt the white and eat that part. She also always puts out bread with Blue Band and Zesta. Blue Band is supposed to be like margarine, except its designed so you don't have to refrigerate it. I just put it on my bread with the Zesta (mixed fruit jam, that similarly does not require refrigeration), but once I tasted it on its own, and its really more like yellow shortening than butter. But I still put it on everything...
Now that my stove is set up, I can make my own breakfast, so I usually stick with the bread/Blue Band/Zesta combination and then scramble some eggs. MMM.
Lunch I eat with the staff, and since Esther is cooking for a crowd, its a less exotic meal. Usually rice and beans, or posho and greens. Posho is pretty interesting... its made of corn (they say maize here) and is sort of the consistency of a mushy, less grainy cornbread. It basically tastes like nothing, but then you put beans with sauce or something with sauce on it, and it just takes on the flavor of whatever you put it with. Carbs are BIG here, needless to say. The greens - they were the one thing so far that I really just couldn't stand (the egg thing tonight I thought wasn't that bad, just it looked to gross to eat). The smell alone of the greens nearly made me puke, but I tried them anyway. The taste was less appealing than the smell, so I gave Jackline (one of the clinic staff) my greens, ate my posho, then snuck off to my apartment for half of a Clif Bar.
I have 35.5 Clif Bars left. I'm trying to ration them slowly, in case some new awful food comes along! Haha, no really, the food isn't that bad.
Dinner is where the most variety comes in. It might be any of the following options:
"Irish Potatoes" - she actually said to me, do you want Irish potatoes? This just means, slicing up potatoes, sauteeing them with some tomatoes. I eat them with ketchup. Goodtimes
RIce - self explanatory
Pasta - if it is spaghetti, they break it up into smaller pieces when they cook it, as if I couldn't eat a longer strand on my own (granted, I have been known to sub Rigatoni for linguine in my Chix Parm at the Tombs because it is "too hard to eat". but whatever). They also put oil into EVERYTHING so for the pasta picture like what you'd make for a picky kid, pasta with lots of butter.
Stew - there is usually some kind of stew with meat. The meat they get in the village, and then cut up and cook it for about 9 hours until that shit is DEAD. they really do not mess around. I asked Doug about it, and he said that since the meat here is just like "look we have a cow. I'm hungry, lets kill it!" and isn't corn-fed or organically raised or even very well fed at all usually, you have to cook it all the way since otherwise... something bad could happen. First thing I need to eat when I get home: some EXTRA RARE FILET MIGNON. bam.
Cabbage - they love cabbage here. They do it with lots of... guess what? oil. It ends up tasting like someone took a Chinese Egg Roll and dumped out the filling. I like to wrap it in a Chapatti and pretend I'm in Chinatown at Tony Cheng's and we just PUNISHED the hell out of Villanova (or some other hateable rival)
Chapattis - fried dough awesomeness. More on this in the "tea" section
Sauce bowl - sometimes she makes a sort of tomato sauce that would make Italy turn over in its grave and Sicilians everywhere start a mafia war against Africa. Its like stewed tomatoes (like I said, they cook things well here, EVERYTHING, that includes vegetables. I think bread is the most raw thing I've had here), garlic, some onion - sometimes there is pasta involved that you can put it on, sometimes not. If there's rice or potatoes I can usually put it on that, or on my super hard chunks of meat.
Meat - meat here means beef. People don't really eat chicken. The meat is cooked just about till you can't chew it easily. They also don't do a particularly good job of cutting off huge chunks of bone or fat. Last night I had pieces of meat in my "stew" that were literally pieces of bone. Or a chunk of fat. Usually you pick up a piece of meat and cut off a bit of fat to eat it, this was just the opposite.
Something really nice we do is have tea time every morning. Usually around 11 am. The clinic just basically shuts down and the people wait while the staff all have tea. This means African Tea - they mix the sugar in for you. Picture Southern Sweet Tea that is boiling hot, and you've got an idea of this. Its actually pretty good, but when I make my own, I just can't bring myself to add 4 tablespoons of sugar to my mug. Go figure. Then they have either Chapattis or G-Nuts. The chapattis are kind of flaky and you can pull them apart in layers. As referenced earlier its just fried dough - they're great. I like to spread Zesta on them for breakfast, eat them by themselves (using my honed-over-many-years-pull-your-Kohler's-Croissant-apart-all-over-the-kitchen-table-in-Avalon-approach). I'm thinking if I put a little Blue Band (whats some extra grease, really?) and sugar on top I'd have an African funnel cake. Oh the possibilites. G-nuts - my opinion here is limited since I am allergic to the things. Explaining that was pretty fun, allergies I guess are not so common over here. But they are sort of like peanuts, that when they are served, they are already cracked open and put into a paper funnel that you eat them out the top of. It looks like fun. So does my throat swelling shut.
Well thats about it on the food front. Please don't get me wrong, I for the most part enjoy the food here. At least I eat it and deal when its not perfect. The main thing is, its DIFFERENT from home - another part of my experience. Hope you enjoyed the descriptions.
I'm thinking of writing the next post as a sort of Ugandan Casual Awards. Thoughts?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The rest of my birthday
So we got back to the guesthouse last night to find we had POWER! It was a pretty sweet birthday present. Of course, then I noticed the Internet totally wasn't working! So I had to suffer through not knowing the outcome of the game until around 9:30 this morning when it started working again.
After getting back from Mbale, we were all tired and dirty. I took a nice hot bucket bath, which was great. I guess I should explain bucket bathing. Basically you boil a tea kettle full of water, then pour it into your bucket or basin, then fill with cold water. The proportion is about 1/3 boiling, 2/3 cold, so it ends up being the temperature of regular bath or shower water. Then you sit in the bathroom on a plastic deck chair and use a cup to wet your hair and body. Then shampoo and conditioner as normal. It's actually pretty decent, I haven't taken a full-on cold shower yet, and I probably won't if I can help it!
