Uganda, I will miss you

Last Sunday a group of volunteers attended Calvary Church which is about a 30minute walk away from the guest house we stay in. It is a small church with a translated service for the mzungu (white) population that attend. They have a praise band and sang in both Luganda and English. I knew the English songs and the Lugandan songs had words on the screen but I could just not fit all the words into the time allocated! The pastor was speaking on the commandments of Christ and how we should obey them irrespective of the sacrifices we may need to make. A challenging message. Afterwards they had a baptism service in a swimming pool outside. They thought it was freezing but worthwhile!

I have just finished my second and final week at Amani Baby Cottage, Jinja. I spent the week in the boys cottage and had a lot of fun! One of my favourite moments was when I was changing the little ones (all 9 of them) just before their nap. I was changing one and then putting them in their bed to reduce chaos in the room. After I'd finished there was one empty bed and an extra set of clothes...so I began searching around the room and then in the living space and bathroom area. Could not find anyone which was pretty concerning. And then I heard someone giggling and pulled back the cloth curtain of the front of the wardrobe and found the last one sitting in a box of shoes!! He was so pleased with himself...I was less pleased and more relieved!

Twice a week we have the opportunity to take a child on an outing in the afternoon. This involves taking them with us to get groceries or going to a cafe to have a soda. (Sorry...I have spent the last two weeks with 10 Americans so I have been strongly influenced by their words!) I also got upgraded to the next level of boda riding (Motorbikes used as public transport) and can now manage with a child too! And at night! And with a huge rucksack! At the beginning of my trip I could just about hold on but now it has become part of my daily routine and I'm almost a professional!

I also had the opportunity to attend a ministry day with Sole Hope today. One of the volunteers at Amani Baby Cottage had a link with them to asked if she could go along and they offered for her to bring someone else too. So we set off for a village just outside of Jinja with two van loads of people and a lot of boxes. Sole Hope run a ministry which travels into remote villages to remove 'jiggers' (insects which lay eggs in your feet) from their feet and provide them with shoes along with health education. My first role was crowd control which I did relatively successfully. That's if you call 60 children crowded around the clinic area controlled. Then I was sent with one of the Ugandans on a quick walk around to collect some more children that actually had 'jiggers' and were not just there to watch. An hour later we returned having walked through the slum areas of the area with a lot more children walking along beside us with at least 4 holding each of my hands calling "Mzungu, Mzungu." I got to see proper African village life and really enjoyed my time with the children just playing simple games with them along the way. And then I finished off the day by helping to wash their feet. What a privilege to be accepted into a community to wash their feet.

An incredible time in Jinja. I also visited the Source of the Nile today! I was able to locate quite well in comparison to the Top Gear folks who clearly didn't do any research prior to setting out across Africa! Anyhow...leaving tomorrow morning at 7am to spend the day in Kampala with Eilidh. Hoping to attending an English service at the Baptist Church but we may or may not find it! Then on Monday Im travelling to Kenya! (Where there are lions and tigers...apparently.)

Please pray for safety and smooth transitions when travelling. God has been so gracious this far and everything has gone well so far. I plan to spend Sunday night in a hotel near the airport. Then I fly into Nairobi and an arranged driver will collect me and drive me to meet the Reid's. So it will hopefully all go to plan and I will be able to spend a week in Kenya with a family supported by my church in Northern Ireland. I hope to be an encouragement to them and to be able to help out where possible! Then taking a bus to Tanzania where I will be in another orphanage for 3 weeks. Not sure when Ill next have internet but will try to find an internet cafe in Arusha, Tanzania when I arrive on 6th August. Thank you for your support in prayer, it is much appreciated.

Farewell Uganda!

Sarah

PS. I'm over half way in my trip now!!

Red and Yellow, Black and White All are Precious in his Sight

I've been at Amani Baby Cottage for a week now! I've copied a small section of their website which sums up what it's all about.

