These last few weeks have been a whirl wind of activity and unfortunately I am not going to be able to give any of them justice on this blog. It has been a stressful but extremely rewarding time. I wish I had the time to provide you all with the details of our adventures but tonight three of us are starting our own travelling adventure and are off to explore Kenya and Tanzania (and Rwanda if time permits) and will have limited computer access (due to the fact that we have donated the ones we were using in Masaka).
These last few week flew by. Jesse and I toured the shrines and interviewed a number of traditional healers in and around Masaka. We were told about things like ancestral sprits, bewitching, local medicinal herbs, healing techniques, mental illness as well as the successes and the obstacles they face in their daily practice and in the new collaboration with the hospital. It was an amazing experience, an eye-opening experience and an experience I will not soon forget. Our 2 days of interviews were followed by a weekend getaway at Lake Bunyonyi in the southwest of Uganda. It is truly the most beautiful place I have ever been. It is full of lush green islands surrounded by a mainland full of terraced hills and amazing people. Jesse and I were lucky enough to meet a couple locals who took us on a 5 hour hike up the hills of the mainland, through villages to watch a blacksmith make souvenirs out of scrap metal. We tried the local brew and treated the locals to a round of drinks. It was an amazing day.
We left and took an 8 hour bus ride up past Masaka all the way up to Kampala in order to meet our Hospital Supervisor who took us on a tour of the National Referral Hospitals. It was a good experience to see the other referral hospitals (one was the general Nation Referral Hospital and one was the National Referral Psychiatric Hospital) and how they differed from each other. At Butabika (psychiatric), the resounding and repetitive message we received during our welcome and tour was how understaffed and stretched they are, despite there being more services offered to patients including an amazing occupational therapy department and psychoeducation program. At any one time there is 600-700 patients with a nursing staff of roughly 100. What is accomplished for these patients are amazing feats with the resources they have available to them.
I ended up with a respiratory tract infection from all the dust from travelling and after getting seen at the hospital had a day to rest, and the following day at CRO was a yet another travelling day. A social worker with CRO and myself did some school visits out in the next district over to pay school fees for ‘gradutated’ CRO kids. It was a long ways away. Our trip started with a taxi ride (where there were 9 of us in the car, 5 in the back 4 in the front) and then various boda rides out to the different villages and schools. Jesca told me that the kids will walk for 2 days during grasshopper season to get to Masaka.
The following day was our sensitization/psychoeducation day with the Traditional Healers. In true African fashion we started extremely late (but did get more interview completed), our sensitization was then hijacked (I say that in the nicest way possible) by various dignitaries as well as Sense International . Sense International is an organization that teaches children who are deaf/blind how to communicate. The speaker was incredibly excited about the collaboration and talked about how traditional healers are often the entry point to the medical system and how every parent goes to them first when children have disabilities. It was an amazing message and she provided the traditional healers contact information so they too could refer children in need to this organization to learn how to communicate. When we finally came time for us to do our talk, we talked about concepts surrounding alcohol and drug abuse, effects and risks associated with the abused drugs of the region as well as possible signs of withdrawal. It was another full day.
The rest of the week was full of more school visits with CRO, and a series of home visits with Thomas to various members of USF. As always we were warmly welcomed to everyone’s homes. We were shown projects they are working on and often given food to take home with us. It is impressive to see the empowerment and successes of this extremely marginalized population.
Our final few days were blurs of interviews, project proposals, and reports. One evening we were able to go on a Night Survey with CRO through Nyendo (the local slum) to see where the kids sleep. I remember waiting for our security guard to arrive and there were these puppies, wondering around sometimes crying and whining. At first my heart just wanted to break for these puppies and the back of my mind I started making plans on how I could save these puppies from the street. Then I realized I need to check myself, my priorities and really think about what we were there to do. I will always remember the dirty groggy faces of a few of the boys crawling out from under a container and the line of boys sleeping in potato sacks and dirty blanket under the awning of a shop. These experiences leave me with no words. I struggle with how they may translate to my life back in Canada. All I can do right now is shake my head and hope that these impressions will yield more meaning in the future.
Our last days onsite involved farewell gatherings, speeches, soda, ‘bisquits’, sweets, pictures, a traditional dance party (I cannot shake my hips like that no matter how hard I try) and bittersweet goodbyes. The following days involved, more travel, chimp trekking, waterfalls, hippo, giraffes, elephants, boat rides and stupid truck drivers who won’t let you past and cover in you enfoofoo (dust) for miles. I am sad to say goodbye but so excited for the next leg of our journey (Hello sandy beaches!).
I want to thank everyone who has been part of this experience so far. I will never forget you and will always be thankful for what you have imparted on me. I know I will stay connected to Uganda and its people (I’m just not sure what that is going to look like yet... but things will work themselves out).
Forever Yours,
Nasamula (Chelsea)
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