Sooooo I'm in Kampala driving toward Murchison falls at the moment. I spent some good amount of time detailing my last week and a half in Matuwa, and blog press (the app for iPad that I use to write the blog) decided to tell me that it posted that entry, but actually ate it and it's lost. Bummer. So here goes:
I believe I last posted last Wednesday... Thursday and Friday as I recall we're pretty standard clinic days. Worked on my projects (visual aids/grainsacks, girls group plotting, CHE stuff, etc). Over the weekend, Lisa and dug had been planning to take cait to Sipi, but Leonard and our Ugandan board of directors showed up at the clinic on saturday morning, so they ended up having an all day meeting and no one went to Sipi. Saturday was pretty miserable with raining alllll day. I had a meeting of girls group at 2 on Saturday, and I did a lecture on the reproductive systems that turned into a lecture on family planning.
In the afternoon after the meeting, Cait and I walked p to the school that is past the clinic from where you can see Kenya. There were a ton of little boys there that were harassing us generally and trying to get into our pictures. They were kind of entertaining, but it honestly does get annoying having little kids intermittently shouting "how are you!" and "muzungu!" at you allll the time.
Saturday night we played cranium with Doug and Lisa. It was quite fun. O Sunday, the three of them left for Sipi, of course when the boda bodas came for them it was pouring rain. Here are their hilarious boda riding in the rain outfits (especially take note of Doug here):
I spent the rest of the day just reading and being super lazy. When Aidan made dinner for me, I invited her to eat with me, so that was nice. Then I convinced my mom to call me, we talked for about an hour and then I went to bed early. It wasn't such a relaxing night, since Kaiya, Lisa's dog, was kind of worked up with Lisa gone. Lisa had said I could put kaiya in their side or in my apartment for the night, and I kept her on my side before I realized around 2 am that that was a bad idea. She was just restless and pacing and unhappy, but by that point I was too tired to move her back to Lisa's side.
Monday they were still at Sipi, so I was just working on my visual aids in the office (I got to sit at Lisa's desk and hand out money to the staff for lunch and all, so I felt all important). Tuesday was a CHE outreach, so Cait and I went along. It was to Bukibumbi, which is the village where Jennifer lives. I was in a group with Stephen Kuloba, Rose, and Jesca. After we visited about 7 homes and it had started pouring rain. We went back down to Jennifer's house for the lunch. Lunch on CHE out reaches is kind of a big deal, since you get meat and matoke (along with posho, bamboo shoots (I can't eat them since they are made with g-nuts), beans, etc.) this is key because Tuesday at the Clinic is the one day that we have meat (and matoke, but this is less of a big deal). So it's nice not to have to miss meat day at the clinic when we go on an outreach!
Here is Rose from my group teaching family planning (note her excellent use of the job aid card!):
Me and all of the CHEs outside of Jennifer's house after the lunch:
Wednesday and Thursday were then pretty basic clinic days. I was trying to finish prepping all of the materials for girls group, namely the RUMPS project. This is the re-usable menstrual pads, and I was planning to have the girls in the group make them on Saturday, so I had to coordinate with Anthony to get all the supplies, and then cut up all the fabric and everything to make kits (each girl would get a kit with the supplies to make 2 of the pads). I did successfully get this project done, and when the group met on Saturday, about 15 girls showed up and each got to Make two of the pads. I'll have pics eventually, but I haven't uploaded them from camera to iPad yet.
Wednesday night we had another round of cranium and we discovered that Lisa is really the key player - whichever team she was on however we mixed up the teams, her team always won! A highlight of cranium was my attempt to hum "hot in herre" by nelly - try to hum this, and you'll see what I mean!
By Thursday I was finishing up making the notebooks for the data set lisa is going to be collecting. We have notebooks of patient info from 2010, before Lisa took over the clinic and now we will be collecting more data to make a comparison and see how we are doing with patient care, etc. Thursday night was chicken night (I didn't realize this until Doug told me, but Aidan actually buys a live chicken every Thursday, and has to kill it, clean and pluck it and then cook it for us. Amazing.), so Doug and Lisa ate dinner with us. We went to bed fairy early because Friday morning before Cait left we were going to try to climb the rock mountain that is out our front door. Well Friday morning at 6:30 when we were going to go it was pouring rain, so we all went back to sleep and just had a normal morning.
Cait and Lisa left for Jinja around 11, so they would have time for Cait to buy some souvenirs in town that day, and then they would raft on Saturday. I finished up my projects, and then was supposed to lead the pregnant women's group at 2, but Patrick had mixed up the time apparently when he was supposed to tell them about it...so no meeting happened. I ended up packing up my supplies from my "office" in the lab, then doing some packing. After a wonderful dinner of meat stew and matoke and chapatti for my last night, Doug made popcorn (I actually think they maybe use blue band to make movie theater butter, since that is what we used and it tasted exactly like at the movies at home!). We watched fight club, excellent times.
Saturday morning, I just finished up my packing, and had girls group meet a 11. I taught about the menstrual cycle and then showed them how I make the RUMPs. Emma arrived a little after one, and we got underway. after a brief stop on the road to Mbale to wash the car, and a stop in Mbale for me to hit the ATM and both of us to get a snack, we proceeded to Jinja. I had a late lunch at the Source, an Internet cafe, and then we went t the Nile River Explorers hostel to meet Lisa and Cait. Then we had to stop back in Jnja for Cait to pick up the paintings she had ordered from Angelo, then we finally headed to Kampala.
Around 10 we arrived at the Red Chilli hostel, and went down the road o a bar, Zone 7, to get some food. They had a big screen up with lots of music videos, which proved a source if constant entertainment. basically a lot of Ugandan music is to take an American song (preferably a Rihanna song), and then add some grunts in Lugandan. The video is a blended mix of the Rihanna video and the Ugandan rapper usually paired with a bunch if ugly white girls. Pretty entertaining.
So today is Sunday. This morning Cait and I woke up and had breakfast at Red Chilli, and then left on our Murchison Falls safari. Also in our safari truck is a family (dad, mom, and son) from north Carolina. The dad works for duke. I was polite and kept my mouth shut. They seem nice. We are driving out to Murchison today, then tomorrow we will have a game drive and a boat cruise to the base of the falls.
I cannot believe I am finally done with the entry. As the Ugandans would say after a good days work, "well done!"
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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