The Lane's Log Final Farewell - Webale Uganda!

We are now into our final days in Uganda and so this will be our last blog during our time here in Africa. The last week has been gave us the chance to reflect on what has been an amazing three months and to start to say some goodbyes. Leaving Uganda is going to be far more difficult than we had ever thought and it is still hard to believe that we are actually leaving. We feel very much at home, despite it feeling like we arrived just a short time ago.

The fantastic Lutaaya Family

We have made some really good friends and had so many valuable experiences. Although we have found a number of things difficult along the way, we just cannot believe what a wonderful place Uganda is to live and work and are just blown away by everyone's love and generosity. The memories will live with us for a long long time and we hope we have made some friends for life.

It has also been a real privilege to have been part of the River of Life. They have made us feel so welcome and we have been made to feel part of their family, which has been really special. The work they are doing and their vision for the future is inspiring and already benefits countless people. We would really like to continue to support and assist everything they are doing in the future where possible. So be warned we may keep going on about it for a long time when we get back to the UK!

If anyone would like to know more about the River of Life or has felt that they would like to help, please take a minute to have a look on their website (http://www.riveroflifeuganda.org/). There are many ways people can help but an area of particular need at present is trying to get further sponsorship, so that they can support further children and keep them off the streets (http://www.riveroflifeuganda.org/sponsor-a-child.aspx).

News on Joseph is that his wife had returned back to their village and given birth to a baby girl. Joseph has been collected by his brothers and has been taken back to his village. His other leg hasn't been amputated and he continues to put on weight.

We have been making the most of our last week here with plenty of treats. It was a “special” Birthday for Kat, so we celebrated with a big Birthday cake, ginger biscuits, scones and jam, pancakes and a special pick nick. Given we only had about 3 hours of power we managed to time all the baking in a borrowed electric oven perfectly. The boys, Gerald and Julius, have also treated us all with a pork BBQ which was tough but great tasting!

Working hard

There has been some hard work done too! We both have worked on the land. Offering a hand to Gerald (who is employed to work on the land) by digging, planting maze and harvesting the crops we have grown on the land. We have also been set some last minute documents/reports to write up so we must get to do that soon!

In true Ugandan style we have been without power for the past 3 days so using this precious time to utilise the power to have warm showers and charge up everything we own for the next part of our adventure!

We have loved living with Kat and Rob and have valued them welcoming us into their house and family. We are certainly going to miss our mate Elena, who is now 16 months and learning new things everyday! We are desperately trying to encourage her to say Andy and Hannah. So far it's a debate whether it's Hannah or banana!

Thank you for all of those who gave money to help us to come out! We have valued your support hugely! Its difficult to say too much more as nothing we write will really sum up our thoughts and feelings. So we will end by just saying...

...Thank-You Uganda!

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

The Lane's Log Episode 8 - Meeting our sponsored Child

Due to power and internet problems this is being sent out a little later than we would like. Apologies!

We have had another busy two weeks here in Masaka, working in both hospitals and attending several Ball Line Academy games and training sessions. As we write this blog we amazingly other have just over one and a half weeks left! And although we have done and experienced so much, we already feel sad to think we will be soon leaving.

Since our last blog, the football season has got fully under way, with Ball Line having a great start, picking up 13 points from a possible 15 points. The Ball Line guys are a great bunch of lads and a pleasure to work and be around. Walu and his team certainly deserve all of their success to date and we hope it continues for a long time. In their last game, a well deserved 3-1 win, they managed to keep their discipline in very difficult circumstances. Towards the end of the game, their opponents became more and more aggressive to both Ball Line and in particular the referee. It came to a head at the end of the game, with their opponents team, squad and support invading the pitch and assaulting the referee. Everyone from Ball Line kept their heads and reacted very quickly to defend the referee and their team mates, trying to quickly defuse the situation.

The Masaka Physio Team

We have also been gradually running our programme and other commitments down, including our work at both Masaka and Kitovu Hopsitals. The work has been full of challenges and a number of difficult moments along the way for both of us, but it is something that we have ultimately enjoyed. We have certainly learnt a lot and equally hope that we have contributed to both respective services during our time working there. We now have really good relationships with many staff at both sites and wish them all the very best in the future.

Donating Medical supplies

Thanks to our time in Gulu and the generosity of E3 partners, we have also been able to give Kitovu Hospital a gift of four suitcases of medical supplies this week. To say it was appreciated is a huge understatement and it was a privilege to give the donation along with the River of Life.

