Uganda - finally back again!
After a short
night at an hotel in Entebbe I jumped onto a previously arranged car
to get to Bujagali and meet Felix or Gertrude, who own a
boardinghouse. It was a journey of about 3 and a half hours –
traffic police control included: We had the kayak inside the car on
the passenger seat and the police officer said: “ What is this?
What is a kayak? … This is not good … but it´s OK. Move on!“
My first
encounter with the local police...
When we came to
Bujagali the driver didn´t know the right location, so we had to go
the clinic and ask for directions. So I met Dr. Charles today –
instead of tomorrow. When we finally found the boardinghouse Gertrude
showed me to my room, I unpacked a few things and walked back to the
clinic to join the staff for lunch. Before that actually happened, I
got first instructions in the lab.
Dr. Charles,
the manager of the clinic, decided that I would spend my first week
at the lab to see what tests there are available and how the would be
done. There are not that many – mainly strip tests and microscopy.
Though it´s not always easy when several things we needed to do
those test where out of stock. And supplies usually take a day or two
to arrive.
I´v been
integrated into the lab-team pretty fast and carried out most of the
tests on my own – except microscopy for malaria parasites – which
you can´t really learn in a week.
I´m staying in the blue house
On the first
weekend I had arranged to go to the Hairy Lemon Island to do some
kayaking. One of the drivers who usually works for the clinic agreed
to get me there. The dirt roads were in an OK state so we got there
pretty fast – I even managed to get a few surfs on Nile Special on
friday evening – it was so amazing to be back on that wave! And the
warm welcome to the Island by the staff who still remembered me from
my last visit in march earlier this year – almost felt like coming
home!
That weekend I
met Harry – a Scottish kayaker who would join me on the Hairy Lemon
for the next 2 weekends. At this time of the year the Hairy Lemon is
still very quiet – only a few visitors and almost no kayakers are
around.
In the
following week I started to see patients with Dr. Charles and trying
to get used to prescription practice here in Uganda. I´ve been doing
some reading – but textbooks vary from what is actually happening
here – mostly because of limited diagnostics. So usually the
treatment is very broad to make sure an infection is sufficiently
treated. Major complaints of the patients are infectious diseases –
malaria of course on the top. And AIDS is a huge problem although
Uganda is still a model country regarding the HIV epidemic.
Clearly also
getting more and more a problem are the diseases of civilization like
hypertension and diabetes – although the treatment varies again
from what I´m used to: mostly older drugs that are no longer in us
in Europe are prescribed due to the lower cost. And that is one of
the bigger problems in Ugandan healthcare: cost! It is really amazing
what they manage to do in the clinic with reduced possibilities.
The second
weekend I went back to the Hairy Lemon Island – to get some more
water underneath my kayak! And again I managed to get a few rides on
Friday evening. And this time two other kayakers had arrived: Brendan
from Canada and his buddy Paul from the US. Both quite used to big
water and big waves, because they use to paddle the Ottawa river in
Canada a lot! So the Island once more turned into a kayaking
paradise! The waterlevels were good – low in the morning for
surfing Club Wave and higher in the evening so we could surf Nile
Special! With Brendan and Paul always keen to give advice it was
really fun to be there. During the lazy times we played a lot of
Frisbee Golf (like golf – just played with a frisbee along a
course) or watched Paul´s amazing kayaking videos. Unfortunately
those weekends are short and on Sunday evening I always have to go
back to Bujagali and get ready for the next week.
This was also
the weekend where there was a total solar eclipse in northern Uganda!
In the southern region it was still good to watch – though after
the moon covered about 60% of the sun clouds moved in and we couldn´t
see the eclipse any more.
This week would
be a lot more stressy than those before: On one hand I had to get
into medical practice, on the other Dr, Charles asked me to do a
presentation for him in a local bank and then In the clinic to.
Unfortunately the internet at the Nile River Explorers Camp (which is
free to use for Mzungus) is sketchy at the best times so it was hard
to get by good facts on stroke in Uganda. And to make a presentation
in an easy understandable way but also suitable for medically well
trainied personnel at the clinic wasn´t easy. But it worked out and
the presentation was well received – at the bank and at the clinic.
I also started
seeing patients on my own with one of the nurses translating for me.
I still had to ask my fellow doctors now and then – especially
regarding referrals to hospitals or other specialists but otherwise –
with the assistance of the nurses it went quite well.
On Thursday I
joined a team from the clinic to go on the Family Planning Outreach –
which was very interesting to see and also an adventure due the heavy
rainfalls in the Jinja area. Some parts of the road got flooded and
uite a few cars got stuck in there. Luckily we didn´t have to go
into Jinja that day and only witnessed the chaos from a safe
distance. The Family Planning is all about different methods of birth
control: from shirt term (Condoms) to long term (injections and
implants) to permanent (operation) and goes along with immunization
of babies.
On the weekend
I – of course – went to the Hairy Lemon again to meet the two
boys and to celebrate Harry´s last weekend in Uganda! And we did get
a party started on Friday evening with a few other visitors – young
people from Austria and Germany who work in Kampala and spent their
weekend on the White Nile. And it was a great party, I can say!
On Saturday we
ran the river from Kalagala to the Hairy Lemon – Harry guiding us
down (cause I dind´t remember all the various channels – and
showing Brendan and Paul the famous rapids of the White Nile. We had
a great day out on the river – always having in mind that in a not
to distant future all those rapids could be flooded due to another
dam being built downstreams. This would have an huge impact on the
local tourism business and all the connected jobs – but is totally
negated by the government. The local companies are now trying to
raise the awareness of people – tourists and Ugandans alike – to
this issue and we kayakers eagerly join in to spread the word!
Unfortunately
this weekend the waterlevel wasn´t high enough for Nile Special but
we had an awesome session at the Club Wave on Sunday morning – and
due to the advice by Paul my moves are getting better and better!
This time of
the year still being wet season doesn´t help with the waterlevels at
all – it only makes the dirt roads slippery and at some points so
deep that it always is an adventure to be out there in a car: you
never know if you´re not getting stuck in the mud. Which didn´t
happen yet – but only due to the immense driving skills of the
local drivers.
So three weeks
have gone by and here is my first blog entry from Uganda – I´ll
try to do more reegular updates!
For more information:
http://www.softpowerhealth.org/
