Saturday only means one thing. Zeke.
I started off the day going to owino market. It was very busy, as i had been warned, but one vendor decided to become my personal shopping assistant so we visited about 4 skirts stalls before i bought 2. It was downtown Kampala, and i had my camera in my bag so I took a boda (motorbike) to get around to avoid having my bag snatched. There were hairy moments, again.Large lorries, large wheels, going on the wrong side of the road. etc. I asked myself what i was doing on a boda having decided against using them!
So, eventually i arrive, alone this time, to the watoto bbira village. I sign in and start walking over to the cluster of houses where zeke is. i take a bit of a long way round, and then i met sarah, the lady who manags the group of houses that includes zeke's. she pointed his house out and i turned around to thank her and realised we were being followed by two little children - zeke and his friend coli! I spent the time before lunch chatting with his siblings whilst he sat next to me playing with his ruler. He does lots of things he used to do as a very young child. He likes balancing objects on his head, my head, his hands, my shoulder, my hands, and so on. he likes playing with boxes, he sees them as just as valid a toy as anything else! anyway, i had a nice chat with his siblings about school, the zoo, favourite colours, favourite food, they taught me about the red soil and about what happens when it rains too much. zeke has some wonderful older siblings.
Esther's actual daughter, Monica, arrived today. Esthr is the mum of the house where zeke lives with his siblngs, who all come from watoto baby homes. we had a nice chat too. she's almost ready to apply for uni. she told me about the ice which melted from a mountain nearby and flooded an area and lots of people lost their lives. i asked her if it is a common occurrence that the ice melts, and she said no, it just happened last year and this year. and that no-one was prepared.
After lunch was playtime! 3 hours of playing lego, throw and catch with the new game i brought, jenga...and catch zeke and tickle him game. i had run aftr him around a house when he gave up and toppled onto the grass, and i did the same and then tickled him and then realise a whole bunch of young kids were watching us curiously haha. i guess its not a common sight in the village? anyway, i had a great time. zeke does this really funny thing, for a 6 yr old boy, of putting his arm round my shoulders. i find it amusing anyway!
esther brought out zeke's school work and reports for me to have a look at. zeke came and sat with me as we went through his work together. he's doing very well. i loved the fact that zeke was confident enough to sit with me whilst i reviewed his work. i cant say i ever felt like i could happily sit there whilst my parents looked at my report! but no, all i had for zeke was praise, of course :)
then esther brough out a picture of zeke and i and another kid, aaron, from 5 years ago when i was working at watoto. zeke went a bit quiet nd looked at the photo very thoughtfully. after some time, he recognized himself, and then me. i started realising that it was probably harsh to show him this photo. he seemed a bit sad and so i put the photos away and played tickle! she also showed me a picture of him when he was in the hospital after his eye operation - he has a squint. he looked grumpily upset lol, poor boy.
i had spoken with steve, the clinical psychologist who also lives here, about pauline and he had said to be careful about the expectations they might have. anyway, so when it was time for me to head off, and i hate goodbyes, i sat down with zeke. i asked him where he lived, and told him that i also live in a house but its in a different place, and it was time for me to go back to my house now. he looked quite glum, so i was glad that i could tell him id see him next saturday, and that i hoped he has a lovely week.
zeke isnt 1.5yrs old anymore. and i have no idea what im going to tell him next week! im going to ask steve!
Saturday, 17 May 2014
Wednesday, 14 May 2014
Day 13 - 16 Loves and learning
I was waiting at the bar to order a soda and the barman was sitting at the bar eating his food. He asked me if i was here to order to watch the news, and I said order. He said he would get me the drink then, and explained that he always respects women and doesn't leave them waiting because 'they are the mothers of our nation'. If by that he means the mothers of all Ugandan, then i suppose, yes he is correct. I thought that was a novel reason for which to respect women!
Ive got some advice on good markets to buy skirts from. I'm sick of wearing these long baggy trousers in this occasionally lovely hot weather.
yesterday evening, the retired UK psychologist, steve,who lectures at the uni and trains students in the nearby butabika hospital with psychiatric patients, caught me just as I was going into my room. We had a long chat about how it is to work here, his colleagues, the patients he sees, a bit about psychiatric conditions, about the culture within psychology professionals and how its shifted from 'which colleagues has problems' to 'everyone is dealing with their own problems', and how lots of people who go into caring professions have dealt with their own problems. and about a travelling lady who rides her bike throughout africa making a documentary about women's empowerment, sponsored by honda i think. she was here a few weeks ago. she's from paris, and her day job is costume design. we spoke about how life at red chilli is good and safe, but that its difficult because you form attachments with people and become good friends, but then they leave. so every week or so you have to start again to make new friends. i've had to re-start 3 times in 12 days. i don't think this process is good for anyone. it's the hardest part about meeting new people abroad..is that you always have to leave. we spoke about our perspectives of uganda..those we had when we first came compared to those we have now. a greater understanding of the dangers we are exposed to living in this country. how expatriates minimise these and are likely to blame foreigners for 'getting themselves into trouble' rather than ackowledge that they live in a dangerous place where violent muggings are rather more common than they would hope for. spree thinks they do this just to protect themselves and to live comfortably in this environemtn. we spoke about research, about getting it published, about community health volunteers and their role, about various NGOs, about how NGOs compete for results and funding. he didnt approve. we spoke about the yoga lessons he goes to on tuesday morning, run by am american women with 'no ounce of fat on her body whatsoever'. we spoke about sex tourism, and he said how old, fat 'white' men would come and buy services from young african women, barely women. probably teenagers. he sees these couples around. i said it was a rather strange country to come to for sex tourism, if you think about disease burden here. he spoke about the value of children here compared to the UK. i said that i think children are neglected mainly because of poverty, but he was skeptical. although we both agreed that death, whether its during childbirth or a child, is much more accepted here than in the UK. its seen as normal here, if it happens. theres no outrage. he said he wasn't sure if he'd return, and asked me if i would. I said definitely, but i have a reason to, i.e. there are people ive met here who i want to keep in contact with, and that gives me a reason to return.
it was fairly odd. sitting down at 11pm at night in uganda, talking about important things with a probably 60 year old retired psychologist who i'd met twice before. this wouldnt happen in england! haha.
Day 14
I asked my Ugandan friend, Steven, for why Ugandan seem joyful and hopefuly despite the difficulties. He said for some, poverty is not a problem because it's how they've grown up and have become accustomed to it. And some hope that, even if they have not got much now, that they will have it later in God, which basically means that they have faith that theyll be OK with God, essentially.
Anyway everyone, today was an AWESOME day!
Its 8pm and i've only just returned after leaving at 7am this morning. I was rushing to get home before sunset at 7.15 but i didn't quite make it. I felt a bit like a morphed version of cinderella, except that i have no prince charming waiting for me, just the freedom from being mugged.
