Its hard to believe it, but we have already spent four weeks in Uganda! We are having a great time and continue to be bowled over by the beauty of the country and its people. This week has been a little quieter that the last few, giving us some time to recover and reflect further on our recent trip to Gulu.
 |
| The Road to Gulu |
Uganda is around the same size as the UK, with around half the UKs population, 30 million. But whilst in the UK most people live in towns and cities, in Uganda, many still live in the countryside. The drive from Masaka to Kampala and then onto Gulu was an beautiful journey, on mostly good roads. We did have the occasional hairy moment thanks to one or two drives who seemed keen to play 'chicken' with other drivers on the road! The total journey time was around 7 hours and was mainly spent looking at greenery as far as the eye can see. Neither of us had imagined Uganda to be so green!!!
 |
| Kipp, Kim, Hannah & Andy |
The week with E3 and the medical team was one of the most challenging but rewarding things we have ever done. And to a large extent we are still breaking down our experiences. It is still difficult to describe the week as a whole, but it was a real privilege to get serve the local communities and people surrounding Gulu. The work was certainly appreciated and well received with the help of E3 Ministry materials, such as Project Hope (HIV/AIDS cube), Malaria cubes and Evangecubes.
 |
| The E3 Physio Team |
We particularly enjoyed getting to know and work along the E3 team, made up of 28 very happy Americans, 11 Ugandans and 7 Brits. Everyone was amazing and very supportive throughout the week. We would certainly think very seriously of future E3 trips and projects and would love to work along Kipp, Spanky, Lara and co. again. One highlight was educating the younger (slightly gullible) Americans into the English culture. This of course included the words to our national anthem being 'God save the Queen' repeated 37 and a half times. These guys were brilliant fun to be around and we loved getting to know them. We did own up to them by the end of the trip, when we both had to sing what we new of our real national anthem.
Upon our return, we have missed having Christina (Katharine's sister) around, who had been out visiting Katharine and Rob and joined us for the trip to Gulu. It was nice to get to spend so much time with her, and we truly appreciated all of her support on our week away. On a positive note this week did give us the opportunity to spend more time with Emma and Pete Hulme, two of the doctors from the Gulu medical team. Andy was Pete's right hand man at winding up the Americans. They both travelled back to Masaka with us to spend some time with close friends, Katharine and Rob. We had a great time getting to know them and look forward to crossing paths further in the future!
 |
| The walk to Kitovu Hospital |
Over the last two days we have been starting to finalise our programme, and had trial journeys to and from both of the hospitals we will be working in. Both take around 45-60 minutes to walk on dusty paths. We have really enjoyed doing a little more exercise! We will see if we remain so keen after a few weeks of walking to work! We have also fed back and typed up our experiences in Gulu for The River of Life and had some very positive meetings regarding future potential benefits to similar projects/trips/ministries.
The majority of our physiotherapy skills this week has been focussed on encouraging Elena (the daughter of Rob and Katharine) who is 14 months old to walk and to talk. She is great fun and has us both wrapped around her little finger!
 |
| The walk to Masaka Hospital |
Today we were given the opportunity to visit a gentleman, Joseph, that has recently came to the attention of The River of Life. He is a local taxi driver who three weeks ago was asked to drive a "special taxi" (private taxi) from one town to another. Every now and again there are police patrol areas on the roads and when the taxi was stopped, the police opened fire at the car. Apparently, the two passengers he was driving were 'most wanted'. The two men escaped, but Joseph was shot in both of his legs. He is now in hospital and as we have previously mentioned they are very different to the UK. Government hospitals can have 'private' paying patients who are seen before others, which can result in some people not getting seen at all. Resources are also very limited and sadly Joseph has to date had little treatment for his injuries. Joseph has now had one leg amputated above the knee and may still loose his other leg due to infection. Furthermore, his wife is seven months pregnant with their third baby and is looking after him whilst he is in hospital. Due to lack of money she is sleeping on the floor and eating a poor basic diet that the hospital provide. River of life are appealing for donations to give them food and cooking equipment to improve his dietary requirements and healing. Depending on the next few weeks, he may also require rehabilitation equipment. We met Joseph today and he and his wife appear very positive despite their circumstances. We also started with some basic physiotherapy which we hope to progress over the coming months. If anyone at home would like to know more about Joseph, or what The River of Life are hoping to provide, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us.
We are gradually settling more into living in Uganda and are even getting more used to making unwanted friends! Although we having seen the friendly mouse 'peep' since are return to Masaka, we have encountered several geckos, cockroaches, grasshoppers and even one (small) snake! Hannah has been very brave!
Finally Andy would like to thank everyone for his birthday messages on Tuesday last week, he had a great day, even if Hannah did need a little reminding! We are looking forward to starting our programme in full next week and will try our best to update our progress and experiences!
Andy and Hannah are with River of Life for the next 3 months. They are Physiotherapists from Newcastle, UK and are helping River of Life develop our links with the local hospitals and ROLC's Hospital Ministy. If you would like to support their work with River of Life, head over to their Justgiving page
No comments:
Post a Comment