After my shower, we watched... South Park! Two great episodes, one when Obama wins the election, and the other about High School Musical, so I obviously really enjoyed that one!
This morning I still woke up early even though I could have slept in... It get bright and you can hear people doing stuff outside (they don't really give any thought to the fact that people might be sleeping!) so I just got up. Of course the Internet still wasn't working! I was just dying to find out the results of the game. So I sat down to read a book, and then about 20 minutes later, about 6 iMessages came through my iPad, so I found out that we had TROUNCED Villanova! So all in all, a pretty good Ugandan birthday for me.
Now I am just waiting anxiously to get my MCAT score. Erin said scores are usually posted around 3 EST so I guess I'll be waiting up until around 11 my time on Tuesday night. If those of you that are so inclined would say a prayer for me, it would be much appreciated.
Looking forward to the rest of my lazy Sunday and then a good week to come. I'll leave with a picture of the 7UP I had in Mbale yesterday... I liked that the label was all in Arabic!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
After getting back from Mbale, we were all tired and dirty. I took a nice hot bucket bath, which was great. I guess I should explain bucket bathing. Basically you boil a tea kettle full of water, then pour it into your bucket or basin, then fill with cold water. The proportion is about 1/3 boiling, 2/3 cold, so it ends up being the temperature of regular bath or shower water. Then you sit in the bathroom on a plastic deck chair and use a cup to wet your hair and body. Then shampoo and conditioner as normal. It's actually pretty decent, I haven't taken a full-on cold shower yet, and I probably won't if I can help it!
After my shower, we watched... South Park! Two great episodes, one when Obama wins the election, and the other about High School Musical, so I obviously really enjoyed that one!
This morning I still woke up early even though I could have slept in... It get bright and you can hear people doing stuff outside (they don't really give any thought to the fact that people might be sleeping!) so I just got up. Of course the Internet still wasn't working! I was just dying to find out the results of the game. So I sat down to read a book, and then about 20 minutes later, about 6 iMessages came through my iPad, so I found out that we had TROUNCED Villanova! So all in all, a pretty good Ugandan birthday for me.
Now I am just waiting anxiously to get my MCAT score. Erin said scores are usually posted around 3 EST so I guess I'll be waiting up until around 11 my time on Tuesday night. If those of you that are so inclined would say a prayer for me, it would be much appreciated.
Looking forward to the rest of my lazy Sunday and then a good week to come. I'll leave with a picture of the 7UP I had in Mbale yesterday... I liked that the label was all in Arabic!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Beat Villanova!
Also to those of you lucky enough to be attending senior day today... BEAT VILLANOVA!! I will probably be back in the village during the end of the first half and hopefully will get on the gamecast, but feel free to iMessage me updates at christine.hluchan@gmail.com GO HOYAS!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wi-Fi... My birthday present!
So I am in Mbale today for my birthday in Uganda! I'm on wifi at a little coffee shop that all of the white people go to. To get here I rode on a boda (motorcycle) with Doug, then in the most crowded taxi/van I've ever been here. Here's the boda:
The van was pretty claustrophobic, but I survived and we made it here in one piece. I went to the MTN store and bought airtime for my Ugandan cell phone (you can call me or text me and it is FREE for me to receive anything, you can not go broke calling by using Skype or Rebtel online, my number is +256 775 785512). It really is all those numbers... my dad thought I must have mistyped it when I sent it to them!
So the rest of this week was the last 3 days of the VHT training. Wednesday we got into some of the danger signs that if they see they need to refer people to the clinic. We also went over basic life-saving like the heimlich:
That is Doug teaching some of the women how to do it. Here is me with the women from the VHT group:
And now with the whole group:
I taught every day of the week except for Monday, so I got a feel for the "Ugandan style" of teaching. Much more repetitive and interactive than it is in the US. Of course we were doing health concepts in English, which is at best a weak second language for most of them, so it was understandably difficult at times.
My lecture on Friday was pretty fun, it was an HIV/ART (anti retroviral treatment) "game" where you moved through the spaces and learned about HIV and living with it, and how to use the ART drugs.
This morning I was supposed to meet with the "Girls' Group" - which is a group that Joyce Wanda, one of AAH's founders really wanted to take flight and it hasn't really yet, mainly because it doesn't have a specific mission the way some of the other groups (microfinance, pregnant women's group, etc) do. So three of the girls showed up and I had a fairly difficult time communicating with them so I had Patrick (one of our community outreach workers) translate for me. Turns out they go to school until about 5, so between homework and getting home before dark, it will be difficult for them to meet on weekdays. Then Saturdays, most people don't really want to come up to the clinic, and I'll be traveling a lot of my Saturdays! So we need to figure out what to do about the group, one idea I have is maybe trying to meet with the girls during their lunch hour at school (since the school is maybe 15 minutes or so walking from the clinic, I could get there easily), but we'll see how that works out.
We haven't had power at the guesthouse for... I guess about 3 days now. Surprisingly, you actually DO get used to it. We have solar lights in each room of the guesthouse (but not the bathrooms... so you do need a flashlight or headlamp to brave the bathroom at night) so at least there's light for a few hours at night to read or whatever. I've been watching South Park with Doug and Lisa most of the nights this week, which I haven't seen much of before but have been really enjoying. They have a TON of TV shows and movies on a bunch of external hard drives, that unfortunately do not work with the iPad, so I will have to depend on watching with them to get any good ol' US media fixes.
