Uganda

Not content with visiting 3 countries in one month, I thought I should better make it four, this time Uganda. I had a vague idea that I would visit Uganda at some point, but Mum made it much more imminent by saying that she knew of a team of medical volunteers going to Jinja in a couple of weeks to provide free medical care to Ugandans, and did I want to join them? Well yes, I do believe that Uganda would benefit from my vast medical knowledge, so I signed up.

Initially I looked into flights, but the price tag put me off so I went for the cheaper option of the 24 hour bus. It actually wasn't so bad as it sounds, especially as some friends gave me some sleeping pills to take to ease the journey (in the blister pack, if you are thinking that anything odd is going on). So I actually got about as much sleep as normal, albeit on and off.

I arrived at 8.45am and was picked up by Satish, whisked straight to the camp and put to work. Was I squeamish, I was asked? Well, yes, a little, but I've never fainted, so should be alright.

Good, then my job would be dental surgeon. And the dentistry in question was tooth extraction, mixed in with a little mouth tumour extraction where necessary. I thought I would be doing admin somewhere and wasn't quite prepared for holding a bucket whilst people spat up blood and bits of chipped tooth. All good though, and it turns out that I am not that squeamish after all! I probably won't go in for a change of career though, even though the dentist from Stockport did assure me that this is not how they do it at home. However, we were using single use needles, sterilised instruments and clean cotton swabs, so by the sounds of it that is better treatment than they would normally receive.

After that I had the slightly more relaxing job of counting pills into bags in the pharmacy. A slightly crazy tent where 14 people work around a small table whilst a woman with a loudspeaker shouts out the names of the people who have had their prescriptions filled out. Unfortunately she shouts they names out repeatedly, like 18 times or so until they say there are there. Imagine registration at Ferris Buellers school, but all day long.

An Indian lunch followed (most of the volunteers were Indians who were born here and then emigrated, presumably during the rule of Idi Amin), then back to the pharmacy for the rest of the day.

It's much hotter here than in Arusha, and I was still wearing my jeans and boots from the journey, along with a medical coat, so really quite boiling.
After the end of day briefing, I was very happy to come to the hotel and have a shower.

Dinner was at a lovely restaurant called the 2 Friends. A bit of western food cheered me up and the surroundings were beautiful. The conversation was interesting, as all but three people on the trip are Indian, so much of the chat is centred around that.
I didn't know whether to be pleased or hurt when during the discussion about age (one of the boys was born in 1992!) a girl said to me 'there's no way you look that old' on finding out I was 29.

Early rise the next day to be at the camp by 8am, and straight into counting medicines into small bags. And that is pretty much what I did for the next 8 hours. Just before lunch I did take a break from that and start logging meds into the log book instead.

I did manage to smooth a system during the day by changing the 4 stage process of receiving the meds into a 3 stage one, by asking that the stage of logging them into the log book be abolished. It just meant that people were standing around in the sunshine for far too long waiting and getting understandably impatient.
I took lunch at 2.30pm despite not being hungry as I just needed the break, then went back to counting into bags.

Dinner that night was less exciting although it was on the shores of Lake Victoria. The food took two hours to come, and really wasn't particularly special when it did arrive, so a bit of a let down. But the bill was 25,000 shillings each, about £7, so not so bad.

Day 3: Early rise again and got to wash my hair, quite exciting in itself. I was set free from the pharmacy today and was re trained as an optician. There was a bit of unrest amongst the troops,as me being released meant that other people had to take my place and this was not popular, but I think you just have to get on with it. Not everyone shares my view.
The opticians is great as you can give people glasses there & then and improve the quality of peoples lives straight away. Very gratifying. Some people were very funny, like saying that all the glasses that you tried on them were wrong until eventually you would go back to the prescription you started with, and lo and behold, that would be the perfect pair. Exasperating, and either a genuine mistake or an attempt to get frames that they preferred. If the latter, I would give them increasingly ridiculous lenses until they relented.
Also, I learnt to be able to tell quickly what glasses would suit a certain face. Unfortunately there was no mirror (actually, it was fortunate, as we would be there a lot longer otherwise) so they didn't necessarily always agree with you!

My annoyance today was that some of the drugs that we need for the opticians hadn't arrived, this meant that people who had woken to start queuing at 5am to see an optician and are prescribed drugs for their problem then are told to come back the next day for them, and therefore have to queue all over again.
I'm also not entirely happy with the attitude of some of the local doctors. Such as taking more than an hour and a half for lunch when they can see the length of the queues, or insisting on taking lunch at the same time, therefore effectively shutting the opticians down until they are back. Then, after that, leaving at 4pm when there are still queues. It just doesn't feel right to leave people waiting in the sunshine (hot hot hot) for so long. I would rather work through the break, or at least take a quick, staged break and keep people coming through, but that doesn't seem to be the thinking here.

