Sorry No Pictures

Sorry, but the internet is too slow to upload pictures. I will have to do so upon my return. Hello to all.

Pictures

Sorry. It is not working. I will post them next time I am in Fort Portal, probably next weekend.

Sunday - Lots to do

Sorry if anything I just posted has already been said. I decided I would post my old entries even though I had summarized them.

So my mom left yesterday and arrives in Entebbe tonight. She will be at the field station on Tuesday. The weather last night and this morning has been yucky. Rainy, and cloudy. Which here also means no electricity. Fortunately, there is an internet cafe in Fort Portal with a generator. The internet is quite fast since no one else is on.

I am going to have lunch at Mountains of the Moon with Barbara. I am very excited.

As you know, Monday and Tuesday I am doing health education at the Kasiisi School. Wednesday, there is a full day welcoming ceremony for the American visitors. This is meant for the Weston teachers and students, but I must also attend. I will most likely be in the clinic on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I was there yesterday for two hours and no one came. Lucy said that she only had one patient yesterday, a young girl who had fallen out of a tree and couldn't move her neck. Lucy referred her to the hospital for x-rays. She said she suspected a spinal cord injury.

My final two weeks I will spend creating folders with important paper work for all the schools, distributing medical supplies, working at the clinic, and taking a tour of the nursing school and hospital in Fort Portal. Lucy said she would take me to see the school and hospital. I am very excited for this.

Thats all in terms of what I have been up to and what I have planned.

I am going to attempt and post a few pictures.

The first is of the hotel I stayed in the first night. My living conditions now aren't as fancy.
The second is a landscape picture - a tea plantation.
The third is a baboon.
The fourth is a picture of colobus monkeys, playing in the sand, right outside the kitchen.
The fifth is of the clinic.

I am going to post them in a separate post. It doesn't seem to be working for this one.

July 24

Wow. I cannot believe it is already July 24. I have been here for a while now. Today was my first health education day at the Kasiisi School. I worked with P1, P2, and P3, which in the United States is kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. Lucy came with me. I did the introduction in ruturo, the language spoken in this region. Muli Muta (how are you/hello – greeting) and then I introduced myself in ruturo, but I don’t remember how. While I read the book on germs in English, Lucy translated. Then, Lucy did the rest of the presentation I designed because that was easier than me saying it in English and her translating. She was so great with the kids, very engaging. I did three demonstrations, washing hands with soap, ash, and handsanitizer. Then, the kids got to color, either a coloring sheet of germs or of a handwasher, which they loved.

During the coloring activity, I went around and gave each kid a drop of handsanitizer. It was great when the P3 students started singing their version of the ABCs while rubbing the handsanitizer all over their hands. Lucy and I taught them that while washing your hands with soap or ash you should rub your hands together for at least 20 seconds. We suggested they sing the ABCs while rubbing because the song lasts about 20 seconds. While this does not apply to handsanitizer, since it dries so quickly, the kids were obviously listening. It really made me feel like they got something out of it.

Hopefully Monday and Tuesday go just as well. Lucy will be working at the clinic so I am on my own.

Tomorrow, I am going to the clinic in the afternoon. On Saturdays it is only open from 1 to 4. Sunday I plan on heading into Fort Portal. I am hoping that the internet café will be open. If this isn’t posted on Sunday, then you know it wasn’t open. I am also going to grab lunch at Mountains of the Moon, a restaurant that I ate at last summer. Barbara Stevens, a colleague of my mother’s who has been setting up a library at the Kasiisi School, may or may not join me. I am excited to eat out. Don’t get me wrong. The food here on the field station is great. I have been eating around three times as much as I eat at home, but its always nice to eat out from time to time.

Night.

July 21

So after writing yesterday’s blog entry, I got sick again. Fortunately, I was able to sleep through the night. Although I am feeling much better in terms of stomach stuff, I do not have my full energy back. One short walk leaves me exhausted. I needed to take it easy today. This afternoon I went to the clinic for two hours to work on posters for the health education project. Tomorrow, I will go in the morning and hopefully spend most of the day. Wednesday is Lucy’s day at the clinic, so I should learn a lot, as long as patients actually show up.

