Malaria Program Featured

Check out the article on our new Malaria Communities Program, featured in the New Vision's Health section this Monday.

Lake Mburo

I spent my last weekend in Uganda at Lake Mburo National Park… no lions, tigers or bears, but lots of impala, baboons and zebras!

I especially liked the zebras.

“…Zebras have a lot of stress because they have to flee from lions on a regular basis, but after the crisis they mostly just graze calmly. People, on the other hand, spend too much of their downtime worrying about the lions in their lives.” –NY Times

In the Southwest Journal

A banana tree with a few stalks is stronger

On both sides of the road, going on forever it seems, are fields of banana trees. And as we drive to Nanseko, a village in rural Uganda, we avoid the deep ruts in the dirt road by swerving from one side and then to the other, veering so close that the long banana tree leaves brush the car's window.

Check out the full article on MIHV in Monday's Southwest Journal.

Rainy Season

“It will rain every day now,” Robert tells me.

On Sunday, the rains came along with the wind, blowing the fronds off palm trees and uprooting a hibiscus plant in the yard.

The rainy season has started.

In Uganda there are two rainy seasons – a longer one, lasting from March through May, and a shorter one in October and November.

On Thursday, the rain started softly, the pregnant clouds just drip-dripping, but by the time we reached the bottom of Mbuya Hill, near the Kampala office, the rain was coming down hard. As we started up the hill the car lurched back and forth as Peter, the driver, tried to avoid the rivers of ochre mud rushing down the road. As the car rocked from one side, it jolted, stalled, stopped and then started again.A plastic rosary swung back and forth, looping around the rear-view mirror. As rain covered the windshield, the blue beads and tiny cross danced to Peter’s reggae music.

Religion seems to show up a lot here. Rainstorms. Supermarkets. Introductions.

When I first met Lilian, who I would room with for about three weeks, one of the first questions she asked me was “Are you a Christian?” A little confused, I nodded. She smiled, approvingly. I had just won some serious brownie points. “And what Church?” She was visibly disappointed when I said “Catholic.”

When I was later introduced to MIHV’s Mubende driver, Ronnie said, “This is Mwange. He’s a Muslim.”

The street merchants market light-up pictures of the Virgin Mary to the cars stopped in traffic. And Eid-ul-Fitr, the last Friday of Ramadan, is a national holiday.

Sunday morning, as I walked to church with Passy, a friend who I stayed with this past weekend, she explained, “Sometimes it’s hard to get people to go to church. They don’t know that they can do no work without God.”

The night before, I had fallen asleep to Passy’s children reciting their prayers, the Luganda words flowing together into a holy stream.

Unsure of my own faith, being surrounded by such certainty is at once comforting and disconcerting.

Now the beads stop swinging. The car has stopped. “It’s out of gas,” says Peter. We’re two houses away from the MIHV office, but it’s pouring. Peter turns off the engine and the reggae and we sit, quietly, trying to discern anything beyond the windshield. Peter puts the car in neutral, and we start to roll back down the hill.

“What are you doing!?”
“Oh, it will start if we go backwards,” explains Peter.

We roll down past the offices, the gated houses and near the bottom of the hill, Peter tries again. It doesn’t start. And now we’re at the bottom of the hill.

So I get out of the car and run. The water rushes down and over my ankles as I make my way through the henna colored dirt-rivers, up the hill.

Soaking, I run and run and laugh and laugh, because here I am in Uganda, crossing the red sea.

Lamadan

For the last month, during Ramadan (which often becomes "Lamadan," because in African English "r" and "l" are pronounced the same, making my name often "Sal"), men in long white galabiyyas and hats and women in hijabs color the streets as they make their way to mosque.

Under a Mango Tree

This is Sister. Her Christian name is Mary, but Sister is the name used for older Ugandan women who have earned great respect in their communities. Sister’s whole life radiates a deep reverence for the dignity and wellbeing of the people in her community

Sister’s father wanted her to be a teacher, but she insisted she wanted to be a nurse. Nursing doesn’t feel like work, she explained. Along a shelf in her home rests a piece of painted wood with the words carefully carved, “Do your work not for mere pay, but from a real desire to serve.” (1 Peter 5:2). After working for seven years as a bedside nurse, Sister went back to school to be a nurse trainer, fulfilling both her and her father’s dream in combining teaching and nursing.

Twelve years ago Sister was hired by MIHV. Although she has worked in several positions, today she is the Deputy Country Director and the Family Planning Coordinator. She’s a busy woman; she’s the leader of her church’s Christian Women’s Fellowship and a human rights activist, having trained several years ago as a paralegal, she works in outreach programs to spread awareness to rural Ugandans about their rights.

Sister raised three children of her own. She lost her oldest son, Andrew, to sickle cell anemia at seventeen. Her youngest daughter, Annette, graduated from Makerere University last weekend. Her older daughter, Esther, will give birth to Sister’s first grandchild any day.

Sister is not wealthy. “Sincerely,” she said, “I’ve had to take out bank loans to get by.” Yet she would never turn away someone in need. Norman, 6, and Shakira, 14, are only the most recent children to take up residence in Sister’s house. Over the past several years, Sister has taken in and covered the school fees of a number of her brother’s children, orphans and even the daughter of one of MIHV’s Ssembabule guards.

Like many of MHIV’s staff, Sister has deep roots in the community and is nourished by her faith. With roots and faith, MIHV’s passionate staff are deeply committed to the health and wellbeing of others. No one would dispute that Uganda is materially a poor country, and yet I have never received richer hospitality. “We don’t have a lot,” said Sister, “but what we have, we share.”