The school holidays have now arrived here in Uganda and it is proving to be a very exciting time for the White Eagle Project. This morning three White Eagles left Masaka to start University on Monday, with two more are soon to join them. That takes the total number of White Eagles studying at University up to an amazing ten people!

Building work starts!

This week has also seen the start of the next building phase of the White Eagle project. The build aims to be completed in two months and will be a self contained flat, complete with living room and balcony. Several of the older White Eagles have been given the opportunity to learn a trade in their Summer break and have been working hard alongside the other workmen. It is a shame the build will be finished around a month after we leave but we look forward to seeing photos of the final build. It is going to be very impressive and make a huge difference to the project.

Margaret's family

A huge highlight of the last few weeks has been meeting Margaret, one of the White Eagles. For the last few years we have sponsored her, but since our arrival in Uganda she has been working hard at boarding school. The holidays have gave us the chance to meet her on a few occasions, including getting to drive her home to a local village. Margaret and her family are fantastic and we have been so happy to meet them in person! She is (and has) an amazing testimony of the power of prayer and how the project has helped her develop into a lovely young lady. If anyone reading this would like to know more about sponsoring a child, the White Eagle Project have a long list of people they would love to support and send to school! Just visit the website here

In our day off last week we drove to Lake Mburo National Park and did our very own Safari. It was a really unique experience and it was great to get so close to so many animals. Okay, we may have got a little lost and a little concerned when we lost the track a few times, but still had a great time. We also got to see another of the 'big five', zebras, who are stunningly beautiful. Their stripes just look like they have been painted on!

Sugarcane at Bujja Farm

In the last few days we have been given the chance to visit two farms, The White Eagle Farm (Bujja Farm) and MMF. It was great to see how lots of the food we eat at the project is sourced and were really impressed with the White Eagle vision for the development of Bujja farm. They hope to raise enough money to develop the land and significantly reduce their rather large food budget for the project. MMF is a new private farm, started up as an income generating project by Rob and Katherine, alongside a good friend, John. We loved getting shown around and seeing how excited they are about the future!

Finally we have been upset to read and hear from friends and family about the problems back in London and across the country. We hope everyone is well and we continue to think and pray for home.

Lots of love and God bless,

Andy and Hannah

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

The Lane's Log Episode 7 - Community Physio and New Kits for Ball Line

Sorry it's been such a long time since we last wrote a blog, we have been busy with our programme, and had many visitors since the last blog.

We currently have 6 extra bodies in our house (a total of 13 people). It's lovely having visitors and we're really enjoying getting to know more and more people. Especially when the power is out we have enjoyed many interesting conversations sat up at the dinner table. Four of our party are children, all under the age of 5.... we have been wondering why we are so tired lately?!

The water situation is a little better. We have had a few hot showers and yesterday we had a huge down pour of rain so our grass is looking greener and our rain water tank is full! With 13 people using it I am sure it will go quickly but in the mean time we can enjoy showering! However it's always quick as you're not sure when the power will cut out or when the tank is going to dry out, but were a little more presentable to the public anyhow! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

Masaka Hospital Gym

For the past couple of weeks we have been mostly following our programme. We are seeing more and more patients and learning more and more about different conditions. The majority of our referrals being children and some adults we have seen patients with a variety of conditions such as TB meningitis, Tetanus and severe burns.

One of Andy's outpatients is a 64 year old lady who fell, fractured her hip (intracapsular neck of femur) and because she couldn't afford surgery is now 4 months down the line with a hip that has healed, but she will always be limited to what she can do.
A lot of treatment unfortunately depends on money and therefore you see patients discharging themselves without efficient assessments or treatments. We have both found seeing and treating these patients quite distressing, however have learnt a lot through it.

Having never really thought about it before it makes you realise how important it is that we are so well looked after in the UK with our vaccines as children. In Uganda the majority of people are vaccinated against all the conditions that we are in the UK, however some do not get them due to money or the area they live in.

We continue to work at both hospital sites, with one extra morning at Kitovu Hospital. Andy has done some in-service training about lower back pain and Hannah is teaching Andy more about paediatric assessment. We have also had some interesting discussions about different treatments and learning to use translators patiently and gracefully.

Thanks to the E3 Ugandan Team, we have also been able to give out a wheelchair that was left over from our medical mission to Gulu. It was a unique experience to visit the lady's home, initially to meet and assess her. As we have found in many cases, we were warmly welcomed, with a family member bring us a soda each from the local shop! It was fantastic to give the wheelchair to a family that will benefit so much from it and will it will certainly offer the opportunity for the lady to get out of the house more.