After leaving the clinic, I went back to my room, where I finally sorted through all the things I brought for the clinic and for the schools. I put together a pack of one of everything to show Elizabeth so that she can see what I brought and so she can help me figure out the best way to distribute everything to the schools. The pack includes the laminated handwashing posters, the first aid kits (for teachers and for headmasters/mistresses), books on germs (there are only two, so we have to pick which schools to leave them at – probably Kasiisi and Kanuyara, the two schools I will be doing my health education at), soap, and handsanitizer. Elizabeth and I also need to sit down and figure out when I am going to get into the schools. This morning we discussed doing a trial run with the girl guides (our equivalent of girl scouts) at the Kasiisi School. We will figure out the details later.

On my way to the chimp house, where Elizabeth lives and where my food is served, I had a bit of a delay. Just as I was heading down the road, over twenty baboons sat down in the middle of the road. I waited for over 10 minutes and they still didn’t budge. Then, a local man came along and said that it was safe for me to walk, that the baboons wouldn’t bother me. I wasn’t so sure about that after having heard multiple stories about the males charging at people. So instead of walking on, I inched my way forward. Some of the baboons began to move in the direction I was headed, which was better than the direction I was coming from. Had that been the case, we would have had a problem. Other baboons walked off into the woods, so I continued on forward. At one point, I looked to my right and there were a bunch, including a massive male, sitting right on the side of the road. I clapped my hands loudly (as I have been instructed) and picked up my pace. Unfortunately, by picking up my pace, I gained on the other baboons. I scooted around them and started to run. I finally made it and the local man had been right. The baboons did not bother me.

It is almost four now and I am going to take the rest of the afternoon to lay low. If I don’t, I will probably get sick again. Hopefully, by tomorrow, I will be back to my old self.

My mom arrives at the field station a week from today! I can’t wait to see her!

July 20

I think I jinxed myself. Just yesterday I was thinking about how I had made it through the week without getting sick. I thought it was a good sign. Apparently not. I woke at 4 this morning with some of the worst stomach pains I’ve ever had. For about 5 hours, I was pretty sick. It wasn’t pleasant. Unfortunately, this morning was the visit to all five schools with Lucy the nurse. I was suppose to go along, but was unable to. Which, coincidently, I missed last summer because I was stuck in bed sick. I am feeling better already and should be ready tomorrow to get back to work.

Update from Uganda

Hi all. So I typed out blog posts for the last few days, but I didnt put them on my flash drive. So I will summarize briefly. My taxi is coming soon, assuming he did understand me. He didnt seem to speak much English. I got sick :( so I missed the school visits Monday (Lucy, the nurse, visited all five schools to introduce herself). I was sick Monday and layed low yesterday, doing some organizational things I needed to get done.

Today, I scheduled my health education teaching for the Kasiisi students. I am doing it Friday, Monday, and Tuesday morning (I will be back at the field station to welcome my mom and the other teachers). It seems I will only be able to do the health education at the Kasiisi School, but that is close to 1000 students so it will still be making a difference.

Till next time. Katya

Fort Portal - Going into town

Hi everyone. So I just posted a lot. My apologies. You have a lot to read. Feel free to skim through it or not read it at all. I have finally made it into Fort Portal and into an internet cafe. I have not really had access to email or the internet at all till now, but still feel free to contact me because I will do my best to come into town once a week.

Last night I went to the Kasiisi School, after a long day of health education planning. They put on a little ceremony for a fourth grader from Weston who is visiting and is a big contributor to the Kasiisi Project. There was song, dance, and poetry reciting. There was also a wonderful meal.

As I am taking weekends off for the most part (I may go to the clinic tomorrow and I will be sorting through first aid kits and paper work later), I went to Kasiisi this morning and helped work on the library they are creating. Tomorrow, I will take the day to catch up on much needed sleep. I hope all is well in the States. Thanks for following my blog.

Update - July 17

It has been a few days. The last few days were similar to those I have already described. Instead of describing what I have been doing, I am going to describe what I have seen, observed.