“With committed staff you can set up a clinic under a mango tree.” –Helen Epstein

Jesus, etc.

Many Ugandan establishments endorse a higher power.

A box with no hinges, key or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid

Yesterday, I wanted to take a photo of the Minnesota International Health Volunteers sign that sits at the beginning of the turn off to our Ssembabule office. As I walked down the muddy turn off, a woman was walking along the path with her goats. She did not speak any English, but seeing my camera, she began gesturing for me to cross the road with her and pointed to my camera and then to her three little boys standing in her yard across the street.


We cross the road and she eagerly lines the boys up. I motion for the boys to come towards me, into the sun light, and she hurries them along. I photograph her and her children and then thank them and leave.

Later, as I’m waiting at the office for the Family Planning Implementation Team meeting to start, I think about those little boys. I go to my room and take a handful of Starburst out of my duffel and I make my way back down the turn off and give the woman the little yellow, pink and orange candies. She smiles broadly and gives the sweets to her children.

Today, I am in my room working and Mabol, MIHV's cook, comes to my room. Mabol speaks a bit of English and I hear her say from the hallway, “Sarah”…”Madam for you.” There is a woman standing a few feet from the door, but I do not recognize her. I have met so many people in the last two days that I am confused. Is this a woman I met in the market? Was she at the meeting yesterday? I smile and nod to her and Mabol then explains, “She says you took her photograph.” Now I remember. The woman comes to the doorway and kneels down on the steps. She holds up three eggs to give me.

I ask if I can pay her for them. Mabol interprets and the woman shakes her head no. Really, I say, I would like to. I think about the children’s bare feet and dirty clothes.

“Gift” Mabol says. I nod.

The Hospital Bed

I’m sitting in on the Family Planning Implementation Team’s quarterly meeting for Ssembabule District.

Noelina, who works in Ssembabule’s hospital, mentions that one of the surgical beds at the hospital is broken. The bed cannot be adjusted up and down, she explains, so tubal litigation and vasectomy operations cannot be performed. Men and women are turned away every day.

Around the table are MIHV staff, a representative of the Director of District Health Services and a Community Development officer who works for the Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development.

The hospital has a second, working, surgical bed in a different room, but they are unwilling to use it for these operations. Noelina explains the other room is reserved for emergencies.

The district claims they do not have the money for the bed and has asked MIHV to pay for the repairs. MIHV says they will not pay, knowing that in doing so they will not only pay for the bed, but open the door to funding requests every time something is broken.

The repairs would cost 80,000 shillings ($48).

Paige, MIHV’s Country Director, parts her lips. She seems weary, frustrated, but her voice stays calm. “This is now our third quarterly meeting where we’ve talked about the surgical bed needing to be fixed.”

$48 would give men and women in this district access to permanent forms of birth control.

$48 would mean fewer Ugandan children would grow up in families that cannot afford to care for them.

At the end of the meeting they have found no solution. They will meet again in December.

No matter where you go...

Robert, the gardener at the Kampala office, is a Jehovah's Witness... they don't wear the suits here.

Waste Not

A Kampala journalist named Michael Wakabi told me that Kampala has become ''a used culture.'' The cars are used -- they arrive from Japan with broken power windows and air-conditioners, so Ugandan drivers bake in the sun. Used furniture from Europe lines the streets in Kampala. The Ugandan Army occupies part of neighboring Congo with used tanks and aircraft from Ukraine.

(Packer, George. “How Susie Bayer’s T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama’s Back” The New York Times. 3 March 2002.)

Check out the full article... it looks at the used clothing trade in Uganda: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F10D14FA3E5F0C728FDDAA0894DA404482

* * * * *

My Coke bottle’s label is worn away in some places. I’m out to dinner with Paige and Phil at the local pizza shop and my glance at the bottle has turned into a stare. The red is faded, but just slightly.

“Is this bottle used?”

“Yep,” Paige says, looking up from her salad, “Best recycling program in the world and nobody knows it’s happening. You actually have to pay more for the soda if you want to take the bottle with you.”

“There’s no broken glass in Kampala,” adds Phil. “Not when it’s worth something.”

* * * * *

Later, we stop by a going away party for one of the expats Paige and Phil know.

In one of those awkward, no-one-knows-anyone-in-this-group moments, a girl from Boston looks down at one of the Ugandans' sandals.

“Hey, nice Jesus sandals!”

Looking down, he laughs, “I made these”

"You made them?”

“Yes,” he shows us the sole of his shoe, “From old tires.”

From where he stands the sandals look black, albeit a bit plastic-y, but the bottom of the shoe reveals tire treads. The Americans launch into how ingenious the tire-shoes are. He shows us how he cut the tire and with four nails affixed the straps. The Ugandans laugh at our fascination.

“These shoes – lugabire – are all over. They sell them for 2,000 shillings ($1.18) in Kampala.”

“I love them!” the Boston girl exclaims, “What market did you say?”

The Ugandans laugh again.

“It won’t be 2,000 shillings for you – 50,000 ($30) maybe”

Americans buy clothes in disposable quantities -- $165 billion worth last year. Then […] we run out of storage space, or we put on weight, or we get tired of the way we look in them, and so we pack the clothes in garbage bags and lug them off to thrift shops.

The Monkey on the Roof

This morning I woke up to the sound of monkeys dancing on the roof.

This tree is in Paige’s yard in Kampala.