Our programme has been made a little easier as we have been able to drive the Land Cruiser. We still enjoy walking, but it is more convenient that we have some transport on some days. We are realising just how quickly our time is flying whilst we are here and aware that to complete all that we want we need to fill our day with as much as possible!

Saying this we still make the most of our days off! Last week we went to the lake Nabugabo,
where we had local fish and chips and a stoney (ginger beer). We enjoyed having a swim in the lake and prior to jumping in were reassured that this lake doesn't have crocodiles! Apparently they have all been shot!

Most weekends we are involved in Ball line. Either training or watching. Andy and Simon (one of our visitors) also played in a friendly against a local team. We have enjoyed getting to know the boys and becoming part of the team. Simon kindly bought some kit for them from the UK which was greatly received. We have had a number of disappointments where competitive teams have not turned up, which means they have won the game but through default. However when playing against their local rival cub they gained one point with a 1-1 draw.

We have also found another toon army fan - The local kebab man was spotted by Andy. Unfortunately he could only speak French or Lugandan, so the conversation was limited despite Andy's best efforts!

News from the garden is that we have harvested two pineapples this week. Sure they are a little small, but edible and juicy none the less.

We are both well in ourselves, although over the past two weeks Andy has been suffering with his stomach and his finger continues to take him back and forth to the doctor. Hannah has had a cold (... in Africa). But thankfully we have plenty of medical supplies to keep us going!

Thank you again for all of your support and encouragement! We would love to hear from you if you have time and keep in contact with what is happening back home.

Lots of love!
Hannah and Andy x x

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

The Lane's Log Episode 6 - Hospitals, Football and the Day of The African Child

We are now two weeks into our full programme with River of Life, Masaka. Our programmes consists of a mix of activities between working as a physio and assisting with some of the River of Life ministries. We have now successfully started work at both Masaka General Hospital and Kitovu Hospital and are getting to know the staff and our roles. At Masaka we work with a friendly team of 2-3 Physios based in their own small outpatient department. Here we have already started to treating a wide variety of conditions, with Hannah volunteering to see the paediatrics. Although we are gradually learning a little more Lugandan (How are you?, I am fine, just here sir, thank you, well done) we still require a lot of help from our colleagues to translate!

Kitovu is a little different as they don't currently provide a physiotherapy service. So for the next two months we hope to help out in the best way we can. Kitovu has a large variety of wards including trauma, surgery, paediatrics, general medicine, malnutrition and gynaecology. We have been setting up a referral system to allow us to find those most in need.

Hannah taking on the u-14s

Physiotherapy is also continuing away from the hospitals with increasing involvement with Ball Line Football Acadamy (training and matches) and adhoc physio clinics. We have since both had the chance to train with the boys.  In the mid day heat, no shade, and having not done much exercise for a while Hannah felt ill after the two hour training! (she would also like to highlight that the altitude is also very high!)

Day of the African Child

The rest of our time here is getting to know the white eagle boys and girls. Last week we were a part of the celebration for the African Child day.Despite a few concerns that the focus may have been lost slightly through the adults being entertained and not the children and running 3 hours behind schedule, we had two hours where they put on some African beats and we all got our groove on!
African dancing involves a lot of bottom wiggling!

Dancing at the Day of the African Child

Within our timetable we will also be serving some of the Church ministries. We are leading some of the white eagle evening sessions. Focussing on life skills and fellowship, along with having lots of fun! All of the girls and boys are a delight to be around and we are really enjoying getting to know them and the staff. We also visit Masaka General Hospital as part for the hospital ministry team where we give out food and pray with patients who request it. This week we gave out some of the mango's that are growing within the compound we live in.

Mangoes!

It has been great to get our programme up and running. We have quickly realised that since arriving that although three months felt like a long time whilst we planned, in reality it is going to be no where near long enough!

We are keeping fit by walking to work and this has been going really well, even if Andy does get a little grumpy in the heat! The rest of the time we get 'public', a local taxi (5 seater car) which follows a set route. So far our record is fitting up to 9 fully grown adults in it (two in the passenger's seat, five in the back seat, and two in the drivers seat).