My work in the clinic has not been what I had expected. I was expecting a place with people constantly coming and going. I had expected to see all kinds of different people with all kinds of different ailments. This has definitely not been the case. The clinic gets about 10 patients each day. I think its location may be part of the reason for this. The clinic serves about five villages. People have to walk quite a distance to get there, which when a person is sick can be very difficult. Two or three of the patients who come each day come every day either for medication, an injection, or to get their dressings changed. It has also surprised me how diagnoses are made. The nurse typically listens to the person or the parent describe the symptoms, makes a diagnosis strictly based on that, and prescribes medication. In some cases, the nurse will listen to the patient’s lungs or take their blood pressure, but not often. Lucy diagnosed a little baby with pneumonia the other day after hearing a wheeze that is associated with pneumonia. She let me listen, and while I heard the wheeze, I wondered how one can distinguish between a wheeze caused by a cold, an asthmatic wheeze, and a pneumonia wheeze. I guess if you do this often and if you don’t have access to an x-ray machine, you learn quickly how to diagnose strictly based on the sounds from the lungs.

I have, however, had the opportunity to see a skin infection that is only really seen in Africa. This one girl comes daily to get her dressings changed and to get an injection (in her butt). At first glance, it looks like nothing is wrong with her finger, but spreading her fingers apart, exposes a cavern on the inside of her index finger where skin should be. Yesterday, it was bleeding a bit, which means new blood vessels forming and is a sign that the healing process has begun.

Last night, I went to a presentation on water sanitation in a nearby village (40 minute walk) put on by the clinic nurses and McGill students. While I could not understand what was being said (they were speaking Ruturo), it was interesting to the see the interactions that were taking place. One very old man with a cane was riding by on his bicycle and decided to stop in. He was very opinionated and got the whole crowd (about 10 adults, 6 children) going. He kept going to leave, then would think of something else to say, and would turn around and come back. The presentation went on longer than expected partly because everyone showed up an hour late, so by the time it was over the sun was beginning to set. I didn’t really like having to walk back to the field station without a flash light, but at least I had company. The last stretch I did on my own in the pitch black. That wasn’t very much fun. Every sound seemed to be amplified. I did make it, however, and had a wonderful dinner, including banana bread. Everyone else was done eating, but the food was still out.

My mom arrives in Uganda in 11 days!!! This afternoon I am going over to the Kasiisi School. It will be a nice break after spending most of the day creating visuals and working on simplifying the information for my presentation. I better get back to work.

Clinic Day 2 - July 14

I just realized I think I have been writing June in my journal. Seems I am a month behind. Today I had a nice long phone call with my mother, which despite it going in and out of service on my end (I could hear my mother clearly the whole time, but she could not hear me at some points) went well. She informed me of my spelling error in a previous post where I have accidently wrote about the taxi drivers driving erotically, rather than erratically. I would apologize, but from what I hear, I have kept all my readers entertained. I will warn you right now though that there will be future spelling errors. I may overall by a good student, but spelling is not what got me to this point. Actually, I am surprised I have made it this far with the spelling capabilities I have. Thank goodness for spell check. I told my mom how to log into my account, so that she can fix that major spelling mistake. It wasn’t until after that I realized that probably was not the best idea because knowing my mom, she may go through each point, correcting other spelling and grammatical errors. That’s what English teachers do, right?

Today was day 2 in the clinic. After only two hours of sleep (the neighbors had music going all night and I was quite cold), I was not thrilled to be waking up, but I did. I snuck up to shower in the heated showers. I didn’t think I could handle another ice cold shower, especially after freezing the entire night. I then met with the McGill girls and Elizabeth Ross, before heading over to the clinic. I had planned on shadowing Denis, the male nurse, today, as today was his day there, but he actually had to leave to do some budget work, so I ended up working with Lucy instead. Although my first impression yesterday was that she is quiet and quite reserved, I was happily surprised to find that she is a wonderful teacher.