In other news, my malaria medicine, Malarone, has made me EXTREMELY sun-sensitive, so Lisa had me change to another medicine that I just bought here in Mbale... 100 pills for $3 US! Ridiculous. So hopefully this one won't have me all red and bumpy on the face (I Face Timed with Rich and Deb this afternoon, and they saw it so you can ask them for a report, or zoom in on me in the picture of the boda boda), and I'll start feeling a little better. Luckily that has been my only sickness so far... knock on wood! My main worry at the moment is centered around getting back my MCAT score, which should be on Tuesday the 28th. Word on the street is that even though they say by 5 PM EST, its usually by 3 PM, so 11 PM for me. I am definitely planning to stay up for that, although I may not be able to sleep after depending on the results (good or bad!).
This week we continue with VHT training, but now that they are VHT's, they get to be "VHT Plus". This just means we are going to teach them some extra skills. Monday's workshop will be on how to make reusable menstrual pads ( a project developed by a Peace Corps volunteer who'd been in this area) for the women, and Tuesday will be learning to do vital signs (which will also be good for me, since I don't know how to do them either!). I'll also be doing shadowing in the clinic in the mornings. The Clinic is set up as 5 Stations and on Friday I shadowed at Station 1 and 2. So I'll write more about all of the stations after I get through the whole thing.
Then the residents from Wisconsin arrive on Thursday for their three weeks here, and we are scheduled to go to Sipi Falls over the weekend for my first "excursion" other than this trip to Mbale. Sipi is supposed to be cool, have some nice hikes and waterfalls. I'll obviously try to post some pics.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The van was pretty claustrophobic, but I survived and we made it here in one piece. I went to the MTN store and bought airtime for my Ugandan cell phone (you can call me or text me and it is FREE for me to receive anything, you can not go broke calling by using Skype or Rebtel online, my number is +256 775 785512). It really is all those numbers... my dad thought I must have mistyped it when I sent it to them!
So the rest of this week was the last 3 days of the VHT training. Wednesday we got into some of the danger signs that if they see they need to refer people to the clinic. We also went over basic life-saving like the heimlich:
That is Doug teaching some of the women how to do it. Here is me with the women from the VHT group:
And now with the whole group:
I taught every day of the week except for Monday, so I got a feel for the "Ugandan style" of teaching. Much more repetitive and interactive than it is in the US. Of course we were doing health concepts in English, which is at best a weak second language for most of them, so it was understandably difficult at times.
My lecture on Friday was pretty fun, it was an HIV/ART (anti retroviral treatment) "game" where you moved through the spaces and learned about HIV and living with it, and how to use the ART drugs.
This morning I was supposed to meet with the "Girls' Group" - which is a group that Joyce Wanda, one of AAH's founders really wanted to take flight and it hasn't really yet, mainly because it doesn't have a specific mission the way some of the other groups (microfinance, pregnant women's group, etc) do. So three of the girls showed up and I had a fairly difficult time communicating with them so I had Patrick (one of our community outreach workers) translate for me. Turns out they go to school until about 5, so between homework and getting home before dark, it will be difficult for them to meet on weekdays. Then Saturdays, most people don't really want to come up to the clinic, and I'll be traveling a lot of my Saturdays! So we need to figure out what to do about the group, one idea I have is maybe trying to meet with the girls during their lunch hour at school (since the school is maybe 15 minutes or so walking from the clinic, I could get there easily), but we'll see how that works out.
We haven't had power at the guesthouse for... I guess about 3 days now. Surprisingly, you actually DO get used to it. We have solar lights in each room of the guesthouse (but not the bathrooms... so you do need a flashlight or headlamp to brave the bathroom at night) so at least there's light for a few hours at night to read or whatever. I've been watching South Park with Doug and Lisa most of the nights this week, which I haven't seen much of before but have been really enjoying. They have a TON of TV shows and movies on a bunch of external hard drives, that unfortunately do not work with the iPad, so I will have to depend on watching with them to get any good ol' US media fixes.
In other news, my malaria medicine, Malarone, has made me EXTREMELY sun-sensitive, so Lisa had me change to another medicine that I just bought here in Mbale... 100 pills for $3 US! Ridiculous. So hopefully this one won't have me all red and bumpy on the face (I Face Timed with Rich and Deb this afternoon, and they saw it so you can ask them for a report, or zoom in on me in the picture of the boda boda), and I'll start feeling a little better. Luckily that has been my only sickness so far... knock on wood! My main worry at the moment is centered around getting back my MCAT score, which should be on Tuesday the 28th. Word on the street is that even though they say by 5 PM EST, its usually by 3 PM, so 11 PM for me. I am definitely planning to stay up for that, although I may not be able to sleep after depending on the results (good or bad!).
This week we continue with VHT training, but now that they are VHT's, they get to be "VHT Plus". This just means we are going to teach them some extra skills. Monday's workshop will be on how to make reusable menstrual pads ( a project developed by a Peace Corps volunteer who'd been in this area) for the women, and Tuesday will be learning to do vital signs (which will also be good for me, since I don't know how to do them either!). I'll also be doing shadowing in the clinic in the mornings. The Clinic is set up as 5 Stations and on Friday I shadowed at Station 1 and 2. So I'll write more about all of the stations after I get through the whole thing.
Then the residents from Wisconsin arrive on Thursday for their three weeks here, and we are scheduled to go to Sipi Falls over the weekend for my first "excursion" other than this trip to Mbale. Sipi is supposed to be cool, have some nice hikes and waterfalls. I'll obviously try to post some pics.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Finally some photos... thanks to Gary!