So, today I spent 6 hour interviewing my participants. By the 3rd I was ready for a nap, but my translator is luckily a rather persevering person and likes to meet her targets, so we continued interviewing until 6pm and got through everyone we were meant to. I am in good spirits because even though i ask exactly the same questions to each person, new themes and new topics keep appearing. Yesterday I was identifying and labelling themes until 11pm. I need to do this tonight..but it'll be a shoddy job because i havent got the time to transcribe the interviews as that can take all day or longer. But i need to have the labelled themes to guide my interviews tomorrow. Ive got another 5 hours of interviewing tomorrow. And then the day after that too! Looking forward to the weekend and seeing my lovely little Zeke!
I zipped past UNICEF on the back of a motobike today. definitely sending them an email. i want to go and chat to them and to see what projects they're working on. id love to work with UNICEF/WHO.
Ok, let me tell you the BEST part of my day! Today is wednesday, and at kawempe they have their orphaned and vulnerable childrens projects on today. i couldnt volunteer with them because i was interviewing. but i went to say hello to the kids at about 9am. There were about 4 kids because it was still early, but some were from last week, which was nice. I went back at about 13.00, at the time when the kids had just finished bathing and were getting dressed and ready to go home. And Pauline was there! I had been hoping she would be. She was finding her clothes, and looked a little sad but not haunted like when she first arrived last time. I said hi to her but her facial expression didn't change, and she didn't come and say hello. She was just doing her own thing. I thought perhaps she'd just forgotten who I was. I wasn't surprised by that, she'd only met me once! That was fine. We would become friends again. I hung out and met some lovely kids while Pauline did her own thing. One of them was a girl of about 5 and so sweet, she liked the game tickle. everyone knows this game of course. and another kid, a boy, also about 5, loved the game 'come and catch me and then tickle me'. And another little boy, probably about 3, wanted to play too. So I had my hands full really. And then Pauline has a change of heart and strides over to me with a BIG smile and throws herself over my lap and stretches out and starts chattering away to me happily. I was overjoyed that she remembered me! So we played tickle and then she walks over to a poster, so i just play with the others. Then she comes back and calls me over, pointing up at the poster. So i pick her up and we go through some of the animals. she loves saying the words after i tell her what it is. She's a bright girl, of course, and she should be in school. I want to talk to the project manager about why she's not in school. If it's just a case of finances then I want to sponsor her to attend school. From the conversations Ive had with ugandans here, an education is the main way that people living in the slums miss out on opportunities and of course it affects their lives. So I'd love for pauline to get a good start in life, at least with education. Anyway, then the other 2 kids wanted turns to say the words on the poster so I swapped them around a few times! Then time was going on, so i had to go back to the interviews. I waved Pauline and the others goodbye!
for the last 3 days ive been in the homesick stage. But it's passing nicely, and soon im probabaly not going to want to leave! I don't feel like I fit in here, of course with the culture and everything else being so different. But i'm here with a purpose so it gives me a meaning as to why i'm here, which makes life comfortable even though i don't fit in. i love the fact that im actually having important conversations with people this time around, and that im getting to know Ugandans properly. Theres a difference between superficial chit chat and really getting to know someone. It's nice because not only are they lovely people, willing to take me around to see sights and stuff, but also they are teaching me so much about Ugandan life, which is interesting for me.
Day 15
I'm impressed with my translator. When i first met her, she told me that lots of my questions were 'not relevant' because 'of course the all exclusively breastfeed'. I thought she might be problematic in creating an atmosphere where participants feel they can be open. But actually, i just briefly explained some things about my perspective on the questions and she's been very good with participants. Im quickly learning that the older the prticipants is, the more confident they are at sharing what they know. sometimes, during the interviews, ill just be realising that they're basically making my research, and that in a way, im gaining a lot from this, more than they are. but my themes are developing nicely and im coming up with some hypotheses. I'd like to be able to work to impliment the reccomendations ill come up with at this NGO. Ok, implimentation singular. Ive got one in mind. but hey, data anlysis is in its earliest stages so who knows what ill end up with.
i learnt you can definitely eat anough chapatti today, even though they are so delicious. i had 2 for lunch and one for dinner. i was collecting data from 10am - 5pm and i was too brain dead to bother with a proper meal! so now im all chapattied out.
I was having a chat with my motorbike rider about uganda and he suggested why not become a ugandan citizen then. i want to visit more of africa, i think. oh, I am going to! just remembered, im going to the gambia in september. gosh, thats gunna be a lot at once. new culture, AND working in the hospital. hopefully my time in ugandan will have prepared me well.
i don't know how i get so dirty so quickly. all i do is sit down and chat all day and yet all my clothes end up filthy..the air itself in kampala is thick with pollution. most things i touch have a coating of dirt. The UK is seriously clean!
had another chat with steve, the uk clinical psychologist, yesterday insted of doing my data anlysis. we had a good laugh about stuff. he was working with a patient once on her phobia of spiders and in doing so he cured himself of the same thing..particularly when it jumped out of the box on him. And he told me about the work he's doing here with..well, its not easy or nice so ill leave it out. i said to him..this wouldnt happen in england. the conversations that people have here at red chilli, the open ones about raw questions about ourselves, others, life, searching questions, meaning, purposes, and so on...this rarely happens in the UK. so i don't know what it is about this environment but everyone seems to be searching, exploring both the environment they find themselves in, but also themseves. maybe its the fact that we have got away from it all, and have the time to think about these things we all think! i have no idea.
id so like a break before data collection continues. its been nother day of 5hrs of interviews with only a 10min break between 4hours of them. im not too tired to continue tomorrow, but id just like time to properly analyse my data. i get home at 7.30 and trancription can take all day. im not going to get a break until tuesday..we are even working on sunday morning! i put my foot down for saturday. im seeing zeke then :)
yesterday we bought our lunch from a local 'restaurant' - one of the shacks down the road from kawempe, which has, on its dusty floor, about 6 large pots containing potatoes ('irish'..not just any old potato!), beans, meat, rice, and 'greens'. I paid 2 pounds for about 300g of potatoes and 3 lovely pieces of meat. The people have MASSIVE lunches here. like..7 times as much carbohydrates as i'd normally eat. But i reckon its their main, if not only, meal. One ugandan friend said to me 'Emily, why do you eat so little? you know, in africa, when there is food, we eat!'. I guess this sums it up.
definitely over the homesick stage now. thats good. and im still irritated by the evening traffic. i have little patience with it. its not fun. its boring and annoying. but everything else, i am really enjoying :)
Day 16
The motorbike ride to work today, in the rain, was VERY hairy. We were often trapped only maybe 50cm from the huge wheels of a lorry and multiple vans..one small slip and my limbs would have become carpets under the wheels. At the other times, we'd drive on the wrong side of the road for a bit, and I'd just hope we wouldn't clip someone's mirrors and end up under someone else's wheels. When the roads are so congested, if you fall its all over for you. We'd also stop with half the bike literally resting on the back bumper of a car at the lights, so that if it moved back before starting off, even by a fraction of a second, we'd be on the ground when all the cars move forwards. Once, a minivan behind us bumped into my leg.