Our first patient of the day (while I was there) was a four-year-old girl. She was absolutely precious, wearing a pink and blue “plad” osh-kosh dress. She arrived a few minutes before her mother, so I colored with her outside on the front steps. Then when her mother arrived, we went into the consultation room. I asked Lucy to ask the mother if it was ok if I was there, but I guess she had already told the mother all about me. In the consultation room, the mother described her daughter’s symptoms in Ruturo, so unfortunately I was unable to understand. I started to worry that I wouldn’t get much out of the shadowing because I had no idea what was going on, but this is when Lucy surprised me. She repeated in English everything the mother had said and then she told me the treatment. She also showed me how they fill out the patient booklet. I continued to draw with the girl, while she waited for her medicine.

Once mother and daughter left, Lucy and I stepped back outside to join the McGill girls. We were soon joined by five children who spoke neither English nor Ruturo. They were speaking Swahili and were from Congo. We gave them crayons to color with, but when the little baby girl, who was probably about a year and half, started eating the crayons we politely collected the crayons and put them back in their box. Later one of the children (maybe about 5) returned and after a moment where he appeared deep in thought, he said in English, “Give us colors.” When we said they were gone, he walked away only to return a short minute later holding his little baby sister. He reached up to hand her to us. We could only guess that he was trying to trade his sister for the crayons.

Finally, another patient arrived, a fifty-six year old woman, suffering from severe headaches and dizziness. She was also fine with having me in the room. Once again, Lucy translated to me what the woman’s symptoms were and what she believed the diagnosis to be. She believed it was probably hypertension. Sure enough, the woman’s blood pressure was 160 over 90. Lucy even let me take the woman’s blood pressure after she was done. Later Lucy told me that high blood pressure is common in older people and had the woman been in her 70s, a blood pressure of 160 over 90 would have been normal.

At around 1, I left the clinic and headed to lunch. I spent the afternoon going through materials and working on my project. Tomorrow, my plan is to sleep in a bit since running on two hours of sleep doesn’t seem to be working very well and then work on stuff here in the morning. In the afternoon, I will head over to the clinic and observe Lucy with her patients. I presume that Thursday and Friday will also consist of half day clinic, half day preparations. Hopefully on Saturday, I will be able to go to the Kasiisi School in the morning to help work on the library they are building shelves for and then head into Fort Portal in the afternoon. Fort Portal is where I will have access to the internet. I am not sure when I will begin my health education in the schools because Elizabeth has yet to meet with Lydia, the headmistress of the Kasiisi School, and with Lucy. I guess once they meet and figure out what works I can figure out where to go from there.

I am exhausted after a long day, sans a nap. (I had originally planned to nap, but got caught up at the house where I eat lunch when the sky opened up and it began to absolutely pour.) Goodnight.

Clinic Day 1 - July 13

This morning I woke up bright and early and had a freezing cold shower. I did the hokey pokey – “Put your right arm in. Put right arm out. Put your right arm in and shake it all about…” I did that until it came time to wash my hair and I was forced to “put my whole body, put my whole out, put my whole body in and shake it all about.” I then walked down the road to the chimp house, a house where the chimp researchers are based, where I had breakfast.

Today was my first day (or part of a day) in the clinic. I met up with Lulu and Cristina, the McGill students, this morning after breakfast. Despite not being health majors, they both seem fully prepared to create a successful health outreach program. I was happy to be working with them. Upon arriving at the clinic, I met both nurses: Denis, the male, and Lucy, the female. I was also given a tour of the clinic, which did not take long at all, as the clinic only consists of three small rooms. One is for consultation. The second contains two beds. The third has a desk in the middle, a closet filled with medication, and a little room with a window where the medicine is distributed from. The clinic is a level two clinic, which from what I understand means that it does not do lab work, and therefore cannot make proper diagnoses, and does not deliver babies, although both nurses are trained to do so. Diagnoses are based on symptoms and are more of a guess and treat. For example, patients suffering from a fever and the sweats are typically diagnosed with malaria and given anti-malarials. Recently, as there has been a breakout of typhoid, patients have been misdiagnosed and treated for malaria, rather than for typhoid.