Well I started yesterday actually DOING some stuff at the clinic up here. This whole week is the Village Health Team (VHT) training that i wrote about the other day. Basically there are 16 Community Health Educators (CHE's) in the village right now. They are being given further training to be VHT members. This just means that they are getting a more formalized training to do the job they were already supposed to be doing, but now they'll have more knowledge and be more efficient. A big part of VHT is recording everything in a Village register and keeping an updated map of all the households in the village and their status (like if anyone has been born, died, any pregnant mothers, or children under 5 in the residence). The role of the VHT is to go around to all of the households and talk to people about community health issues. Some of the biggest ones here are:
-ante natal (pre natal) care for pregnant women
-immunisations for children
-malaria prevention (i.e. insecticide treated nets)
-sanitation (washing hands, keeping a rubbish pit nearby but not near where food is prepared or stored, having a bathing shelter, clean clothes, etc.)
-knowing when to go to the clinic and advising people to go there
So basically the training so far has gone over how to make a map of their village (or their assigned area of the village), how to use the register, how to make the monthly summary report of their talks with the households, how to give talks on specific subjects. Later in the week, training will also include danger signs, how to take vitals, and other stuff (I haven't finished reading the packet yet myself!)
Honestly, the training is pretty simple, but the main thing is, I have gotten some insight into how the Ugandans teach. Its a different style than in the US. A lot of question and answer. The teacher will say something like "So then when you are sick, where do you go? The clinic!" There is a lot of this answering their own questions as they go. Its just kind of the way people talk here. Training starts at 10 every day this week, goes till 11 then a half hour tea break. Then another workshop from 11:30 to 1:30, lunch is from 1:30 to 2:30, and then an afternoon workshop from 2:30 to 4:30. All times are negotiable! They always start with a prayer and everyone introducing themselves. Most of the names are Christian names so they are pretty easy to remember, by the end of today I knew the names of just about everyone in the group.
The teachers are pretty great. Anthony and Patrick are two of the Ugandans who are teachers (I think they also work for the clinic in some capacity?) Patrick is just wild. The first night I was here, Doug and I went into the village to get meat for Kaiya, Doug and Lisa's dog (they brought her over from the US!) and we met Patrick, he was a little drunk by then, and Doug goes, this is our volunteer, Christine. Patrick goes, "Madame! You are here till May 3!". He sucks up information like that like a sponge and doesn't forget anything.
Yesterday a pastor named Richard who Lauren met over the summer came to help on his day off. He's from the Bududa area where the other clinic and the Arlington school are, and is just great. He also runs an orphanage (kind of like a school here, orphans here are considered anyone with only one parent, so not like orphans at home), coordinates the CHE program in Bududa, is involved with the Arlington school and the clinic there and is a pastor! He is very passionate about helping people to help themselves. We had a really nice talk over lunch yesterday about not just getting people to donate money to projects here, but how that money is used - to educate people.
I guess I should post some pictures since Gary was kind enough to assist me in figuring out how to do so from the ipad (welcome the BlogPress iPad app)... here is the view to Kenya from my second day here. I went for a walk with Sarah (works at the clinic) and Joseph (one of the CHE's) to this field... where you can see Kenya (insert "I can see Russia from my house" joke here).
The hills in the back are KENYA. Cool. Next this is my guesthouse I am staying in (this is the back of it, the doors we use to enter):
The door to my "apartment" is the second one from the left. The first door (from left) is where other volunteers will be staying. As you can see I'll share a porch with them, and a kitchen and bathroom (the bathroom is the blue door off of my porch, by the window). The other half is Doug and Lisa's side.
This next one is some locals drinking this really gross looking fermented porridge stuff they drink. Imagine alcohol that makes you hallucinate but looks like mud, and you've got an idea. They LOVE this stuff.
There are more of them drinking out of another pot of it behind where I took the picture from. Wow. Gross. Finally, how about the sunset from my back porch tonight. Pretty sweet huh?
Hoyas play at Seton Hall tonight... at 3 am my time, so I'm gonna have to check that score in the morning. Until next time...
-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
-ante natal (pre natal) care for pregnant women
-immunisations for children
-malaria prevention (i.e. insecticide treated nets)
-sanitation (washing hands, keeping a rubbish pit nearby but not near where food is prepared or stored, having a bathing shelter, clean clothes, etc.)
-knowing when to go to the clinic and advising people to go there
So basically the training so far has gone over how to make a map of their village (or their assigned area of the village), how to use the register, how to make the monthly summary report of their talks with the households, how to give talks on specific subjects. Later in the week, training will also include danger signs, how to take vitals, and other stuff (I haven't finished reading the packet yet myself!)
Honestly, the training is pretty simple, but the main thing is, I have gotten some insight into how the Ugandans teach. Its a different style than in the US. A lot of question and answer. The teacher will say something like "So then when you are sick, where do you go? The clinic!" There is a lot of this answering their own questions as they go. Its just kind of the way people talk here. Training starts at 10 every day this week, goes till 11 then a half hour tea break. Then another workshop from 11:30 to 1:30, lunch is from 1:30 to 2:30, and then an afternoon workshop from 2:30 to 4:30. All times are negotiable! They always start with a prayer and everyone introducing themselves. Most of the names are Christian names so they are pretty easy to remember, by the end of today I knew the names of just about everyone in the group.
The teachers are pretty great. Anthony and Patrick are two of the Ugandans who are teachers (I think they also work for the clinic in some capacity?) Patrick is just wild. The first night I was here, Doug and I went into the village to get meat for Kaiya, Doug and Lisa's dog (they brought her over from the US!) and we met Patrick, he was a little drunk by then, and Doug goes, this is our volunteer, Christine. Patrick goes, "Madame! You are here till May 3!". He sucks up information like that like a sponge and doesn't forget anything.