"Amani Baby Cottage was established in 2003 and has been the home to 316 children. It is a baby’s home that provides care for orphaned, abandoned and needy children, from newborn to 5 years. Our goal and mission is to find a permanent home for all of our children through reuniting with their families or adoption. ABC is located in Jinja, Uganda on Lake Victoria near the source of the River Nile." http://amanibabycottage.org/

The children are divided into cottages A, B and C where children aged 1-5 are housed with "mama's". A and C are the boys cottages and B is the girls cottage. So I began my time there in the girls cottage. There are 17 of them and they are all adorable! Their day is very structured and although little instructions were given it was easy enough to get into the swing of things. If a mama does something for one child...you know that there's another 16 waiting in line! So you can soon pick it up.

For those of you with young children, imagine 17 of them and there's only you and one other person...exhaustion soon sets in! If you hold one, withing about 20 seconds you are guaranteed another 7 pulling and tugging and just belly-flopping on to your lap. It's so hard not to pick them all up and chat to them but as volunteers we must remember that we can't create habits for the children so that when we leave and a mama is left with all of them she can still survive the day!

Playground built in memorial for Sandyhook school

Lunch time for the older girls

Nap time

So every day after lunch the girls are meant to go for a nap for a couple of hours. If the mama puts them down they are all in bed quietly withing seconds. If it's left to the volunteers...chaos erupts. It's quite fun for the first 10minutes...and then it becomes a challenge of pinning down as many children as you can reach before they jump around the room. Well, not quite...about the pinning down, the jumping around the room definitely happens!! But it's all a good test of patience.

And then there is the nursery which is a separate room for the newborn- 1 year olds. And there are 11 of them and they too could win awards for being cute. They too have a strict routine and all eat at certain times and bounce outside at certain times. They are all happy babies so it's obviously doing them no harm...makes me wonder if we dote on the little British babies a little too much for their own good!

Take Sarah for an example. of cuteness..

Snack time in girls cottage

So practically what does my day look like. We arrive at 9am and are warmly greeted by the kids. Then we help with snack, washing and dressing. Then outside for play time. Lunch time and then nap time followed by snack again and playtime until we leave. This all sounds relatively simple...but remember there's just two of us volunteers as the mama in my cottage often as chores to do on weekdays. And in between all the actual things that have to happen there's books to be reading, songs to be singing, toys to be collecting in from where they throw them, cuddling the little ones, preventing fights, intervening in toddler dramas, toileting the older ones, changing the younger ones, pushing swings, chasing children round the garden, blowing bubbles and having fun!

So it's busy but I'm enjoying it. I also got switched to Boys Cottage on Friday as one of the volunteers who arrived on Thursday had been in girls last year and wanted to return. No photos of them yet as they've kept me running in circles! But a wonderful week.

Please pray for health as many volunteers are unwell. And energy too as it can be tiring! My main request though is that we can show love love to these kids that reflects something of the love that Christ has for us, even the kids that spend the entire day trying to find something that annoys you! As Jesus loves them just the same :)

Sarah

A picture speaks a thousand words

Hello! Despite having free, accessible internet for the last week I'm only now finding time to blog again! I thought I would just share some photos of my time at the hospital with a brief description where needed. It'll hopefully give you more insight into what I actually was up to and just allow you to picture it so much better. Apologies for the order though...I seemed unable to change the way they uploaded so its not chronological in any way.

Sterilising a wound dressing tray

Male Ward- Surgical side

Road into the village

Most popular toy

NICU community section

Feeding one of the triplets

28 week Preterm

Family I spoke to most days-He originally had me believe he doesn't speak English...He does!

Clinic under the mango tree

Weighing the babies

Local farmer

Familiar village scene

Little shacks all along the road

Kampala Medical Mission Team

New Hope Church

The bathroom where you had to collect your own water to flush...

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Everybody needs a Water Buffalo (Veggietales song for those of you wondering if I'm planning to get one...I'm not)

Only in Africa do they have sausage trees

Murchison Falls

Sunrise on the Nile

On safari!!

Karuma Falls

Assistant Surgeon Sarah...

Some of the theatre staff

Emmanuel and I working hard

The two hospital interns

Eilidh and I in front of the guest house

Sun setting on the Nile

I'm not sure there's much to add as hopefully the photos speak for themselves. Such an incredible opportunity and hard to say goodbye to Kiwoko Hospital. Update on my time at Amani coming soon!