At work, one member of staff said he could take me to the district hospital and show me all of the motorbike drivers who are in with serous head injuries or fractures. He said, when motorbikes have accidents, the riders get seriously injured. So I'm giving up my faster commute to work. I don't even have a helmet and I don't fancy a life lived with a head injury.
The data collection went really well today. I accidentally fell asleep for an extra 2 hours yesterday evening, so i got about 7 hours sleep in total which made all the difference. The women seemed to enjoy talking to me, they had questions afterwards. Once very thoughtful participant asked a very interesting question - if mixed feeding has a higher risk of HIV transmissino than exclusive breastfeeding, then at 6 months, when they are advised to breastfeed, does that mean the child has a higher risk of HIV transmission? all i said was that i couldnt answer her question as im not qualified and to ask a health worker..but i looked up the answer. for anyone who's interested its here http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241596596_eng.pdf?ua=1. A summary is that yes mixed feeding has a significantly higher risk of HIV transmission, and 68% of HIV transmission through breastfeeding occurs after the first 6 months, so stopping breastfeeding at this time, if possible, is recommended. WHO recocmmends countries choose what strategy to suggest for its nationals, and uganda has chosen mixed feeding from 6 months to 1 year. so the answer to her question, the real answer, is yes. however, stopping breastfeeding at this time can mean that infants are then at higher risk of malnutrition, disease and death, in some studies. But still, if I was the doctor in charge of this patient, I would answer her question honestly. I think answering her question at this moment in time would be irresponsible though. I am not an expert on these things, and ive only read 2 reports on this. There is going to be information i don't know, which i would not be able to tell her. giving her the incomplete story is not a good plan. its not responsible. so im keeping shtum.
im getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. i have repellent, which i rarely use. and i have suncream, which i rarely use. but what is the point of having a nice shower, then covering yourself in suncream so it looks like youve been running for an hour? and then getting home after a long and busy day, and because you aren't already dirty and smelly enogh, youve got to make yourself even smellier in the evening?! bloody annoying. but the mosquitoes pissed me off so much ive doused myself and am wonderfully stinking of deet. the mosquitoes should now fuck off and leave me alone.
i talked to laurence about pauline today. I had an idea..he works with compassion and, according to the UK clinical psychologist here, she'd benefit from that kind of input. anyway apparently compassion arent open to registering new children at the moment, but ive emailed their uganda headquarters to check. lawrence agrees that it would be very good for pauline to go to school. so im going to talk to the project manager about her case next week, and see if the only issue is money. Thats fixable. primary school is just £190/year!
Tomorrow im seeing my wonderful little man, Zeke! Who's doing so well :) i keep saying that, don't i? But i dont think anyone knows just how happy i am to see him doing just so well! compared to how he was when i left him. And i've had to wait 5 years to find out! It's just...such a wonderful awesome thing to happen. He was so unlucky in life to start off with, and now he's doing so well, I...well, it speaks for itself :)
I'm exhausted from data collection. Im working on sunday and monday and then it's over! I am looking forward to it being over so I can sleep, but ive really enjoyed properly talking to the women. Ive even learnt some of the local language, luganda. Kati is said often, it means now. olyotya means how are you, an essential greeting in uganda! and jendi means i am well thanks, also an essential component of ugandan conversations. a word that sounds a bit like cashew, means work.
Ive reached half way through my time here. It's far too short, of course. When i left watoto 5 years ago, i remember walking past the gates consoling myself with the thought that id be back in uganda so many times in the future id end up sick of it. I hope I will be able to walk away from this holiday thinking the same thing! as it stands, im only meeting more and more locals who i want to keep in touch with, so hopefully ill only have more reasons than ever to return!
this only happens in uganda!
'Um [translator's name], i'm going to have to step outside for a minute please can you continue filling this form in with this participant?'
'eh?! why?'
'there is a bug in my tshirt'
'a bug?!'
'yes'
'where??'
'in my t shirt'
'ahh ok!'
It wasn't in my tshirt. it was in my bra. i tell you, thats quite disconcerting!
Ive got some advice on good markets to buy skirts from. I'm sick of wearing these long baggy trousers in this occasionally lovely hot weather.
yesterday evening, the retired UK psychologist, steve,who lectures at the uni and trains students in the nearby butabika hospital with psychiatric patients, caught me just as I was going into my room. We had a long chat about how it is to work here, his colleagues, the patients he sees, a bit about psychiatric conditions, about the culture within psychology professionals and how its shifted from 'which colleagues has problems' to 'everyone is dealing with their own problems', and how lots of people who go into caring professions have dealt with their own problems. and about a travelling lady who rides her bike throughout africa making a documentary about women's empowerment, sponsored by honda i think. she was here a few weeks ago. she's from paris, and her day job is costume design. we spoke about how life at red chilli is good and safe, but that its difficult because you form attachments with people and become good friends, but then they leave. so every week or so you have to start again to make new friends. i've had to re-start 3 times in 12 days. i don't think this process is good for anyone. it's the hardest part about meeting new people abroad..is that you always have to leave. we spoke about our perspectives of uganda..those we had when we first came compared to those we have now. a greater understanding of the dangers we are exposed to living in this country. how expatriates minimise these and are likely to blame foreigners for 'getting themselves into trouble' rather than ackowledge that they live in a dangerous place where violent muggings are rather more common than they would hope for. spree thinks they do this just to protect themselves and to live comfortably in this environemtn. we spoke about research, about getting it published, about community health volunteers and their role, about various NGOs, about how NGOs compete for results and funding. he didnt approve. we spoke about the yoga lessons he goes to on tuesday morning, run by am american women with 'no ounce of fat on her body whatsoever'. we spoke about sex tourism, and he said how old, fat 'white' men would come and buy services from young african women, barely women. probably teenagers. he sees these couples around. i said it was a rather strange country to come to for sex tourism, if you think about disease burden here. he spoke about the value of children here compared to the UK. i said that i think children are neglected mainly because of poverty, but he was skeptical. although we both agreed that death, whether its during childbirth or a child, is much more accepted here than in the UK. its seen as normal here, if it happens. theres no outrage. he said he wasn't sure if he'd return, and asked me if i would. I said definitely, but i have a reason to, i.e. there are people ive met here who i want to keep in contact with, and that gives me a reason to return.
it was fairly odd. sitting down at 11pm at night in uganda, talking about important things with a probably 60 year old retired psychologist who i'd met twice before. this wouldnt happen in england! haha.
Day 14
I asked my Ugandan friend, Steven, for why Ugandan seem joyful and hopefuly despite the difficulties. He said for some, poverty is not a problem because it's how they've grown up and have become accustomed to it. And some hope that, even if they have not got much now, that they will have it later in God, which basically means that they have faith that theyll be OK with God, essentially.
Anyway everyone, today was an AWESOME day!
Its 8pm and i've only just returned after leaving at 7am this morning. I was rushing to get home before sunset at 7.15 but i didn't quite make it. I felt a bit like a morphed version of cinderella, except that i have no prince charming waiting for me, just the freedom from being mugged.
