I had traveled the day
before with Amanda to Kyenda, a small town about half an hour away from Mubende
by car. I had met Amanda randomly at Garden City where I had been inquiring
after wireless internet options. She was a pre-med student who had just
completed college, and was volunteering in Uganda for the summer. Since she was
from Missouri, and I go to school in Missouri, we had an instant connection. We
traded contact info, and stayed in touch over the next few weeks. I had put her
in touch with Dr. Sylvester at Gulu, who had hosted Amanda and two of her
friends when they visited Gulu. He had even allowed her to scrub into a
c-section when she was shadowing him for a few days. And now I was visiting her
in Kyenda before her departure from Uganda in mid-August.
We were staying with
Pastor Emma, who was running a local orphanage in Kyenda. The house had no
power and no running water. In fact, I later learned that the whole town had no
power and no running water. We had arrived at night, and we had to use torches
and battery-powered lamps to light the way. Of course, with no running water,
there was no flushing toilet either, but the house had a pit latrine that Nuliat,
Emma’s wife, cleaned regularly. Emma and Nuliat welcomed us warmly into their
home, and even prepared pork (pork!!!) for dinner on the night of our arrival.
They had given up the only room in the whole house for Amanda to use, and I was
to be sharing the room with her. Emma and his wife had put a partition in the
living room, and was using half of the living room as their bedroom, where they
slept with their two young children, Prosper and Praise. That was so typically
Ugandan, to give up the best to your guests. There were also 5 girls from the
orphanage staying with us. Apparently, the landlord of the house that Emma had
been renting for these girls to stay in had suddenly raised the rent by an
atrocious degree, so that Emma could no longer afford to house the girls there.
And so the girls had moved in with him and his family. They also slept in the
living room with Emma and Nuliat, as well as Prosper and Praise. So it was a
full house.
In the morning, Amanda
and I ate some bread with our sweet tea, which made up our breakfast. Then, we
caught a taxi into Mubende town, and rode a boda from town to the hospital.
When we arrived, I met Robert, who was the head of the Physiotherapy/Orthopedic
department. He was a big jovial man, reminding me of an African Santa Claus. We
left our bags in his office, which was always locked (Amanda had an extra copy
of the key). Then, he introduced me to the Hospital Director, the Principal
Nursing Officer, both of whom welcomed me warmly to their hospital. Then, he
took me on a tour of the hospital, and introduced me to every single one of the
health personnel working there. Finally, he took me to two clinical officers
running the surgical ward, and left me to do ward rounds with them. It was a
slow and painful process, since it was obvious these two had never rounded on
any of the patients ever. One of the patients hadn’t been rounded on in ten
days!! The last note in his chart was from July 20th. I was astounded.
When we finished rounding on the male ward, Dr. Christopher, the medical
officer (the only one currently in the whole hospital) arrived, and the
clinical officers left. “You can continue rounding on the female patients with
the doctor,” they told me as they almost ran out of the ward. The doctor told
me he would be dropping off some things in his office, but promised to be back.
After waiting for half an hour, I also left. I went to Robert’s office to take
my lunch.
After lunch, I went to
theatre to see if there were any cases – there weren’t. But I met Aggred, a student
from Gulu University who had been working here for the past month. He had had a
great experience and had learned to do most of the common surgeries. I was
super excited to follow in his footsteps. However, he was leaving the next day,
partly because it was nearing the end of his vacation, and partly because Ebola
had broken out in the neighboring district. He took me to see his room that he
had been renting – I was looking for closer accommodations for my next visit,
as I wanted to be able to scrub into the emergency surgeries at night.
After that, I just hung
out with Amanda and her PT patients, and then we headed home. No cases all day!
What a downer! Robert gave us a ride into Mubende town from the hospital, and
we climbed into an almost-full taxi. However, Amanda ran into a shared private
hire cab driver who was her mukwano. So we got out of the taxi and got into his
cab. Both of us sat in the front passenger seat. There was a little cushion
placed between the driver’s seat and the shotgun seat, where Amanda sat. I
looked behind me – there were two rows of seats, each meant to fit 3 people
comfortably, but the cab driver was making them squeeze five to a row. Finally,
he squeezed a young mother and her toddler son in the front seat with Amanda
and me. “How is this going to work?” Amanda asked. There was not enough space
for all of us. The cab driver made Amanda straddle the gear box, with one foot
almost stepping on the clutch, and her other foot stepping on my foot. We were
off! After about 20 minutes, we finally arrived in Kyenda, where we untangled
ourselves from the mess of bodies, and were welcomed home by the girls from the
orphanage waving ecstatically to us.
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