All five of us sat around discussing the outreach program, logistical details, as well as the material to be taught. I mostly listened, and gave input when it felt appropriate. Tomorrow, I am going to return with the girls, but Denis is letting me shadow him. Not many patients come by, maybe ten per day, but I will be able to observe Denis as he treats those villagers that come for services. Today, while I was there, a man came with a swollen foot. Cristina and Lulu said that he has been coming for a month to get shots and treatment for what is believed to be a spider bite. Two mothers also came by with their babies, although I am not sure who was the patient, mother or child.

Still jet lagged and exhausted from lack of sleep, I came back to my room in the afternoon, where I napped and did some reading in preparation for tomorrow. I also enjoyed a nice cup of Ugandan tea.

It looks as though I might be spending the next week or so in the clinic, either shadowing one of the nurses or discussing the health outreach program with Lulu and Cristina. I may also tag along with them when they go into the villages to give presentations. They have been doing presentations on subjects such as water contamination and family planning.

I will be meeting with Elizabeth Ross and some of the headmasters/headmistresses of the schools at some point to work out when I can go and do my handwashing and basic first aid education. I also need to distribute the first aid kits. As I will probably only be in each school for a day or two, I will be spending most of my time in the clinic or with the girls developing the outreach program. I also have some projects I am working on, which when completed will be handed out at each school, either to be used or as an example for something they could create on their own. What I am making are mesh bags that hang from the ceiling, with soap in them. This prevents the soap from being placed directly on the contaminated ground of the latrine or on the soil and from students accidently walking off with them.

On a different note, it was quite hot here today, especially this afternoon, although there was a nice breeze from time to time. This evening a thunderstorm blew through. There was some thunder and lighting and a slight bit of rain, but it didn’t last that long at all.

Sorry for such a long post. I will do my best to keep them short from now on. Goodnight.

Kibale National Forest - July 12

I have arrived in the Kibale National Forest. I am staying on a field station here. The drive here went by quickly. It felt like just yesterday I was making the same trip. On the field station, my living facility, known as a duplex, consist of a door with a hall and two rooms off the hall. There are two of these per building. My room only has as bed. Tomorrow, I am going to go and try to find a chair so I don’t have to climb underneath the mosquito netting covering my bed every time I want to sit. There is also no bathroom, only a latrine. A latrine for those of you that don’t know is a little room with a whole in the ground. It requires squatting and a lot of aim.

Since arriving on the field station I have seen a bunch of baboons and some "colabus" monkeys. I just hope a baboon doesn’t wonder into my building when the doors are open. I’d rather not have a personal encounter with one.

I met one of the McGill students tonight. I am going to meet with them tomorrow morning at around 8:30 and then head to clinic with them at 9. There are two nurses, who alternate days at the clinic and days doing outreach in the schools. One of the nurses, Denis, lives in the same building as me with his family. His two children are absolutely adorable. I haven’t met them personally, but every time I walk by the older of the two, who is probably 2 or 3, wonders out in his pink crocks and says, “hi.” He is so cute.

Night.

PLEASE NOTE THAT MOST WORDS IN QUOTATION MARKS ARE WORDS I AM NOT SURE HOW TO SPELL.

I HAVE ARRIVED

I arrived in Entebbe yesterday. Spent the night in the Boma. Today, I met up with Alice Bator, the daughter of a woman my mom works with (and who came to Uganda last summer with me), and her two roommates. We went to the Botanical Gardens, which was very nice. Unfortunately, it cost extra to use our cameras and I did not have enough money, as my debit card does not seem to work in most ATM machines. I solved that problem later in the day by exchanging some US dollars for Ugandan shillings. We traveled on boda-bodas to and from the gardens. This is a little bicycle (motorized scooter) taxi. Definitely not my cup of tea, although definitely an experience (and probably better than a regular taxi which are typically jammed packed with people and drive erratically).