So, today I spent 6 hour interviewing my participants. By the 3rd I was ready for a nap, but my translator is luckily a rather persevering person and likes to meet her targets, so we continued interviewing until 6pm and got through everyone we were meant to. I am in good spirits because even though i ask exactly the same questions to each person, new themes and new topics keep appearing. Yesterday I was identifying and labelling themes until 11pm. I need to do this tonight..but it'll be a shoddy job because i havent got the time to transcribe the interviews as that can take all day or longer. But i need to have the labelled themes to guide my interviews tomorrow. Ive got another 5 hours of interviewing tomorrow. And then the day after that too! Looking forward to the weekend and seeing my lovely little Zeke!
I zipped past UNICEF on the back of a motobike today. definitely sending them an email. i want to go and chat to them and to see what projects they're working on. id love to work with UNICEF/WHO.
Ok, let me tell you the BEST part of my day! Today is wednesday, and at kawempe they have their orphaned and vulnerable childrens projects on today. i couldnt volunteer with them because i was interviewing. but i went to say hello to the kids at about 9am. There were about 4 kids because it was still early, but some were from last week, which was nice. I went back at about 13.00, at the time when the kids had just finished bathing and were getting dressed and ready to go home. And Pauline was there! I had been hoping she would be. She was finding her clothes, and looked a little sad but not haunted like when she first arrived last time. I said hi to her but her facial expression didn't change, and she didn't come and say hello. She was just doing her own thing. I thought perhaps she'd just forgotten who I was. I wasn't surprised by that, she'd only met me once! That was fine. We would become friends again. I hung out and met some lovely kids while Pauline did her own thing. One of them was a girl of about 5 and so sweet, she liked the game tickle. everyone knows this game of course. and another kid, a boy, also about 5, loved the game 'come and catch me and then tickle me'. And another little boy, probably about 3, wanted to play too. So I had my hands full really. And then Pauline has a change of heart and strides over to me with a BIG smile and throws herself over my lap and stretches out and starts chattering away to me happily. I was overjoyed that she remembered me! So we played tickle and then she walks over to a poster, so i just play with the others. Then she comes back and calls me over, pointing up at the poster. So i pick her up and we go through some of the animals. she loves saying the words after i tell her what it is. She's a bright girl, of course, and she should be in school. I want to talk to the project manager about why she's not in school. If it's just a case of finances then I want to sponsor her to attend school. From the conversations Ive had with ugandans here, an education is the main way that people living in the slums miss out on opportunities and of course it affects their lives. So I'd love for pauline to get a good start in life, at least with education. Anyway, then the other 2 kids wanted turns to say the words on the poster so I swapped them around a few times! Then time was going on, so i had to go back to the interviews. I waved Pauline and the others goodbye!
for the last 3 days ive been in the homesick stage. But it's passing nicely, and soon im probabaly not going to want to leave! I don't feel like I fit in here, of course with the culture and everything else being so different. But i'm here with a purpose so it gives me a meaning as to why i'm here, which makes life comfortable even though i don't fit in. i love the fact that im actually having important conversations with people this time around, and that im getting to know Ugandans properly. Theres a difference between superficial chit chat and really getting to know someone. It's nice because not only are they lovely people, willing to take me around to see sights and stuff, but also they are teaching me so much about Ugandan life, which is interesting for me.
Day 15
I'm impressed with my translator. When i first met her, she told me that lots of my questions were 'not relevant' because 'of course the all exclusively breastfeed'. I thought she might be problematic in creating an atmosphere where participants feel they can be open. But actually, i just briefly explained some things about my perspective on the questions and she's been very good with participants. Im quickly learning that the older the prticipants is, the more confident they are at sharing what they know. sometimes, during the interviews, ill just be realising that they're basically making my research, and that in a way, im gaining a lot from this, more than they are. but my themes are developing nicely and im coming up with some hypotheses. I'd like to be able to work to impliment the reccomendations ill come up with at this NGO. Ok, implimentation singular. Ive got one in mind. but hey, data anlysis is in its earliest stages so who knows what ill end up with.
i learnt you can definitely eat anough chapatti today, even though they are so delicious. i had 2 for lunch and one for dinner. i was collecting data from 10am - 5pm and i was too brain dead to bother with a proper meal! so now im all chapattied out.
I was having a chat with my motorbike rider about uganda and he suggested why not become a ugandan citizen then. i want to visit more of africa, i think. oh, I am going to! just remembered, im going to the gambia in september. gosh, thats gunna be a lot at once. new culture, AND working in the hospital. hopefully my time in ugandan will have prepared me well.
i don't know how i get so dirty so quickly. all i do is sit down and chat all day and yet all my clothes end up filthy..the air itself in kampala is thick with pollution. most things i touch have a coating of dirt. The UK is seriously clean!
had another chat with steve, the uk clinical psychologist, yesterday insted of doing my data anlysis. we had a good laugh about stuff. he was working with a patient once on her phobia of spiders and in doing so he cured himself of the same thing..particularly when it jumped out of the box on him. And he told me about the work he's doing here with..well, its not easy or nice so ill leave it out. i said to him..this wouldnt happen in england. the conversations that people have here at red chilli, the open ones about raw questions about ourselves, others, life, searching questions, meaning, purposes, and so on...this rarely happens in the UK. so i don't know what it is about this environment but everyone seems to be searching, exploring both the environment they find themselves in, but also themseves. maybe its the fact that we have got away from it all, and have the time to think about these things we all think! i have no idea.
id so like a break before data collection continues. its been nother day of 5hrs of interviews with only a 10min break between 4hours of them. im not too tired to continue tomorrow, but id just like time to properly analyse my data. i get home at 7.30 and trancription can take all day. im not going to get a break until tuesday..we are even working on sunday morning! i put my foot down for saturday. im seeing zeke then :)
yesterday we bought our lunch from a local 'restaurant' - one of the shacks down the road from kawempe, which has, on its dusty floor, about 6 large pots containing potatoes ('irish'..not just any old potato!), beans, meat, rice, and 'greens'. I paid 2 pounds for about 300g of potatoes and 3 lovely pieces of meat. The people have MASSIVE lunches here. like..7 times as much carbohydrates as i'd normally eat. But i reckon its their main, if not only, meal. One ugandan friend said to me 'Emily, why do you eat so little? you know, in africa, when there is food, we eat!'. I guess this sums it up.
definitely over the homesick stage now. thats good. and im still irritated by the evening traffic. i have little patience with it. its not fun. its boring and annoying. but everything else, i am really enjoying :)
Day 16
The motorbike ride to work today, in the rain, was VERY hairy. We were often trapped only maybe 50cm from the huge wheels of a lorry and multiple vans..one small slip and my limbs would have become carpets under the wheels. At the other times, we'd drive on the wrong side of the road for a bit, and I'd just hope we wouldn't clip someone's mirrors and end up under someone else's wheels. When the roads are so congested, if you fall its all over for you. We'd also stop with half the bike literally resting on the back bumper of a car at the lights, so that if it moved back before starting off, even by a fraction of a second, we'd be on the ground when all the cars move forwards. Once, a minivan behind us bumped into my leg.
