Sunday, 3 October 2021
We had a lovely church service with Pastor Gitta Francis preaching on Romans 2. It is always a good reminder never to be judgmental, especially when sharing the Word.
After church, I walked my friend Prisca to the hospital, where she discovered she had malaria. This disease can really take the energy out of you, and she really felt miserable. Malaria is extremely dangerous, but easily treatable. She started her treatments, and quickly felt better.
While I was at the hospital with my friend, an RG Security Guard came running in to find me and said he needed me right away. I could not imagine what kind of security issue would need me, but I went with him to the Hospital gate. There was a motorcycle with all my luggage strapped to it, wound up in tape and bungee cords for safe measure. I cannot begin to tell you what a relief it was to see such a sight!
I gave the two men carrying my luggage directions to Team House and ran (or walked quickly if my back surgeon is reading this) behind the motorcycle. I entertained the two men with a Western delicacy — ice water, and sent them on their way with my sincerest gratitude.
It was hard to resist tearing into my luggage like presents on Christmas morning, but I was dressed in freshly cleaned clothes and had a lunch date, so I held off.
I had lunch with my friends, Robert and Mama Praise (aka Zam). It was a lovely time, but we hurried off to see the RG Girls’ team play two challenging visitor teams in football (soccer). Our girls won the first match seven goals to one and, even tired, skunked the second challenger with eleven goals to their zero. I have never even heard of such scores. Everyone was so proud! My dear friend Shalom managed to score nine of the goals in one day, a record for her.
I had several guests in the evening, especially after it got around that I had clothes to share. Since most of the clothes I brought were for men or children, I was surprised how eager the adult girls were to get their hands on tee-shirts, especially anything with Mucungwa’s Florida Gators on them. Janet, Prisca, and Shalom all went home decked in Florida orange and blue. I saved some special items for my sponsored children, and will send the rest to Child Care to be distributed by need.
I noticed the girls were staying later than usual, and when I asked about their supper, they informed me they had no food left at the dorm. They explained that there is a monthly allotment and it usually runs out before the end of the month. Then the next month’s portion doesn’t usually arrive until mid-week. I was terribly disturbed by this news and quickly found anything I could share from Team House.
Monday, 4 October 2021
Shalom told me that the girls were able to use the cooking oil I shared the night before to make food enough for all of them, and even had enough to share with the boys’ dorm. She said, “Because of you, many were satisfied!” Can you imagine making a difference with a little cooking oil?
I worked the General Ward again today. We had a couple of new staff members, both with complicated names, a problem far more severe for a hearing impaired American trying to decipher the soft-spoken whispers of Ugandans. They are generally so quiet here!
Morning rounds were not even half finished before Security brought in a man they said had been beaten by thieves. It turns out he was more likely drugged by thieves, but we spent the better part of the day trying to get venous access on this slim, dehydrated man. As he began to regain consciousness, he was yelling as though he was still fighting off his attacker(s). The nurses were great about taking care of the tasks necessary for his care but didn’t know how to respond to his outbursts. I gently lay my had on his chest or shoulder and reassured him he was safe, his fight was over, and he was now in the care of a hospital, and he calmed back down every time. It was good to show the staff how not to be afraid to use therapeutic touch and reorientation to soothe a traumatized patient.
I was only small help throughout the day, and often aggravated my shoulder injury. I did not expect it to be so crippling for so long. At 2 o’clock shift change, I took lunch with Grace and Scovia Susan, then left for Team House.
I spent far longer than I expected to helping the girls work out some issues with their phones. When we get finished, I hope to keep in closer contact with them.
Robert and Mama Praise (that’s Zam) had me over for dinner. I was served quite a feast: matooke (plantains), posho (moistened corn flour), and rice, all smothered in an eggplant relish sauce, with watermelon and passion fruit juice. I felt like royalty, and they always make me feel like family. Praise, who is now the oldest but still cries when he sees a moono (white person), even gave me a hug before the night was done.