We have struggled to communicate back home in the last two weeks, thanks to ever increasing powercuts. It is now rare that we have electricity for any real length of time. This is apparently reportedly thanks to the government being in huge debt to the electricity companies. As we are living on the top of a hill, this also has had a knock on effect to our water supply, as they don't have enough power to pump it up to us. With our back up supply of rain water very close to empty we are looking forward to trips to the local well with jerry cans and bucket baths for the foreseeable future. There is a general panic for water as all the wells are becoming dry, although this is is nothing like the situations in some of Uganda's neighbouring countries. It also gave us the unpleasant experience of working in the hospitals with no water to wash our hands. Never thought I would say this but prayers for rain would be gratefully received!

Andy was excited to find his first fellow Newcastle fan on Sunday, whilst watching a local football game. And this week, was asked by a physio colleague if he had heard of Alan Shearer. Happy days!
Hannah has been enjoying the garden, regularly picking avacardos and mangos. She is making the most of mango season, making mango juice as well as borrowing a neighbours electric oven to bake a lemon drizzle cake with the some of her birthday presents. Thank you for all the birthday well wishes and thoughts as they really do make a big difference to us!

Elena reading FourFourTwo to Andy

We have also had some excitement within the house. Elena is now walking!! We like to think it's due to our physiotherapy involvement, but really its possible that she has been watching some of the other walking children at the play group which Katherine has recently set up.

We will update you soon on how Joseph is getting on!

Lots of love! Please keep your emails coming! We love hearing from you and power dependent we will reply as soon as possible!

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

The Lane's Log Episode 5 - Back to Masaka

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

The Lane's Log Episode 4 - Mission to Gulu!

Queueing for the first clinic

Last week we travelled to the north of Uganda, to an area called Gulu. We were part of a church ministry project called E3. We worked in the medical team that visited local communities (some days we travelled up to two hours) and set up a medical clinic. In our team we had doctors, nurses, a pharmacy, an eye glass clinic and physiotherapy. The clinic also taught and educated people about malaria and HIV. The other teams spent the week assisting local nationals in planting new churches from two mother churches.

Lady's arm broken 5 years ago by the LRA.

Throughout the week the medical team visited five of the new church sites, including areas previously heavily effected by the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army). The LRA , a guerrilla group, has earned a reputation for its actions against the people of several countries, including northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan. The LRA has abducted and forced an estimated 66,000 children to fight for them, and has also forced the internal displacement of over 2,000,000 people since its rebellion began in 1986. During the week we heard many very sad stories of the things the local people have endured and we also saw many injuries from bullets wounds and land mines that still live with people today.

One of our physiotherapy departments.

In total the clinic saw around 1,500 people. Getting to work with the team and serve the local people with physiotherapy was a real privilege. The clinics were unsurprisingly in high demand but thankfully we didn't have to turn any one away who had mobility needs. In the past they have had to turn people away due to lack of equipment, but the huge fundraising efforts of all concerned paid off providing enough equipment to cover the whole week. In our physiotherapy clinics we saw a variety of patients, including those who had been crawling for years that were provided with wheel chairs.

Two men who crawled in and wheeled out.

In total we gave out 48 wheelchairs: some old, some new, some without leg rests and some with. All however were for a good cause and everyone that received them were extremely happy. It would be great in the future if they continue to have plenty of equipment!

We were working along a fantastic team (the majority from the USA). Everyone worked hard to make the week a success. Our day started at 6.30 and finished around 9-10pm. Despite being tired emotionally and physically we thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and have made some really special friends and memories. If you would like to know more please do ask, as we have lots of stories!

As a special treat on the way back we stayed in a posh hotel and went on a morning safari (and had a hot shower!) Wow! We saw all sorts of animals! Including Giraffes, Elephants, Buffalo, Hippo etc. We had a great time enjoying the beauty of Uganda and one of it's nature parks.

We have now returned to Masaka, and are keen to develop all that we can do here with River of Life.

We have had a few questions about the heat. We're coping with it well, although our photos may not look like it all the times! We haven’t really got burnt as most of the time we are covered up! It is polite to wear skirts below the knees which I am getting used to (Hannah not Andy!). We hear that you are all enjoying the sunshine too!

We miss you all lots!
Please do let us know more if you would like to know more!
Lots of love and hugs!
Hannah and Andy x x

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

The Lane's Log Episode 3 - Masaka's Hospitals

A very quick update from Andy and Hannah before they head north...

This week, we managed to visit the local hospitals that we had been trying to arrange our voluntary work with. Hospitals are very different here! The nurses don't wash, feed or clean patients, instead family members stay with them to look after them. If there are no beds available, patients lie on the floor or corridors to receive treatment.