At work, one member of staff said he could take me to the district hospital and show me all of the motorbike drivers who are in with serous head injuries or fractures. He said, when motorbikes have accidents, the riders get seriously injured. So I'm giving up my faster commute to work. I don't even have a helmet and I don't fancy a life lived with a head injury.
The data collection went really well today. I accidentally fell asleep for an extra 2 hours yesterday evening, so i got about 7 hours sleep in total which made all the difference. The women seemed to enjoy talking to me, they had questions afterwards. Once very thoughtful participant asked a very interesting question - if mixed feeding has a higher risk of HIV transmissino than exclusive breastfeeding, then at 6 months, when they are advised to breastfeed, does that mean the child has a higher risk of HIV transmission? all i said was that i couldnt answer her question as im not qualified and to ask a health worker..but i looked up the answer. for anyone who's interested its here http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241596596_eng.pdf?ua=1. A summary is that yes mixed feeding has a significantly higher risk of HIV transmission, and 68% of HIV transmission through breastfeeding occurs after the first 6 months, so stopping breastfeeding at this time, if possible, is recommended. WHO recocmmends countries choose what strategy to suggest for its nationals, and uganda has chosen mixed feeding from 6 months to 1 year. so the answer to her question, the real answer, is yes. however, stopping breastfeeding at this time can mean that infants are then at higher risk of malnutrition, disease and death, in some studies. But still, if I was the doctor in charge of this patient, I would answer her question honestly. I think answering her question at this moment in time would be irresponsible though. I am not an expert on these things, and ive only read 2 reports on this. There is going to be information i don't know, which i would not be able to tell her. giving her the incomplete story is not a good plan. its not responsible. so im keeping shtum.
im getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. i have repellent, which i rarely use. and i have suncream, which i rarely use. but what is the point of having a nice shower, then covering yourself in suncream so it looks like youve been running for an hour? and then getting home after a long and busy day, and because you aren't already dirty and smelly enogh, youve got to make yourself even smellier in the evening?! bloody annoying. but the mosquitoes pissed me off so much ive doused myself and am wonderfully stinking of deet. the mosquitoes should now fuck off and leave me alone.
i talked to laurence about pauline today. I had an idea..he works with compassion and, according to the UK clinical psychologist here, she'd benefit from that kind of input. anyway apparently compassion arent open to registering new children at the moment, but ive emailed their uganda headquarters to check. lawrence agrees that it would be very good for pauline to go to school. so im going to talk to the project manager about her case next week, and see if the only issue is money. Thats fixable. primary school is just £190/year!
Tomorrow im seeing my wonderful little man, Zeke! Who's doing so well :) i keep saying that, don't i? But i dont think anyone knows just how happy i am to see him doing just so well! compared to how he was when i left him. And i've had to wait 5 years to find out! It's just...such a wonderful awesome thing to happen. He was so unlucky in life to start off with, and now he's doing so well, I...well, it speaks for itself :)
I'm exhausted from data collection. Im working on sunday and monday and then it's over! I am looking forward to it being over so I can sleep, but ive really enjoyed properly talking to the women. Ive even learnt some of the local language, luganda. Kati is said often, it means now. olyotya means how are you, an essential greeting in uganda! and jendi means i am well thanks, also an essential component of ugandan conversations. a word that sounds a bit like cashew, means work.
Ive reached half way through my time here. It's far too short, of course. When i left watoto 5 years ago, i remember walking past the gates consoling myself with the thought that id be back in uganda so many times in the future id end up sick of it. I hope I will be able to walk away from this holiday thinking the same thing! as it stands, im only meeting more and more locals who i want to keep in touch with, so hopefully ill only have more reasons than ever to return!
this only happens in uganda!
'Um [translator's name], i'm going to have to step outside for a minute please can you continue filling this form in with this participant?'
'eh?! why?'
'there is a bug in my tshirt'
'a bug?!'
'yes'
'where??'
'in my t shirt'
'ahh ok!'
It wasn't in my tshirt. it was in my bra. i tell you, thats quite disconcerting!
Monday, 12 May 2014
Day 12 - philosophy, rainforests and research
On sunday martin, the vet studying a phd, and I went to mabira forest. I told him about some of the people i'd met at red chilli, and how they thought about things quite differently to me...and hence started a deep conversation on the bus whilst travelling through the ugandan countryside!
He spoke about people who have or have not got 'strong bases'. This he explained as a good understanding of yourself and your abilities, wants, dislikes, and so on. He said that many people, when they are young, don't consider the self-questions we all have. Perhaps because initially, thinking through these things is effortful, a bit like a debate. But at the end of it, you come up with a conclusion, and you feel better. in this way you can know who you are and your purpose in things. More grounded. You've understood something about yourself and what you want and don't want. But he says that people can try and avoid these questions, because of the initial discomfort, time and effort it takes to think through things. That they distract themselves with facebook and so on, and start creating a self-identity which is based on their environment, and bouncing off their environment, rather than really thinking about who they are. He used his history as an example of why its good to have a strong base. He was very creative when he was younger, enjoying the arts and was in the choir, and then he picked a vet career because he wanted to. Even thought its vastly different from his creative hobbies, someone with a strong base knows they can do what they want to, its just a matter of effort. and that someone with a strong base, although they might not know where they will be in 5yrs time, knows the directcino they are heading in and they have the enthusiasm and will to happily put in all the effort that it requires. The significance of taking a pause to ackowledge and allow these self-questions to come up, in the absence of a strong external enviornment which serves to suppress these self-questions, was made evidence to me over this intercalated BSc. Perhaps also because it was a year spent concentrating on international health, but i really questioned myself about what direction i am going in with medicine. what i like in medicine, and what i don't like.
I gotta say, I was relieved to hear that someone else had switched from a creative perspective to a factual one. I made a very distinctive decision a long time ago to change direction and recently I've been wondering why. But what he said makes sense. It's just something I wanted to do. He said he used to think that work had to incorporate your hobbies, but he doesn't think so anymore. He thinks work is just a way to get money. I added that it could still be enjoyable, and he agreed. I'm still trying to make work incorporate my hobbies! I've managed it on this project, to blend both personal interests and work :) it feels good man!
Let's get back to the philosophical. He gave his opinion of how someone ends up in Uganda aged 30 or so, trying to find themselves and having no idea what they want to do in life:
So, perhaps it starts off by insufficiently addressing and resolving self-questions by choosing to be distracted by tv/facebook. they grow up without a strong grounding of who they are and their likes or dislikes and what purpose they have chosen and what direction they have chosen. But perhaps if these people cannot be open to themselves, i.e. allow themselves to self-question, in their home country, its unlikely that they are going to be open abroad too. But if being abroad allows them to forgot who they are, their self from back home, they can create a vacuum in which they fill with their new identity they might create for themselves here. sometimes its just a false identity, and it doesn't last and cannot be sustained. but sometimes it can be developed and matured as long as they stay abroad, but when they retrun to their home country it cant be developed there and so they need to live in the past, forever explaining how they became this person abroad, and having to live in the past to maintain it.
he reckons that, at a certain age, after forgetting yourself for a long time, its too difficult/scary to ever find yourself again, but that other people, who have a strong base, can show them who they are because they can see glimpses of it.
he also gave an example of how its possible to cater for all the different interests people have. for example, one of his colleagues, a bioscientist, has always wanted to have a pig farm and has recently acquired land for it.