Yesterday a pastor named Richard who Lauren met over the summer came to help on his day off. He's from the Bududa area where the other clinic and the Arlington school are, and is just great. He also runs an orphanage (kind of like a school here, orphans here are considered anyone with only one parent, so not like orphans at home), coordinates the CHE program in Bududa, is involved with the Arlington school and the clinic there and is a pastor! He is very passionate about helping people to help themselves. We had a really nice talk over lunch yesterday about not just getting people to donate money to projects here, but how that money is used - to educate people.
I guess I should post some pictures since Gary was kind enough to assist me in figuring out how to do so from the ipad (welcome the BlogPress iPad app)... here is the view to Kenya from my second day here. I went for a walk with Sarah (works at the clinic) and Joseph (one of the CHE's) to this field... where you can see Kenya (insert "I can see Russia from my house" joke here).
The hills in the back are KENYA. Cool. Next this is my guesthouse I am staying in (this is the back of it, the doors we use to enter):
The door to my "apartment" is the second one from the left. The first door (from left) is where other volunteers will be staying. As you can see I'll share a porch with them, and a kitchen and bathroom (the bathroom is the blue door off of my porch, by the window). The other half is Doug and Lisa's side.
This next one is some locals drinking this really gross looking fermented porridge stuff they drink. Imagine alcohol that makes you hallucinate but looks like mud, and you've got an idea. They LOVE this stuff.
There are more of them drinking out of another pot of it behind where I took the picture from. Wow. Gross. Finally, how about the sunset from my back porch tonight. Pretty sweet huh?
Hoyas play at Seton Hall tonight... at 3 am my time, so I'm gonna have to check that score in the morning. Until next time...
-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, February 19, 2012
My Lazy Weekend...
So I am here in Bupoto - my new home for the next 11 weeks. I pretty much have my own "house" or apartment which is pretty cool. The guesthouse here is right next to the clinic, which I had a brief tour of yesterday with Lisa (the doctor). The house is divided into two halves, and each half has two two-room apartments. So you go in my front door (the house has 4 front doors, and 4 back doors) into my living room, which they furnished for me, so it has a couch (really a bed, with a mattress stood up behind it for a back), a cozy chair, table, and a bookcase, where my 38 remaining energy bars have found their home, as well as mosquito coils (light them in late afternoon, nighttime to keep bugs away in the house, since the windows don't have screens), candles (for when the power is out), and a selection of books left behind by other visitors/Lisa put there for me. Then you go through a door to the hallway which goes out the back door, and my room is off the hallway. Out the back door is my porch, which I share with what is now an empty apartment, but when the three residents from Wisconsin get here, i'll share it with them. Off the porch is the bathroom (non western toilet - that means it DOES flush, but it is sunken into the floor, also houses a plastic chair and a bucket for bucket bathing - preferred method to taking cold showers!) and the kitchen (which has a stove... that isn't hooked up yet since we brought it up from town (Mbale) on Friday when I got here, but somehow the connections to the gas tank aren't here, so not working yet). From my back porch, the view is INCREDIBLE (see pic I posted to facebook the other day). Sunsets are spectacular here.
I had thought I'd be able to post pictures directly on the blog... but my iPad is NOT a laptop and capabilities are limited, so I'll get on Doug and Lisa's laptop at some point and upload some.
A girl named Esther makes my food for me... my appetite hasn't been much since I've been here, but the food is pretty good. A lot of stew-like things with rice (first night was a meat stew, which means beef here, second night was a bean stew with tomatoes and onions and stuff in it). Today for lunch she made me pasta with tomato sauce with garlic - obviously the sauce is homemade but was pretty good. Different than the Italians would make it. Once my kitchen gets set up I'll probably do more of my own cooking, but for now its nice to have someone do it. One less thing for me to figure out.
I don't have my Ugandan cell phone yet, but when I do, I'll put up the number (free to receive calls on... w00t). For now the best way to contact me if you want is via email or you can iMessage me at my gmail address (please don't text my phone... I'll just have to pay for all the texts I receive when I turn it on later!)
Yesterday I got a brief tour of the clinic, after I slept till about noon. Today I only slept until 10, and tomorrow I'll try to get up earlier. Falling asleep is super hard with the time change... hopefully I get used to it soon. Last night I ended up iMessaging with my mom for about an hour at like midnight Ugandan time, I just couldn't sleep! Its 8 hours ahead of the east coast here, so its a lot to get used to.
Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk with Sarah (who works at the clinic) and some other people joined in the fun. They took me up to a field from where you can see all the way to Kenya! Pretty sweet. I met a kid who said he had just turned 18 and was SO excited because he got circumcized so now he is a MAN. He had me take his picture to document it. I also went by some houses where all the men were drinking - they drink this fermented porridge stuff that looks like DIRT. Doug (the doctor's husband, who is a scientific researcher, and does a lot of lab stuff and coordinating stuff here, more on him later) said they haven't tried it and he doesn't intend to! So I abstained as well... but they all sit around a pot of this disgusting looking stuff with these incredibly long straws that they make and drink, so by evening they're all glassy eyed. One guy came over and VERY enthusiastically hugged me, the others said oh he's just drunk, sorry. Both nights I've been here, I had dinner with Lisa and Doug, the first night on their porch, and the second night in my living room. They're really nice and its just good to have people to talk to/hang out with. I tried Eagle, the local beer last night - obviously its not refrigerated, but I noted that a perk of that is that the beer can't get warm as you drink it. Not the greatest beer ever, but not bad. No busch light, though!
Today I've been mostly reading, and shooting off some emails to my parents and the three residents coming next week about getting me a Headlamp - they just come in super handy around here, especially to go to the bathroom at night or if the power goes out. We do have solar lights, but if the power is out they'll only last a few hours at night. So I'll have M&D buy the headlamp and send it to the girls in Wisconsin for them to bring.