Tuesday, 5 October 2021
Today is the funeral for Janet’s brother-in-law, so I am going to Poli, a small village outside Bobi, a larger village south of Gulu, the main city in the North. We will travel by Boda-Boda (a small, 100 cc motorcycle used as a taxi throughout Africa), then public bus, then another Boda-Boda. These motorcycles got their name from the driver’s willingness to take their riders from border-to-border, and that statement was shortened to Boda-Boda. This mode of transportation accounts for most of the injuries I see in the hospital, so I am praying for God’s protection to go before, around, and behind us.
Later…
What an adventure that trip was! We took bodas to Karuma, where we piled in a van headed north. We got out at Minakulu and caught another pair of bodas for a half-hour trip down a winding clay mud path to a creek, which we waded across. We remounted the bodas and arrived at Poli, Janet’s home village, where there were meeting tents set up and chairs for hundreds, though few were filled yet.
Janet and I took seats down front, and were immediately recognized by the emcee. I was welcomed in English, and cautioned that there would be little English spoken here. The emcee warned Janet that she would be trusted to interpret. It was a home-going celebration with around 350 in attendance when the seats were all filled and the children sat in a group on a tarp near us. There were preachers, pastors, a Catholic priest, and a representative of the Muslim faith all seated in a section facing the larger crowd. Each spoke briefly and then one pastor, that of Scovia, the decedent’s, church, preached a long sermon. The crazy thing was he preached in English simply because I was there, and used an interpreter for the 350 others in attendance. Have you ever had the feeling the preacher was talking to you? Imagine that, only with the confirmation that you are the only one in the crowd who needs the language he is using. To further honor their white guest, they had me introduce myself to the crowd, and when the celebration was concluded, insisted I go through the food line first.
The closest family members, including Janet, circled around a spot just outside the house closest to where we had gathered, bowed their heads, and laid flowers in a circle around what I learned was Scovia‘s grave. Here, there are no cemeteries, or “farms of headstones” s as I heard one Ugandan refer to them when he asked me about what he saw in a movie. People are buried at their homes.
As the service began to draw to a close and everyone had eaten, a rainstorm blew in, and Janet and I took shelter in the home of one of her cousins. I had previously met this cousin, Kennedy, at RG Hospital, but now I was being sheltered by his wife, Gloria, and friends inside a very lovely grass thatch hut. It is far more comfortable than you might imagine.
When the rain let up, Janet walked me around her village. She showed me where her relatives stayed, and the home she was preparing for herself. Her garden had hip-high corn growing, but with weeds that proved she didn’t make the trip here very often. How could she? The round trip cost us roughly 80,000 Uganda shillings. For reference, an RG staff nurse makes 350,000 per month, and Janet is an unemployed adult secondary school student. (The current exchange rate is about $1 to 3,500 UGX.)
Since the rainstorm was so severe, all the roads were slippery clay soup, and the creek we had to wade across was up to our thighs. The boda drivers lifted their motorcycles to their shoulders one at a time to carry them across the water. Janet’s white dress had been ruined, so she had exchanged it for more suitable travel clothes at her aunt’s house. Still, her dress shoes took a beating on this journey. By the time we got to the main road, what had taken us 30 minutes to travel there took 50 minutes to wrestle back. When we arrived in Karuma, the Boda men who scurried for my attention when I arrived, abandoned me when I told them we were going to RG. One exclaimed, “No! That road is too bad!” I thought it amusing that he declined the opportunity to ask for an inflated rate, but instead flatly refused me. That’s how bad the road was.
Janet called her favorite Boda man, Fred, who came and talked a friend into helping him transport us the last three miles home. Those short miles took about 25 minutes to navigate in the squishy clay.
There was food on my table when we arrived at Team House, so I shared it with Janet, and said goodnight. She has been like a daughter to me, and she always says I have been like the father she always wanted, but today I finally felt like I was included in her family.