Now, more on work! He told me about a really sad encounter he had recently. he met a very successful, attractive, intelligent doctor for the first time, to discuss each others projects and just have a chat. he described how she was always checking her phone, didn't seem enthusiastic for her very impressive project and never laughed once during the conversation. he thinks that she has conditioned herself, maybe for decades, to be who others expect her to be, and she forgot her private self, her private life, her own character, her own personal loves and wants. i think what he is trying to say is that she let her work self encroach into her personal life and perhaps drown it out so that her work self is all she is now. perhaps this happened because she found value and meaning for her life in her work, and therefore was unlikely to want to protect or develop her private, true character and self that is independent of external pressures; perhaps because she didnt put up and respect work boundaries to protect her private self; perhaps because she hasnt spent enough time exploring self-questions about what she is doing and why so that she can have a sense of control and direction. perhaps, as she forgot her own character and formed a vacuum, she picked up and became whatever her boss wanted her to be, or her colleagues, or her family, and so on.
something else that is comcmonly said at red chilli is 'how different' life is in uganda. how they do things do diferently. i dont think so at all. people still plant crops here and in the UK. we all take buses, we all ride bikes, we all socialise, we all work, or try to find work.
Philosophy over. Martin and I made a good rainforest team. I look up, and he looks down! he found the dropped, eaten fruit, the dung beatles rolling their dung, leaves which had been stripped off, special plants, large snails. I found the beautiful black bird with the long curved beak, the symbiotic relationships between the trees, curly wurly tree trunks, enormous leaves, and so on. i thoguht i heard a monkey, so i said 'can you hear something?' he said, 'yes. you!'. joker :) hes an insect guy and apparently you need silence for that! it was great to be in the forest. we walked in a massive circle and took the 1hr route instead of the 3hr route. we are going to return!
Today i took my first focus group. I had to boda it most of the way to avoid the traffic. I.e. jump onto the back of the motorbikes here. I wonder whose bike it is im jumping onto. Everyone is someone in this community, known to the people we pass along the road. There must be the jokers, the hard workers, the cheeky ones, the ones who are 'all that'..it was a bit dodgy this morning. passing lots of large lorries with little room either side, in the driving rain! theres not much point worrying though, it will never change the outcome. unless you want to get off :) which i didnt. but perhaps next time ill jump onto a motorbike which has wing mirrors!
Does anyone else have a period of about 30mins of being really nervy and then suddenly you're all calm and confident? Anyway, i got over my nerves well in advance of the group starting, so it was pleasant! by about an hour in, i was managing the dominant characters and remembering to include the quiet ones. Need to tweak a couple of the questions, but all in all I really enjoyed myself talking with these women. At about 2pm i went to the kitchen to buy a chapatti, but the kitchen lady took me out into the street to her favourite shack to get me one. she wants to meet up to chat at some point..and wants my email so we can chat when im back in the UK. I'm not entirely sure of the motive here. Ill find out this weekend! but it was lovely to be able to walk around the streets in that area and FINALLY for people to cal out 'Emily!' instead of muzungo.
I got back today with about 2 hrs of sunlight to go before the rapid sunset. i knew exactly what i wanted to do. Got in, chucked my stuff on the floor, quick change and rushed over to the pool to lap up that sunshine. Transcription can wait until tomorrow.
The best part of the day was walking into a toy shop to pick something for Zeke. I chose that 2 player game where you have a kind of shovel thing and you've got to chuck a ball to each other and catch it with the shovel thingy.
Oh also, ive either been incredibly lucky or just blessed! Firstly, i needed a break before starting ther study but it wasnt part of the plan. then the translation toom longer than expected so we started a week later and it was exctly what i needed. then i wanted to have a day break after my initial focus group and the rest of them, as its the pilot and changes need to be thought over and developed well, but it wasn't part of the plan BUT tomorrow my translator has t go on home visits to see patients so we have to take a day off! im appreciating all this luck! :)
I had touristy plans. To visit a national park and go rock climbing and paragliding and so on. But actually, what I'm spending my time and money on is hanging out with people, old friends and new, whether for work or play.
I was thinking about Zeke. I'm glad that I managed to spend 6 weeks with him being all motherly but sensible enough to be aware that Zeke belongs exactly where he is, and I where I am.
I was talking to some other people at red chilli who also feel comfortable in Uganda even though theyve only been here 2 weeks. Good. Not just me being weird. I was thinking about why I like Uganda so much, and of course its about the people. They have this culture of being hopeful..but happy hopers..even when things are shite. You know they just say..yeah it would be helpful to have enough food to eat so i could breastfeed my kid but..i don't and i manage and im happy with the fact that I try my best. Maybe that's it. They can be aware of how life can be improved, but in the meantime, they're happy with what they have. Truly at peace with what they have. That's quite a skill. I haven't found it in other countries I've visited. I walk through the slum areas and the majority of people are smiling and call out greetings. If i talk to them they're bright and upbeat. I wish I could stay here longer to learn their secret. In the meantime, im going to try and figure it out. It's one lesson I would like to bring back with me. It's surely something that can be learnt, since it seems to be part of Ugandan culture. Like I said, Uganda seems to be characterised by joy and hope. Can you believe it? A country with a history of the LRA. They certainly know something about living well that I dont.
A few people I know have married Ugandans. Its certainly not hard to find Ugandans attractive. Haha.
Had an odd situation today, kind of similar to they 'hey im single' or 'hello, wife!' situation but more odd! I was waiting for a matatu on the road and a man, probably about 50, walks up to me and says something about wanting me to go back with him into his store - i looked over and it was just a shack with planks of wood sticking out of it. Politely declined saying I had to get back to kampala. he took it well actually, just said OK in good humour and retruned back to his store alone. I appreciate the manners, anyway.
He spoke about people who have or have not got 'strong bases'. This he explained as a good understanding of yourself and your abilities, wants, dislikes, and so on. He said that many people, when they are young, don't consider the self-questions we all have. Perhaps because initially, thinking through these things is effortful, a bit like a debate. But at the end of it, you come up with a conclusion, and you feel better. in this way you can know who you are and your purpose in things. More grounded. You've understood something about yourself and what you want and don't want. But he says that people can try and avoid these questions, because of the initial discomfort, time and effort it takes to think through things. That they distract themselves with facebook and so on, and start creating a self-identity which is based on their environment, and bouncing off their environment, rather than really thinking about who they are. He used his history as an example of why its good to have a strong base. He was very creative when he was younger, enjoying the arts and was in the choir, and then he picked a vet career because he wanted to. Even thought its vastly different from his creative hobbies, someone with a strong base knows they can do what they want to, its just a matter of effort. and that someone with a strong base, although they might not know where they will be in 5yrs time, knows the directcino they are heading in and they have the enthusiasm and will to happily put in all the effort that it requires. The significance of taking a pause to ackowledge and allow these self-questions to come up, in the absence of a strong external enviornment which serves to suppress these self-questions, was made evidence to me over this intercalated BSc. Perhaps also because it was a year spent concentrating on international health, but i really questioned myself about what direction i am going in with medicine. what i like in medicine, and what i don't like.