Like the UK, there are periods of the year in which the hospitals are particularly busy. In Uganda these pressure times of the year are due to Malaria and mostly linked to the wet season and the high number of mosquitoes.

The wards were absolutely jam packed. Sorry we don't have any photos – we didnt feel it would be appropriate. Those that can't afford private hospitals, or the local catholic hospital, go to government hospitals. However this still costs patients to see a doctor and receive treatment, which for many can still remain too expensive.
 
While we were being shown round the local Catholic hospital we were asked to assess and treat one little boy who had his webbed fingers surgically separated. Post operatively his wound was open and very sore! Thankfully we had packed some balloons we used to encouraged him to do his exercises. Hygiene and equipment is going to be something we learn more about as we work more.
 
We also visited the local government hospital. Their physiotherapy department has a room about the size of our waiting room at work, where patients come for treatment. We were surprised at the equipment they had (very old but has potential for treatment). Once we have sorted out the paper work, we are hoping to help them out with some of their clinics.

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

The Lane's Log Episode 2 - Nutrition, Outreach and Ball Line Football Academy

We know it hasn't been long since our first email, but a lot has happened in our first week here. We are gradually finding out more and more about what life is like here in Uganda.

At the beginning of the week we were living with a trainee dietician, who has been doing research into malnutrition in the surrounding areas of Masaka. This has involved visits to local clinics and several trips into the wider communities away from the major towns. On some occassions, these trips ended in taking babies/children back to hospital due to the severity of their conditions. 70% of the population is under 24 years old and the country has high child mortality rate. Hospitals and local community clinics have large population areas and most children born in these areas won't have a birth certificate.

Community Clinic

We were able to join the final research trip to find out more about what she has been doing and also look into the possibilty of River of Life Church creating some community health outreach projects/clinics. We visited a clinic and were able to chat to a number of their staff. This particular clinic has a catchment area population of around 59,100 people, 27,500 of these are believed to be under the age of 15.

During the visit the team were told of some children away from the clinic that may benifit from a visit, as they were known to be malnourished. As we visited the families it began to hit home that we were in Uganda. I (Hannah) went into two homes, both approximately 3x3 metres in size, where the families lived, ate, slept etc. They were very dirty but this didn’t stop young children running around playing. One of the young girls we met had oedema around her face, which is one of the first stages of malnutrician.

On our trip we passed other villages along very unkept, poorly maintained roads. Whilst we were driving we passed a lady sat by the side of the road with a pile of blankets. There was a body under these blanket and we were told by the Ugandans on our trip that she would be waiting for the family to collect the body. Pretty unbelievable really!

Over the past couple of days we have been spending time getting to know the River of Life Church Projects. They have a number of ministries into the local area, including work with a number of schools and the nearby prison and hospitals. On Friday we had the opportunity to visit a school. We walked into a classroom not much bigger than our staffroom at work, where about 100 little faces greeted us with beaming smiles, huge excitement and deafening noise. We were asked if we were okay to share a little about ourselves and talk a bit about Health and God. This was/is totally out of our comfort zone, as we haven't done anything like this before but it is an area we would very much like to support! It is also an area the projects are looking to progress and develop to include additional health education. We will see how it goes!

We later walked back to the charity offices through a more deprived area of Masaka, Nyendo, an area we will be spending quite a bit of our time. The River of Life sponsors and supports a number of the local children to go to school, teach them life skills and gives them places of rest and love. This in many cases also includes giving them somewhere to live, such as the respected boys and girls homes and others at local boarding schools. All of the children sponsored are called White Eagles. One of the managers is a trained social worker, Julius (previously mentioned in our last email) and he supports children when possible to go back to live with their parents. He kindly took us to two schools to meet a number of the White Eagles. Again we were greeted with laughing, clapping and screams of excitement. What an experience! They were all so welcoming – They were so thankful that we have visited their country, so much so that it was a little uncomfortable. Andy and I stood at the front and told each class (around 7 in total) why we have visited, what our jobs are back in the UK etc. Unfortuneately we didn't take any photos as we didn't want to appear rude, but I'm sure you would have loved to have seen their faces!

Today (Saturday) we had our first physiotherapy clinic with the White Eagle boys. It was great to start doing some Physiotherapy, teaching and advising them appropriately. We look forward to progressing the clinics in the coming weeks.