Then Doug went over with me what I'll be doing with him this week, starting tomorrow. It is the Village Health Team (VHT) training. Doug, Antony, and Patrick (2 Ugandans who work at the clinic) are certified as VHT trainers, so they can train VHT's. Straight out of the packet:
What is a VHT? A team of village members who: mobilize the village members for health activities; keep village health records upt o date and make monthly village health reports and meetings to the village members; promote health to prevent disease; report village sickness to health workers; check for danger signs in village members who are sick; refer village members who are sick or are supposed to go for health care (e.g., immunization and antenatal care) to health workers; help treat simple illness at home; assist some village members take medicines as prescribed (Daily Observed Treament (DOT)
The whole idea behind it is to give people ownership of the project and the clinic and help make things more self-sustainable here. Basically, each VHT's home is a Health Clinic I, meaning people can go there for simple illness, cleaning a wound, etc. A Health Clinic II is a clinic with a doctor, but they can't do maternity cases (no overnight). Our clinic is a Health Clinic III, meaning it has overnight maternity care for women to give birth here. A Health Clinic IV is like a true hospital, overnight for various causes, etc. At our clinic, if people need that kind of care, they have to get a ride on a motorbike down to a city (the clinic will pay for this as part of the referral. So the pack I've been given as 6 Tasks to get through for them to learn about - most of the info they have seen before since they are all Community Health Educators (CHE's) but they just need to go over it again for the "official" training. In Uganda it is very important to people that things are official, with a stamp or seal from the Ministry of Health or other goverment recognized group. So, since I am not a technical VHT trainer, I'll be at the sessions, just observing, helping to keep people on task, and helping keep to a time-table (not a speciality here in Uganda). It will be Monday through Friday of this week, and then probably into the beginning of next week. By March 1, the residents will be here, so my daily routine will probably change a bit.
One other thing I just did... I had to look up how to use html code for the blog... hitting enter didn't make a new line from the iPad (which you might have noticed from my previous entry in Mbale). But Now I know. Hopefully formatting is less of an issue now. That's probably all for now... uploading photos from here may be a hopeless task, but I'll try to do some next time we are in Mbale (probably another two weeks or so).
I had thought I'd be able to post pictures directly on the blog... but my iPad is NOT a laptop and capabilities are limited, so I'll get on Doug and Lisa's laptop at some point and upload some.
A girl named Esther makes my food for me... my appetite hasn't been much since I've been here, but the food is pretty good. A lot of stew-like things with rice (first night was a meat stew, which means beef here, second night was a bean stew with tomatoes and onions and stuff in it). Today for lunch she made me pasta with tomato sauce with garlic - obviously the sauce is homemade but was pretty good. Different than the Italians would make it. Once my kitchen gets set up I'll probably do more of my own cooking, but for now its nice to have someone do it. One less thing for me to figure out.
I don't have my Ugandan cell phone yet, but when I do, I'll put up the number (free to receive calls on... w00t). For now the best way to contact me if you want is via email or you can iMessage me at my gmail address (please don't text my phone... I'll just have to pay for all the texts I receive when I turn it on later!)
Yesterday I got a brief tour of the clinic, after I slept till about noon. Today I only slept until 10, and tomorrow I'll try to get up earlier. Falling asleep is super hard with the time change... hopefully I get used to it soon. Last night I ended up iMessaging with my mom for about an hour at like midnight Ugandan time, I just couldn't sleep! Its 8 hours ahead of the east coast here, so its a lot to get used to.
Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk with Sarah (who works at the clinic) and some other people joined in the fun. They took me up to a field from where you can see all the way to Kenya! Pretty sweet. I met a kid who said he had just turned 18 and was SO excited because he got circumcized so now he is a MAN. He had me take his picture to document it. I also went by some houses where all the men were drinking - they drink this fermented porridge stuff that looks like DIRT. Doug (the doctor's husband, who is a scientific researcher, and does a lot of lab stuff and coordinating stuff here, more on him later) said they haven't tried it and he doesn't intend to! So I abstained as well... but they all sit around a pot of this disgusting looking stuff with these incredibly long straws that they make and drink, so by evening they're all glassy eyed. One guy came over and VERY enthusiastically hugged me, the others said oh he's just drunk, sorry. Both nights I've been here, I had dinner with Lisa and Doug, the first night on their porch, and the second night in my living room. They're really nice and its just good to have people to talk to/hang out with. I tried Eagle, the local beer last night - obviously its not refrigerated, but I noted that a perk of that is that the beer can't get warm as you drink it. Not the greatest beer ever, but not bad. No busch light, though!
Today I've been mostly reading, and shooting off some emails to my parents and the three residents coming next week about getting me a Headlamp - they just come in super handy around here, especially to go to the bathroom at night or if the power goes out. We do have solar lights, but if the power is out they'll only last a few hours at night. So I'll have M&D buy the headlamp and send it to the girls in Wisconsin for them to bring.
Then Doug went over with me what I'll be doing with him this week, starting tomorrow. It is the Village Health Team (VHT) training. Doug, Antony, and Patrick (2 Ugandans who work at the clinic) are certified as VHT trainers, so they can train VHT's. Straight out of the packet:
What is a VHT? A team of village members who: mobilize the village members for health activities; keep village health records upt o date and make monthly village health reports and meetings to the village members; promote health to prevent disease; report village sickness to health workers; check for danger signs in village members who are sick; refer village members who are sick or are supposed to go for health care (e.g., immunization and antenatal care) to health workers; help treat simple illness at home; assist some village members take medicines as prescribed (Daily Observed Treament (DOT)
The whole idea behind it is to give people ownership of the project and the clinic and help make things more self-sustainable here. Basically, each VHT's home is a Health Clinic I, meaning people can go there for simple illness, cleaning a wound, etc. A Health Clinic II is a clinic with a doctor, but they can't do maternity cases (no overnight). Our clinic is a Health Clinic III, meaning it has overnight maternity care for women to give birth here. A Health Clinic IV is like a true hospital, overnight for various causes, etc. At our clinic, if people need that kind of care, they have to get a ride on a motorbike down to a city (the clinic will pay for this as part of the referral. So the pack I've been given as 6 Tasks to get through for them to learn about - most of the info they have seen before since they are all Community Health Educators (CHE's) but they just need to go over it again for the "official" training. In Uganda it is very important to people that things are official, with a stamp or seal from the Ministry of Health or other goverment recognized group. So, since I am not a technical VHT trainer, I'll be at the sessions, just observing, helping to keep people on task, and helping keep to a time-table (not a speciality here in Uganda). It will be Monday through Friday of this week, and then probably into the beginning of next week. By March 1, the residents will be here, so my daily routine will probably change a bit.