We then spent the afternoon at the Boma, eating lunch and hanging out. There was a group of 10 people eating lunch, while we were there. We found out later after we befriended the head of UN security in Uganda (originally from Kosovo) and a security officer (from New Jersey, whose business card says firearms instructor) that it was a group of very important UN people who had just come in from New York. But, yeah, we are now friends with the Head of Security and another security officer. We even have their cell phone numbers. At around three we got a private taxi to Kampala. He was a very good driver :) We checked into my fancy hotel and now we are hanging out at Alice's apartment eating pasta and watching a movie.

Tomorrow morning at 7, I head with Elizabeth Ross, the executive director of the Kasiisi Project, out to the Kibale National Forest where I will be spending the rest of my time here. Coincidently, the guy behind me on the plane, who happened to be staying at the Boma and rode with me from the airport, was here visiting his girlfriend who is staying on the field station also.

That's all for today. Till next time.

A Forgotten Thank You

Throughout this whole thing, I do not think I have taken the time to send out the most important thank you of all. This thank you is for Colleen Simonelli. I have known Colleen since I was in second grade, when I became good friends with her daughter Elizabeth. Besides spending time at their house, Colleen also served as my indoor soccer coach for many years. Our relationship has carried over to BC where she is a nursing professor. I will have her my junior year for maternal child health. It was she who suggested I apply for the grant and she who nominated me. And she who also wrote a recommendation for me. Without her, non of this would be happening. So thank you Colleen, for encouraging me and helping me through the application process!

Tomorrow is the day. I am still not fully packed, but I'm getting there. As of now, both bags containing my health project supplies are packed. Now I just need to pack my personal belongings, which are lying in piles across my living room floor.

Packing

Today begins the crazy packing extravaganza, which includes 4 suitcases and many trips to and from the store. I have two suitcases specifically for my medical supplies (first aid kits, soap, hand sanitizer) and my teaching supplies (books, posters, handouts, etc). And then I have another two for personal needs including food, which I loaded up on today. I am not sure what there is going to be for the first two weeks in terms of food. I may have to do my own shopping in Fort Portal, so just to be safe I bought cereal bars, carnation instant breakfast (and powered milk), granola bars, dried cranberrys, peanut butter crackers, and pre-packaged chicken salad with crackers.

Well I better go pack! If I have time, I will post one last time before leaving on Thursday. If not, then the next post will be from Africa! Like I said in earlier posts, I dont know how often I will be able to post, but I will make sure to write posts each day and post them when I can.

Thanks to everyone who helped me pull all this together! I hope you will continue to follow my blog as I carry out my project in Uganda.

ONE WEEK!

Hi All. I cannot believe that in one week I will be flying across the Atlantic Ocean to Amsterdam, a seven (to eight) hour flight. And then taking another, about eight hour, flight south to Entebbe, Uganda. My previous entries have mostly been focused around the planning and getting ready process. I want to take a moment to describe what lays ahead and my feelings about it.

Upon landing I will be picked up at the airport (I am told there will be someone there waiting to get me) and taking to The Boma Guest House and Restaurant. I stayed there last summer. It is a wonderful place, with sort of a bed & breakfast kind of feel. After a night and a day there, I will be taken by taxi (ahhh! I am dreading riding in a taxi!) to Kampala, where I will be spending a night in the Metropole Hotel, which I have never stayed at before. From the looks of things (aka the website), it looks very fancy. Then, the next morning (July 12th), I will be leaving at 6:15 to head out to the Kibale National Forest, where I will be spending the month. There, I will be staying on a scientific field station. I am not exactly sure of where I am staying on the field station. Last year, I stayed in a small room with two bunk beds and a desk. I believe I might be staying in a similar room this summer. While in this area, I will be working in the medical clinic and doing my health education project in the schools.

A lot of work

Today, I spend 5 hours sorting through medical supplies despite being on the Cape (the weather wasnt great so it worked out well). I divided up the gauze, medical tape, bandaids, ace-bandages, alcohol wipes, antibacterial cream, scissors, and cotton pads amongst the five schools in Uganda. This was all the supplies that was left over after making the mini first aid kits for the teachers (and their classrooms). Now, I officially can take a break from Africa stuff for a few days before I head home and begin packing - something I am sure will be a stressful process.