We have also spent some time with Ball Line Acadamy, River of Life's football academy based in Nyendo. We were scoping out the possibility of doing some Physiotherapy and Healthy Living/Life Skills work with the group of boys who train and play within Ball Line. Training goes on for two hours in the midday heat. Some of these boys play in bare feet on the dry red African patchy grass. So when Andy got asked to play in his slightly too small plimpsoles he couldn't really say no! Two side-line trips to put suntan lotion on and two blisers later, the ref blew the final whistle – much to Andy’s relief! We will see how much we can do with these guys in the coming weeks when we get to meet their main coach.

Relaxing before food at the boys home

We are learning a huge amount about life in Uganda. We can't quite believe it has been only a week since we arrived! It has been a hard week but also a very rewarding start to our time here. Everyone we have had the privilidge to meet have been extremely friendly and we have been very excited to see some of the amazing work the The River of Life Projects are doing in the community.

We will tell you more when we write an update next week. We are missing people at home and hope you are all well! Lots of love and thank you so much for all of your emails/messages!

Lots of love!
Hannah and Andy x x

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

The Lane's Log - Andy and Hannah Arrive!

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

We arrived in Entebbe, Uganda, after our 8 hours flight at around 7:30am. It had been a long day, travelling to Heathrow terminal 5 and not getting much sleep during the flight to Uganda. We were met at the Airport by John, a driver for the river of life, who kindly helped us with our bags to the van we were to travel to to Masaka in. After a quick stop at a local supermarket, where John kindly supplied us with lots of water and bananas to keep us going, we set off to Masaka.

John stops to buy fish for his dinner!

After the night flight it felt like another long journey, on a large variety of roads, but it gave us a good opportunity to see our surroundings. It did not take long before it was clear that we are no longer in the UK and that for most of Uganda their way of life is very different to back home.

Crossing the equator!

After around 2 hours, we had a quick stop as we passed the equator and posed for a few photos, before climbing back into the van. Uganda looks like a beautiful country with far more greenery than we had anticipated and after around 3:30 - 4:00 hours, a journey that would take around 90 minutes on UK roads, we arrived in Massaka.

Our first port of call was to meet up with Rob and Kat, who are kindly putting us up for the next 3 months. They were at The River of Life Church, and we arrived just as the service was ending by greeting new visitors. Before we put our bags down, Rob had greeted us with a big hug before ushering us to the front to introduce ourselves. We received a massively very warm welcome, with big smiles, hugs and handshakes, both in the service and afterwards.

After Church, we drove the final 10 minutes of our journey up to the house that Rob and Kat are currently renting. The Church have found them a beautiful base, with an amazing garden, to help to greet visitors to the River of Life and look after Elena, Rob and Kat's beautiful baby girl. We feel very privileged to have the opportunity to stay here and it has certainly helped us to settle and feel safe.

Rob and Kat are also currently hosting a student, Mariah, who has been working on co-ordination with the local hospital and River of Life looking into malnutrition in the surrounding areas. Mariah has also been very welcoming, helping us to feel relaxed and it's a shame our stints only overlap for the next few days.

After a quick nap to re-energise and to attempt to stop Andy being so grumpy, we were treated to a trip to Masaka's nicest hotel, to swim and eat. We decided to skip the swimming, as we were still both tired and looked forward to our first meal in Uganda. An hour after our arranged eating time, and several power cuts later, we tucked into our meal. As we ate, we enjoyed chatting to Gerald and Julius, who joined us at the hotel. Both guys are Ugandan and play important roles at River of Life. We finished the meal with Ugandan tea, served using hot milk and ginger!

Our new bedroom!

After food, we headed back to our new base and quickly set up our mosquito net and headed to bed. It wasn't long before we were both out for the count and didn't wake until 10am this morning...

Today we have continued to settle, unpacking our bags and enjoyed local chapattis, guacamole and groundnut sauce for lunch. Later we are discussing our plans for the next few months and hoping to make up a timetable for the coming weeks. Exciting times!

Finally, we would like to thank everyone once more for all of their love and support. We have both found leaving our normal lives in the UK very difficult, and we wouldn't have made it this far without everyone back home. A special thanks to our families were have continued to support, comfort and encourage us in our times of need. Thank-you!

An extra special thank-you must also go to everyone that has given money to support our time here with the River of Life. As we type, we have raised an amazing 73% of our target total - a massive £2,028.50!!! Thank-you!

If you would like to support River of Life and Andy and Hannah's time with us, head over to their Justgiving page