One other thing I just did... I had to look up how to use html code for the blog... hitting enter didn't make a new line from the iPad (which you might have noticed from my previous entry in Mbale). But Now I know. Hopefully formatting is less of an issue now. That's probably all for now... uploading photos from here may be a hopeless task, but I'll try to do some next time we are in Mbale (probably another two weeks or so).
Friday, February 17, 2012
Almost there!
Well I'm in Uganda, but I'm not "there" yet. I flew out of dulles weds night at 5:50 PM, got to Brussels a little after 7 am their time, then my flight to Entebbe was at 10:50 AM. Honestly, I thought the Belgians could have done better. No waffles, pretty weak food selection, and NO WIRELESS. howewer, what they lacked in wifi, they almost made up for in the array of outlets they offer for charging devices. I actually took a picture but am not sure I can upload to the blog from my iPad so I'll have to figure that out. Anyway, flew to Africa, stopped in Kigali, Rwanda. Picked up/dropped off passengers and they sprayed the plane - weird. Not sure what that was for. Then we continued on to entebbe, Uganda.
I was pretty fortunate to be in the second row of economy so I was able to get of the plane speedily and get my visa and thru immigration quite quickly. My bags arrived, no problems either. My driver, emma (short for Emmanuel) was a little late but I found him and he drove me to my hotel. There was a fan in the room by one of the beds, the other bed had a bed net. I decided to chance it and sleep on the bed by the fan. Not a HUGE mistake but I got one big bite on my arm so around 5:30 am I switched beds. Bed nets are great - seriously. Now I totally get the whole "nothing but nets" charity thing, firsthand experience. Before I went to sleep I took a reasonably hot shower and talked to my dad on the phone... I just couldn't get to sleep since even though it was 2:30 am, I felt like it was about 6:30 pm... So not really bedtime yet.
A few observations thus far... Saw a nando's in Kampala (yes, AMC, as in peri-peri). Hearing Rihanna and eminem on the radio is kind of weird, as well as the bastardized cover of American pie I heard today.
Today I woke up and had breakfast at my hotel, then Emma met me and we started the drive to Mbale, where I am now. First we stopped so I could get Internet set up for my iPad for a LOT less than the exorbitant rates AT&T was charging me for international. We also went to Shoprite (same name but a different store, very well stocked however), and I got some snacks and stuff, then we got on the road. They do drive pretty crazy here, mainly because of the number of bikes and motorbikes in the road, so you're constantly beeping at them and swerving around them. Now I'm in Mbale, waiting for Caitlan, the volunteer coordinator for AAH to meet up with me. I'm at a little Internet cafe just chilling on my iPad - free wireless is awesome!
Hopefully we leave for the village soon and I can get some sleep.
I was pretty fortunate to be in the second row of economy so I was able to get of the plane speedily and get my visa and thru immigration quite quickly. My bags arrived, no problems either. My driver, emma (short for Emmanuel) was a little late but I found him and he drove me to my hotel. There was a fan in the room by one of the beds, the other bed had a bed net. I decided to chance it and sleep on the bed by the fan. Not a HUGE mistake but I got one big bite on my arm so around 5:30 am I switched beds. Bed nets are great - seriously. Now I totally get the whole "nothing but nets" charity thing, firsthand experience. Before I went to sleep I took a reasonably hot shower and talked to my dad on the phone... I just couldn't get to sleep since even though it was 2:30 am, I felt like it was about 6:30 pm... So not really bedtime yet.
A few observations thus far... Saw a nando's in Kampala (yes, AMC, as in peri-peri). Hearing Rihanna and eminem on the radio is kind of weird, as well as the bastardized cover of American pie I heard today.
Today I woke up and had breakfast at my hotel, then Emma met me and we started the drive to Mbale, where I am now. First we stopped so I could get Internet set up for my iPad for a LOT less than the exorbitant rates AT&T was charging me for international. We also went to Shoprite (same name but a different store, very well stocked however), and I got some snacks and stuff, then we got on the road. They do drive pretty crazy here, mainly because of the number of bikes and motorbikes in the road, so you're constantly beeping at them and swerving around them. Now I'm in Mbale, waiting for Caitlan, the volunteer coordinator for AAH to meet up with me. I'm at a little Internet cafe just chilling on my iPad - free wireless is awesome!
Hopefully we leave for the village soon and I can get some sleep.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
39 Clif Bars Later...
My first blog post! So exciting... if anyone even reads it. I think people can comment. Someone should, just so I know it worked. At any rate, I leave for Uganda in FIVE days.
I've been running around like crazy all this week (and basically ever since I took the MCAT on January 27) buying stuff for my trip, researching electrical converters, getting shots, and getting the international 3G plan set up for my iPad.
