So not much happened this week here in Uganda. Our job was to travel with Ponny and the two new interns Wendy and Noah. Every time I say Noah’s name I get more excited to go see Simon and Noah. Wendy is sooo smart and speaks Amazing English so it’s so nice to talk to her. They have explained so much to us and it’s just nice to have another person to have a normal conversation with. The whole week we traveled to other sub counties of Kassanda. I have FINALLY figured out the whole program they have going on here. Ok so it goes like this, I’ll put it as easy as I can. We are volunteering through Healthcare Volunteer Uganda. This Healthcare program is something that was created by Neil Patel so that people who wanted tovolunteer could say exactly when and where they wanted to and they would set it up according to those specifications. There is no real connection to the program I am going to explain other than providing volunteers. So HCVU hired Ponny, Ponny taught the pastor Vincent at KCF, Kassanda Cornerstone Foundation, and so Ponny was able to make a partnership with them and bring in volunteers. People here are very focused on getting resources and help for orphans and HIV + patients in their area, but if there is more than one program there is competition and obviously their cause doesn’t work so well so they set out for partners and work together. KCF has started a program called PPLP, Partnering for Positive living Livlihood Program. What this does is sets up TOT’s, trainer of trainers who are in charge of certain parishes where CCG’s are local to. These TOT’s train CCG’s, community care givers. The CCG’s are trained to take care of 15 people, a certain amount of HIV + patients and then some orphans. They train them to advise good nutrition, where to get medical treatment, monitor their treatment, give them counseling, just about everything they need the CCG’s are trained to help them with. They report back to the TOT’s and they make up reports to monitor this.
We work at Peoples Medical Center. PMC is a private clinic and KCF is partnered with PMC because this is where patients can receive treatment, get their ARV’s and counseling and what not. They also do the outreaches to test for HIV in the sub counties where CCG’s then can get their PHA’s (not sure what that stands for but I know it’s their Positive patients). It’s better to be partnered with a private clinic because the treatment is much better, more personal and just all around better treatment. We visitied a governement funded clinic and it just didn’t seem so clean or friendly, very different. We will be shadowing there for a day here soon so I will let you know how that goes. They also have most of the births there and so we are trying to arrange that we can get to see a birth here. I hope I explained that well enough to understand how all this works here. It took me forever to figure out!! They tried explaining it but it’s so unorganized, they don’t have any pamphlets set up explaining it. It’s all very new. So our whole week was going to these meetings with TOT’s and CCG’s making sure that everyone was divided up and had their training, hearing their concerns. They were talking about these kitchen gardens they want to start up in each sub county. It is very crucial for these patients to eat healthy, but it’s hard to ask someone to do so when they don’t have the money, so these kitchen gardens will provide healthy food for everyone. The meetings were pretty boring for us cause they were all in Luganda and we understood nothing until Noah or Wendy told us something. One of the concerns that someone voiced was that wife was HIV+ and she asked the CCG not to tell her husband because if he knew and tested + that he would divorce her. So they didn’t know what to do in those types of situations. Also the CCG’s themselves are mostly HIV patients so they were concerned with what do they do when they are sick and their PHA is sick and has no family members to help them. They are still working out their kinks.
Over the weekend of the 18th we went to Jinja to see the Nile. Man that thing is HUGE! Then this last weekend we went to Kampala (the city) just to go shopping but as soon as we got there I realized I had food poisoning (I’m pretty sure that’s what it was). I can’t even explain what that was like. First of all the only way to get to and form Kampala is a taxi. A taxi here is a van that is meant to fit 9 people. They added little seats on the end of each isle to make it so that there can be 3 rows for 4 people to sit in (12 people), but no to maximize their money they fit around 17+ in at a time. So we’re in this overcrowded taxi I ended up throwing up outside the taxi, also in a bag in the taxi. Not only is this taxi full to the max but they don't’ always have the windows open because the dust is so bad, so it’s scorching hot and smells horrible. Thirdly you have never experience pot holes or bad roads until you have traveled here. I’m serious it feels like at any minute the van is just going to collapse from all the holes and how bad the road is. I tried laying my head down on the seat in front of me but from all the bouncing my forehead was bruised. It was pretty much the most miserable day and the taxi ride from Hell! Today we are back at the clinic. We should be here for the next two weeks, then we are off to Rakai before we come home.
As I was sitting here writing e-mails a woman sat down and put her arm out for me to look at. She has some kind of rash. The nurse told me she wants me to look at her arm and tell her what she has. Of course I have no idea, I guess they must not be to certain here either. Then she starts pointing at her eyes. I guess she has a problem with them constant tearing up. When people see a white person that to them automatically translates into knowledge/education and money. So she of course thinks I know how to do all this and I have no training what so ever. Even after the nurse left she continues to try and talk to me in Luganda. I can tell she tries to make little small talk but then she pulls her arm back out at me. I keep telling her I can’t help her and speak no Luganda but bless her heart she just keeps trying to have a conversations. I so wish there wasn’t a language barrier here.