Tuesday, Mary and Natalie went to a clinic run by this woman Jan, from the UK. Rachel and I stayed at the Beatrice tierney clinic, and I started off the day working on my language project, and also reading some of the peace corps material From their GLOW (Girls Leading Our World, a camp for education and empowerment of girls) which I am planning to incorporate into our curriculum for Girls' Group. Then after tea, Rachel was seeing patients that we had seen on the school outreach Monday and had referred to the clinic. The first one we saw was a man whose feet were just swollen beyond recognition and had crystal like deposits all over them. You can't even see the toenails. It could be elephantitis or Kaposi's Sarcoma. Jury is still out. You wouldn't believe the size of his feet. He said it had started in 1998. There is no way one visit to a clinic could fix this, definitely needs so e kind of surgery. The other patient I shadowed her on was a boy who had fallen off a bridge in his village last June and had stayed in a hospital for about a month after due to a huge laceration on his right foot/leg. well, now it's all infected and swollen and still open. Just pretty shocking to see. Both of these patients are due back to the clinic on Monday so hopefully more to come.
Wednesday was a trip to Mbale. After arriving very late (due to yet a other wonderful experience to the MTN store to get a mobile for the girls), we finally got to Mbale hospital around 11:30. A friend of Lisa's named mike was showing us around and he too, us to Dr.Peter Olupot, their research director. He was very informative, taking us through the acute and longer term pediatric wards, as well as ortho and ENT. Pictures to come later, with more description...
Pics will come later since I'm not in Matuwa (my village) now (and the pics are on my pocket camera, and I only have my SLR here with me). I'm in Bududa at a home stay with a family that was previously Lisa's host family, the Zalle's. They are great! Their home is really nice (by Ugandan standards, obviously). I have my own room with a DOUBLE BED in the guesthouse section. I got here around 1, and spent my afternoon first talking with David, the husband. We talked about uganda's history, particularly the Amin (I may be spelling that wrong) reign and all that went along with it. David is turning 68, so he has lived through it all. I also learned how to make chapattis with Elizabeth, David's wife.
I also helped cook cabbage and pork that we later had for dinner. I played some banana grams with David, then Peter, a doctor from the UK who is volunteering at FIMRC and staying here for a few days got back. He's super nice and is going to take me to FIMRC clinic for the day tomorrow with him. FIMRC. Is the foundation for international medical relief of children, and this s the clinic that Lisa used to run, and the one by the Arlington school (where most volunteers go). We were sitting with David on the porch watching the sun set, when David's son Julius (his 4th child of 7, who lives here win his son, also called David) said hat one of the outs was delivering. This I had to see:
I got out there just as she gave birth to the second piglet, the. Edited over an hour for her to deliver the third! When the piglets are born, Julius takes then and outs them in a bucket with leaves to keep the, arm, so they are safe and out of the way. The mother was quite agitated trying to get comfortable, and was getting up and moving around. Julius said there would probably be 8-10 piglets!
Finally she gave birth to the piglet we were waiting for:
Pretty amazing. Then dinner time! This included pork, matoke, potatoes, cabbage, chapattis, and bamboo shoots (made with nuts, so I skip this!). Uhhhhmazing. What a day. When I have my keyboard back in in Matuwa, I'll write more but just wanted t get the bare bones version in. Also, the generator is on, so hard to fall asleep right now!
(written night of march 8, posted on the 9)
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