Sarah

The most random day

I woke up feeling relatively stiff after 6 hours of white water rafting yesterday! It was also pretty cold this morning. Anyhow, we had signed up for a bungee jump so we continued with our plans. Ended up hurtling through the air at great speed and plunging my head and shoulders into the Nile! What a great way to start the day. I recommend it. Under supervision obviously.

Then I said goodbye to the other who headed back to Kiwoko for some more hard work. I dropped my bag off at my hotel and wandered into Jinja hoping to get some lunch. I strolled up and down with nothing of any great appeal jumping out.  Then I bumped into a couple who I thought were also just strolling up and down. Turns out they were buying some food for one of the street children. So we got chatting and they invited me for lunch. I agreed to go so we hopped on two bodas and set off. Turns out on the way they just had to swing past some chicken farm in the middle of nowhere!! So after negotiating semi jungle they found it again! It had been a year since they last went…

Then we continued walking the rest of the way for lunch. I thought I was going to theirs. But no…we ended up at a house for 34 girls who used to be street children. They are a couple from Bristol who set it up in 2008 and visit twice a year. The house has 2 live-in ‘aunties’ who take care of the girls aged 7-21. It was such a wonderful afternoon chatting and laughing with them. They sang for us and just wanted to sit near us and on us. Many of them have ad difficult backgrounds and so it was hard hearing many of their stories. After a few hours it was time to head back into town. So we said our goodbyes and they dropped me back on the high street where they had found me. It was so surreal but an incredible opportunity to get a little insight into how these two people are serving the street children of Jinja.

So tomorrow I begin in Amani Baby Cottage. Very excited after today!

Sarah

Mweraba (Goodbyes)

A busy week has just passed with writing my essay, a second week in theatre, trying to learn more Luganda and trying to find time to take pictures and say goodbye to those I have met over the past six weeks. Its unbelievable how fast time has flown and that my time here at Kiwoko Hospital has come to an end. Although some of the theatre staff have ‘banned me’ from using that phrase and have asked to say my time has come to a temporary end. I have been challenged by their kindness to me over the last few weeks and how they have created the role of ‘Mzungu celebrity’ for me in theatre. The fact that I am the only Mzungu (white person) seems to be of little significance.

So we’ve had fun this week and it has been great having so much time in the operating theatres to really have good chat about what Ugandan life is really like. Also received another few proposals (which I refused) from various people in theatre. It seems to be completely acceptable to meet someone, ask their name and marital status and should they be single it’s apparently alright to propose. I think this is mainly just the white staff that have to participate in these conversations as some of the guys who are married would often comment on the long, drawn out process of getting married in their culture. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it ensures the decision is being well thought through whilst the guy saves up money to give the girls’ parents cows, maize, sugar etc. Anyhow, I’ve survived their interrogations on life in the UK and my views on almost every aspect imaginable of Ugandan life.

I also had the opportunity to return to the student Bible study on Wednesday night with Eilidh. It was an evening spent discussing the benefits of spending time in God’s Word. It was refreshing to think that we could spend 45minutes chatting through the many advantages to reading the Bible and definitely encouraging. Afterwards we bumped into a few members of a team over from Northern Ireland and after a few minutes of conversation figured out that one of the guys knows both of our brothers from his time at university in Edinburgh. So that was a surreal moment and a reminder of the small world we live in!

It has been such an amazing time here and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I have been so encouraged and incredibly blessed by those I have met. Many have challenged me in my faith and their openness to discuss has enabled many great conversations to take place. Please pray for friendships to continue through email/skype/letters. It would be such a shame to pass up on the opportunity to invest in the lives of a couple of these exceptionally loving people. They have such wisdom on certain aspects of life and I really do hope we can continue to grow in faith together. Claire and Roggers being two particular names of students I would like to stay in touch with.