I gotta say, I was relieved to hear that someone else had switched from a creative perspective to a factual one. I made a very distinctive decision a long time ago to change direction and recently I've been wondering why. But what he said makes sense. It's just something I wanted to do. He said he used to think that work had to incorporate your hobbies, but he doesn't think so anymore. He thinks work is just a way to get money. I added that it could still be enjoyable, and he agreed. I'm still trying to make work incorporate my hobbies! I've managed it on this project, to blend both personal interests and work :) it feels good man!
Let's get back to the philosophical. He gave his opinion of how someone ends up in Uganda aged 30 or so, trying to find themselves and having no idea what they want to do in life:
So, perhaps it starts off by insufficiently addressing and resolving self-questions by choosing to be distracted by tv/facebook. they grow up without a strong grounding of who they are and their likes or dislikes and what purpose they have chosen and what direction they have chosen. But perhaps if these people cannot be open to themselves, i.e. allow themselves to self-question, in their home country, its unlikely that they are going to be open abroad too. But if being abroad allows them to forgot who they are, their self from back home, they can create a vacuum in which they fill with their new identity they might create for themselves here. sometimes its just a false identity, and it doesn't last and cannot be sustained. but sometimes it can be developed and matured as long as they stay abroad, but when they retrun to their home country it cant be developed there and so they need to live in the past, forever explaining how they became this person abroad, and having to live in the past to maintain it.
he reckons that, at a certain age, after forgetting yourself for a long time, its too difficult/scary to ever find yourself again, but that other people, who have a strong base, can show them who they are because they can see glimpses of it.
he also gave an example of how its possible to cater for all the different interests people have. for example, one of his colleagues, a bioscientist, has always wanted to have a pig farm and has recently acquired land for it.
Now, more on work! He told me about a really sad encounter he had recently. he met a very successful, attractive, intelligent doctor for the first time, to discuss each others projects and just have a chat. he described how she was always checking her phone, didn't seem enthusiastic for her very impressive project and never laughed once during the conversation. he thinks that she has conditioned herself, maybe for decades, to be who others expect her to be, and she forgot her private self, her private life, her own character, her own personal loves and wants. i think what he is trying to say is that she let her work self encroach into her personal life and perhaps drown it out so that her work self is all she is now. perhaps this happened because she found value and meaning for her life in her work, and therefore was unlikely to want to protect or develop her private, true character and self that is independent of external pressures; perhaps because she didnt put up and respect work boundaries to protect her private self; perhaps because she hasnt spent enough time exploring self-questions about what she is doing and why so that she can have a sense of control and direction. perhaps, as she forgot her own character and formed a vacuum, she picked up and became whatever her boss wanted her to be, or her colleagues, or her family, and so on.
something else that is comcmonly said at red chilli is 'how different' life is in uganda. how they do things do diferently. i dont think so at all. people still plant crops here and in the UK. we all take buses, we all ride bikes, we all socialise, we all work, or try to find work.
Philosophy over. Martin and I made a good rainforest team. I look up, and he looks down! he found the dropped, eaten fruit, the dung beatles rolling their dung, leaves which had been stripped off, special plants, large snails. I found the beautiful black bird with the long curved beak, the symbiotic relationships between the trees, curly wurly tree trunks, enormous leaves, and so on. i thoguht i heard a monkey, so i said 'can you hear something?' he said, 'yes. you!'. joker :) hes an insect guy and apparently you need silence for that! it was great to be in the forest. we walked in a massive circle and took the 1hr route instead of the 3hr route. we are going to return!
Today i took my first focus group. I had to boda it most of the way to avoid the traffic. I.e. jump onto the back of the motorbikes here. I wonder whose bike it is im jumping onto. Everyone is someone in this community, known to the people we pass along the road. There must be the jokers, the hard workers, the cheeky ones, the ones who are 'all that'..it was a bit dodgy this morning. passing lots of large lorries with little room either side, in the driving rain! theres not much point worrying though, it will never change the outcome. unless you want to get off :) which i didnt. but perhaps next time ill jump onto a motorbike which has wing mirrors!
Does anyone else have a period of about 30mins of being really nervy and then suddenly you're all calm and confident? Anyway, i got over my nerves well in advance of the group starting, so it was pleasant! by about an hour in, i was managing the dominant characters and remembering to include the quiet ones. Need to tweak a couple of the questions, but all in all I really enjoyed myself talking with these women. At about 2pm i went to the kitchen to buy a chapatti, but the kitchen lady took me out into the street to her favourite shack to get me one. she wants to meet up to chat at some point..and wants my email so we can chat when im back in the UK. I'm not entirely sure of the motive here. Ill find out this weekend! but it was lovely to be able to walk around the streets in that area and FINALLY for people to cal out 'Emily!' instead of muzungo.
I got back today with about 2 hrs of sunlight to go before the rapid sunset. i knew exactly what i wanted to do. Got in, chucked my stuff on the floor, quick change and rushed over to the pool to lap up that sunshine. Transcription can wait until tomorrow.
The best part of the day was walking into a toy shop to pick something for Zeke. I chose that 2 player game where you have a kind of shovel thing and you've got to chuck a ball to each other and catch it with the shovel thingy.
Oh also, ive either been incredibly lucky or just blessed! Firstly, i needed a break before starting ther study but it wasnt part of the plan. then the translation toom longer than expected so we started a week later and it was exctly what i needed. then i wanted to have a day break after my initial focus group and the rest of them, as its the pilot and changes need to be thought over and developed well, but it wasn't part of the plan BUT tomorrow my translator has t go on home visits to see patients so we have to take a day off! im appreciating all this luck! :)
I had touristy plans. To visit a national park and go rock climbing and paragliding and so on. But actually, what I'm spending my time and money on is hanging out with people, old friends and new, whether for work or play.
I was thinking about Zeke. I'm glad that I managed to spend 6 weeks with him being all motherly but sensible enough to be aware that Zeke belongs exactly where he is, and I where I am.