Day 4: More of the same today, in the opticians, trying to give people the glasses they want. What's interesting for me on this trip is learning about 1972 from the point of view of the Indians who were living here at the time. All of the volunteers here but 3 are Indian, and either lived here in 1972, or their parents did. So today, after we went round the central market, we spent some time looking for Shree's parent's shop that they owned before they had to flee the country. They now live in Leicester.
The general thinking is that it was a much better country back then, but since then the infrastructure has been allowed to decay, and the population explosion has just exasperated the situation. It would be interesting to hear the African Ugandan point of view.
It is unimaginably how it must be to be told you must leave the place that you live in, and you are not allowed to take any of the assets you have worked hard for for years. 'The Last King of Scotland' is added to the list of films I must watch again once I am home, joining 'Gorillas in the Mist', 'Hotel Rwanda' and 'Out of Africa'.

The next day was Saturday, and a half day for the camp in which only staff from the factory which is allowing us to use their grounds are invited, supposedly a bit of a break.
Not quite the reality. When we arrived there were lots of women and children queuing and the paediatrician didn't have the heart to turn them away, so they were allowed in along with the factory workers.
My job was as organiser, along with Janice. We had to make sure that the medical books were in sufficient supply (each patient gets one as they register) that everyone was aware that unless they were a paeds or dental case, that their drugs would go direct to the factory the next week, to make sure that the factory didn't send too many staff, etc etc etc. It probably doesn't sound that hard, but with the various things that went wrong that day, Opthalmologists not turning up, non factory workers sneaking in, pharmacy staff going on strike, I did more work that half day than I did the two previous days added together. When I got to have lunch at 2.30, it was a very welcome break.

That afternoon we all went to the Nile resort for a swim and a beer, so the stress of the day slowly eased out of me.

Sunday – Sightseeing day! A late start to accommodate the younger members of the party (I am in a weird age range all of my own, between the teenagers/early twenty somethings and the more mature volunteers, so I kind of swing between the two groups socially, but not quite fitting into either, all at the same time.)
Then to a supermarket to buy supplies for an orphanage that some of the group wanted to visit. After quite a journey trying to find we eventually arrived. Apparently the orphanage had improved a lot since some of the volunteers had visited it the year before, and there were now bunk beds for the children with mosquito nets.
Next stop, to the factory for lunch, vegetarian Indian, as with most days. I like it though. Then off to the source of the Nile (or one of, anyway). A short walk down a tourist shop lined set of steps leads to the water. From the name, I was expecting a spring of some sort, but what it actually is is the point at which Lake Victoria officially becomes the Nile, so really quite wide even at this point. Also, a fifth of Ghandi's ashes were scattered here, so there is a memorial statue to him as well.
A boat took us from here to the Kingfisher Resort, which is laid out beautifully with gardens and swimming pools and little thatch roofed tables. We ate dinner here, and as seems to be the custom, the food arrived 1hr3/4 after we ordered.
For some reason Uganda is leaving me exhausted, I assume it is the heat as I really didn't exert myself at all that day, but again needed an early night.

Monday and Tuesday were my last two days at the camp as my bus left late afternoon on Tuesday. I did a mixture of opticians and pharmacy and general running around type admin. The most important thing I think I achieved in those days was running between different people trying to sort out getting some glasses made for a man called Job who needed a +13.00 prescription in both eyes. I have never looked through glasses that thick, so can only try and imagine what his vision must be like close up, but let's just say that getting these glasses will be life changing for him.

Monday evening we were entertained by a local Muhindi who owns a restaurant in town. Good Indian food, though once a again slow to arrive, meaning that straight after eating we were all quite keen to head home. My last night in Uganda was as comfortable as the rest had been and I got an excellent nights sleep in preparation for a disturbed night on Tuesday.
Lucky I did, as the bus ride this way wasn't quite so idyllic. It was late to arrive at Jinja, so obviously late to leave, we went 30mins then got a puncture so had to change the tyre. The borders were fine, but then my sleeping pill didn't seem to have quite the same effect and I had a restless night. Into Nairobi where I was told the Arusha connection was going to be outside straight away. 2 hours later it did arrive and scooped me off to the Tanzanian border, trying to make up time as it went. Inexplicable the bus waited at the border for ¾ of an hour (normally it's the other way round and you have to rush to make sure it doesn't go without you).
At some point the pill must have kicked in, as the next thing I knew, they were calling out 'Arusha', and I was home.