So what exactly will I be doing? I'm not 100% sure yet! I'll be in Bupoto, Uganda (if you want to check it out on google maps, look for Bupota, they haven't quite got the lingo down yet!) with the Arlington Academy of Hope (AAH, Check them out online), volunteering at the Beatrice Tierney Health Center. I'll be living with an American doctor (Lisa Umphrey) and her husband, Doug in a guesthouse owned by AAH, along with other Ugandan staff members. What I'll be doing will be probably a whole lot of shadowing at the clinic, along with some hands-on oppotunities. I'll also be working on carrying out a research project started by my friend Brad (a second year med student at Georgetown University SOM), which has to do with the Community Health Educators initiative and their effectiveness in helping people understand more about community health and when/when not go to the clinic, as well as the effectiveness of the clinic in the community... more on all that later, when I actually hit the ground and can start working on the project, picking up where Brad left off. The really cool thing about the research project is that not only will I be making a meaningful contribution, but I have a good shot of actually getting published with Brad on the study, which would be really awesome.
Getting ready to go has been kind of stressful. The main thing is that I'm concerned I bring ENOUGH of everything, since Bupoto is sufficiently remote that I won't be able to just go buy more shampoo if I run out (and if go to the nearby (2 hours away) town, Mbale to get stuff, it probably won't be shampoo for long straight, smooth hair like mine).
I spent one long morning at the Jefferson University Travel Medicine Clinic getting all of my shots taken care of before the MCAT. This included a Yellow Fever shot (they actually won't let me into South Africa, the second destination country for me, without proof of this vaccine, plus you kind of want to have it in general when going to Uganda anyway) and a meningitis booster. Luckily, from all of my trips to Honduras, I was up to date on all 3 of the Hepatitises (?), TDP, and typhoid, or I would have had to get those shots too!
Other than packing, I've just been trying to tie up all my loose ends (like telling the credit card companies I'll be in Africa so if they see a charge in Uganda, its not fraud, just me!). Here's brief list of some of the stuff I'm packing:
39 Clif Bars
Gatorade Mix
3 pairs of sneakers (planning to donate them!)
25 ounces each of shampoo and conditioner
7 things of bug spray
1 bottle of 100% DEET (I don't mess around!)
4 bottles of sunscreen
Fast drying towel
Sharpies/whiteboard markers/pens to donate to the clinic
LOTS of bandaids
Hand sanitizer
17 hair elastics
Afterbite
Long skirts (yeah I'll look like a hippie. Deal.)
WE ARE GEORGETOWN shirt (debating bringing the You Can't Spell Sucks Without SU Shirt - I don't want to scare people)
iPad 3G with international data plan!
Noise cancelling headphones
Ambien for my flights
Well... that's about all that could be of interest (or not of interest) for now. Next post I'll get into how I found out about AAH, and my plans to go to South Africa with Sam Halebian at the end of my trip.
Peace.
I've been running around like crazy all this week (and basically ever since I took the MCAT on January 27) buying stuff for my trip, researching electrical converters, getting shots, and getting the international 3G plan set up for my iPad.
So what exactly will I be doing? I'm not 100% sure yet! I'll be in Bupoto, Uganda (if you want to check it out on google maps, look for Bupota, they haven't quite got the lingo down yet!) with the Arlington Academy of Hope (AAH, Check them out online), volunteering at the Beatrice Tierney Health Center. I'll be living with an American doctor (Lisa Umphrey) and her husband, Doug in a guesthouse owned by AAH, along with other Ugandan staff members. What I'll be doing will be probably a whole lot of shadowing at the clinic, along with some hands-on oppotunities. I'll also be working on carrying out a research project started by my friend Brad (a second year med student at Georgetown University SOM), which has to do with the Community Health Educators initiative and their effectiveness in helping people understand more about community health and when/when not go to the clinic, as well as the effectiveness of the clinic in the community... more on all that later, when I actually hit the ground and can start working on the project, picking up where Brad left off. The really cool thing about the research project is that not only will I be making a meaningful contribution, but I have a good shot of actually getting published with Brad on the study, which would be really awesome.
Getting ready to go has been kind of stressful. The main thing is that I'm concerned I bring ENOUGH of everything, since Bupoto is sufficiently remote that I won't be able to just go buy more shampoo if I run out (and if go to the nearby (2 hours away) town, Mbale to get stuff, it probably won't be shampoo for long straight, smooth hair like mine).
I spent one long morning at the Jefferson University Travel Medicine Clinic getting all of my shots taken care of before the MCAT. This included a Yellow Fever shot (they actually won't let me into South Africa, the second destination country for me, without proof of this vaccine, plus you kind of want to have it in general when going to Uganda anyway) and a meningitis booster. Luckily, from all of my trips to Honduras, I was up to date on all 3 of the Hepatitises (?), TDP, and typhoid, or I would have had to get those shots too!
Other than packing, I've just been trying to tie up all my loose ends (like telling the credit card companies I'll be in Africa so if they see a charge in Uganda, its not fraud, just me!). Here's brief list of some of the stuff I'm packing:
39 Clif Bars
Gatorade Mix
3 pairs of sneakers (planning to donate them!)
25 ounces each of shampoo and conditioner
7 things of bug spray
1 bottle of 100% DEET (I don't mess around!)
4 bottles of sunscreen
Fast drying towel
Sharpies/whiteboard markers/pens to donate to the clinic
LOTS of bandaids
Hand sanitizer
17 hair elastics
Afterbite
Long skirts (yeah I'll look like a hippie. Deal.)
WE ARE GEORGETOWN shirt (debating bringing the You Can't Spell Sucks Without SU Shirt - I don't want to scare people)
iPad 3G with international data plan!
Noise cancelling headphones
Ambien for my flights
Well... that's about all that could be of interest (or not of interest) for now. Next post I'll get into how I found out about AAH, and my plans to go to South Africa with Sam Halebian at the end of my trip.
Peace.
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