So closing the chapter at Kiwoko Hospital and saying official goodbyes in morning prayers tomorrow. Then I have a weekend of relaxing in Jinja with everyone from the guest house. Hoping to go white water rafting and just spending time doing some relaxing activities after a hectic, emotion-filled week. Then I will be wide awake, alert and enthusiastic for arriving at the orphanage on Monday morning. Or so I hope.
Sarah

The Ultimate Creator

So after a week of no internet/very little we are officially back online again. Going to try and fit in the last week and a few of the antics!
I had my first week in theatre which I have really enjoyed. The staff are all lovely and despite me declining marriage offers I have been able to build up some good friendships. A lot of the guys would like a white girl to marry for two reasons. Firstly, to have money and secondly to get a UK citizenship. They will openly discuss this with many of the UK staff who work here and despite many refusing they have not lost hope. I attempted to explain the basics of a Christian marriage which struck up a few interesting conversations. So please pray for the men of Uganda to really consider how they can live out their Christian faith in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. And not to have a superficial Sunday ‘faith’ that doesn’t stand for anything or have any influence on other decisions they make.
So in theatres we wear scrubs, hats and masks at all times. I thought it was warm enough without additional PPE (personal protective equipment- for those of you non-medics) but I have sufficiently tested my body’s ability to cope in extreme heat and my sweat glands are working just fine! Maybe a little too well. Anyhow, in the morning we begin by cleaning the theatres. This is really good fun. We basiclly fill up 10L buckets with soap and water and pour them around the room. And then brush it all about. Basically an indoor water fight! And then we have to try and get all the bubbles down the drain which is much more difficult than it looks. Especially if you’ve used approximately 10times more soap than necessary due to misunderstanding the instructions. So I was there for a while much to their amusement! Then the morning is taken up by tea-drinking and circumcisions. There is a Uganda-wide programme that all males be circumcised for hygiene reasons and to reduce the spread of HIV. So this was introduced relatively recently and so there is a massive back log of males so they are very busy theatre lists. Although by the number of tea cups being used you would wonder if any work is being done! Afternoons are usually procedures that have been organised that morning. And at any point there could be a caesarean. So I have been able to scrub every day and been floor nurse too. So really enjoying my time in theatre and looking forward to another week this week. Although it is very sad because it will be my last week here at Kiwoko. But it will be filled with fun I’m sure as the nursing students return from their two weeks holiday today!
There has been a bit of a craze with badminton here in the last week too. Some of the interns (Junior and Douglas) discovered we had rackets and have been round a few times to play. And then only last week they discovered we also had a net which led to a full blown badminton tournament being spontaneously thrown upon us. It was brilliant fun though. And for having not held rackets until about 3 weeks ago they are considerably better than all the UK students who have! So two hours later the tournament came to and end… primarily because we could no longer see anything, not due to their lack of enthusiasm! So they came into the guest house and continued the evening with guitar playing and singing! Junior hadn’t heard In Christ Alone until that night and by the time we were on the final verse he had learned the chords and was playing along!!! So that was great to have a time of singing together. And then it was my turn to play…so I have established 3 chords. And it takes about 2 minutes to change between them. So maybe in a few years I’ll be playing!
We also had an incredible weekend just past. We managed to find a budget safari trip for 3 days at Murchison Falls Park. We got to see so many animals on land-elephants, lions, giraffe, antelope, warthogs, water bucks, buffalo, lizards, tortoise, monkeys. And more on a boat cruise on The Nile-hippos, crocodiles, elephants! And Eilidh and I were speaking about how Moses had once been in a basket on the very same river (a lot further downstream) and how later in his life it had become blood during the plagues. It was such an awesome opportunity and we were just constantly reminded of God’s faithfulness and how is the Ultimate Creator. A really encouraging weekend filled with lots of fun along the way. A highlight…I was standing by the counter ordering lunch for the following day when I feel something rather sizable drop on to my head. I turn to Eilidh and ask her to remove whatever is on my head. She just looks at me in awe and asks what type of bug it is. At that point in time I was really not that bothered by naming the species. The guy taking my order just laughed and removed it while Eilidh was still just watching it crawl about my head. Turns out it was a Preying Green Mantus.
So after surviving the weekend I am looking forward to another week in theatre. It will be busy as I would like to spend time with the students who are back. And I have an essay for university to write. And there’s been talk of Eilidh and I organising a ceilidh. And a badminton tournament too! So prayers for time management and wise decision making would be appreciated as I work through the week.
Sarah