I was talking to some other people at red chilli who also feel comfortable in Uganda even though theyve only been here 2 weeks. Good. Not just me being weird. I was thinking about why I like Uganda so much, and of course its about the people. They have this culture of being hopeful..but happy hopers..even when things are shite. You know they just say..yeah it would be helpful to have enough food to eat so i could breastfeed my kid but..i don't and i manage and im happy with the fact that I try my best. Maybe that's it. They can be aware of how life can be improved, but in the meantime, they're happy with what they have. Truly at peace with what they have. That's quite a skill. I haven't found it in other countries I've visited. I walk through the slum areas and the majority of people are smiling and call out greetings. If i talk to them they're bright and upbeat. I wish I could stay here longer to learn their secret. In the meantime, im going to try and figure it out. It's one lesson I would like to bring back with me. It's surely something that can be learnt, since it seems to be part of Ugandan culture. Like I said, Uganda seems to be characterised by joy and hope. Can you believe it? A country with a history of the LRA. They certainly know something about living well that I dont.
A few people I know have married Ugandans. Its certainly not hard to find Ugandans attractive. Haha.
Had an odd situation today, kind of similar to they 'hey im single' or 'hello, wife!' situation but more odd! I was waiting for a matatu on the road and a man, probably about 50, walks up to me and says something about wanting me to go back with him into his store - i looked over and it was just a shack with planks of wood sticking out of it. Politely declined saying I had to get back to kampala. he took it well actually, just said OK in good humour and retruned back to his store alone. I appreciate the manners, anyway.
Saturday, 10 May 2014
Day 10 - The best day in 5 years!
I saw Zeke today, after 5 years!
He's so sweet. I was showing his sisters my camera and talking about what photos to take, when i felt a little arm link itself around mine and pull down, and i looked down into zeke's big smiling face and great shining eyes and he said 'come! lets play!' and i thought 'what am i doing here faffing with my camera when ive come all this way just to see this little boy!' and i at once ditched the camera and went to play with my little sweetie. Sometimes i'd just be standing around talking with his silblings and he'd come rushing up to me, beaming, and jump into my arms for a great big hug. Such small moments which I love so much!
He brought his friend, Cali, to meet me. Cali was about 5 i think. Zeke said to me 'this is Cali, he's my friend' and took Cali's hand, and my hand, and joined them together hahahahaaaaa and said to Cali 'Cali, this is my sponsor!'. I was like..yes, i guess so. we played cars together. Zeke is good at sharing. I had to teach zeke what my name was! of course, when he was one and a half, he didn't know my name, and i probably didn't bother teaching him because he couldnt talk at that age. He was a bit unsure at what i was saying at first, so i had to go through 'you are zeke, and i am emily. try and say emily?'. Oh, something super sweet is that i used to call zeke 'zekeeee' and his family do too :)
My sister recently got glasses and she's a bit self-conscious. Zeke has some really funky glasses and he seems very comfortable with them, but all the same when i first saw him again i took time to say that i liked his glasses and if he liked them. later on, the funky end of the glasses came off and he confidently handed them to me and said 'its slipping!' so i fixed it and handed them back to him and he happily tucked the rounded ends around his ears.
When I was packing up my bag it broke my heart because zeke's little face fell and his eyes looked sad and he became quiet. i felt like a horrible person, again. I'm not good at goodbyes, i tend to avoid them and just slink off unoticed (does anyone else do this??). But i didn't want to do this with zeke, cos thats not fair. So I called him up and gave him a hug and told him how much he'd grown and how he was becoming a big man these days. He smiled, and then i encouraged him to go back to playing lego and making the monkey he was working on. A simple goodbye and 'see you next saturday' was sufficient after that. So, i managed some sort of goodbye!
And actually, i didn't cry on the way home. 5 years ago in the baby home, he'd been a lost kid who needed some security in his life, which could come from a close attachment with someone. So when i left i knew it was terribly unfair, although i could see how much he had benefited from working with him. I couldn't do anything but pray that God would ensure his needs would be met. And thats all the faith i had to go on. Well, it's been so fulfilled. Kids that go to watoto don't start off lucky in life. they are abandoned or orphaned. But they end up lucky in life. All the children were well nourished, they had clean, well fitting clothes. They had their emotional and physical needs met. Watoto villages are kitted out with their own primary and secondary school, medical centre, adult and childrens churches and youth workers. The kids live with their family until they finish university. At which point they have 6 months to figure out what they're doing before they need to leave the village. They all exhibited intact confidence, self-esteem, appropriate development and all the rest of those fundamental things which the kids from the slums lacked. The children i meet in the community are thin, often dressed in very dirty clothes, and their parents probably struggle with poverty. Zeke, once so unsure of life and sat frozen like a little statue in the middle of a room full of happy kids, is now a bouncing, confident, secure little boy. And that's just exactly what I could have hoped for for him. So I didn't cry. There is nothing to cry about. I'm so excited to be allowed to be part of this wonderful little boy's life. Oh, and it wasn't at all weird to see him walking and talking! His voice is deep for a little lad, and he has picked up a strong ugandan innotation to his speech, which I really enjoy listening to because he's such a small lad with such a big personality. But when i saw him again it was just like i saw him yesterday and i know exactly who he is and that never changes, and if he's walking and talking then all the better because we can only have even more fun playing cars :)
Lots of people I've met here are a bit, let me apologise if i sound mean, odd. I refer to the 'im just travelling around' lot. Some have just quit unfulfilling jobs back in the UK/US/holland/germany and have come to get away from responsability and having to 'think about what to do with their lives'. Others just enjoy life on the road. They go back for a year, save up, and travel for 2 years or until the money runs out. They don't like making plans, saying their plan is not to plan, to live for today and not to think about tomorrow. Still others have taken up long-term jobs with NGOs because they 'want to help people' and they even make the imitated brackets in the air, as if they themselves don't really know what they mean. I don't know about you, but even talking with these people make me nervous! If i were them, id feel nervous. I'd feel a bit lost. I wasn't aware that Africa could be an escape.
These travellers also big up the 'its africa' motto of e.g. have a seat, chill. A bit like 'keep calm and drink tea'. Apart from they see it as less of a joke and more of a reality. I don't really think the 'its africa' motto is correct. I think there are lots of hard workers in Uganda, and it's just that the conditions aren't favourable. However, i was talking to a Ugandan earlier today, my host for the watoto village, and he was saying that 'westerners' work too much and too hard and don't make time for people, whereas in uganda i can see that everyone is more relaxed and there is more community. I agreed with him, and said that in the UK at least, we are well aware of our lack of work-life balance in certain circles. we've read the news articles stating that pensioners wish they'd worked less and hung out with family more.
One of these travellers sounded quite lost. He wanted to be a doctor because it was 'prestigious' and because 'thats what clever people do' and thought he should do it. He also said he doubted his abilities and quit uni and ended up travelling. On further discussion, it turns out he has depression and some kind of ruminating OCD thought thing which i didnt entirely understand.
I don't know about you, but i'm certinaly having my eyes opened to a whole spectrum of travellers to Uganda which i didn't know about! I thought, like everything else in life, you'd come to uganda with a plan, a purpose, which fitted into the rest of your life plan. Perhaps, because im a planner, im just naive to the fact that some people are planless. i couldn't hack that!
He's so sweet. I was showing his sisters my camera and talking about what photos to take, when i felt a little arm link itself around mine and pull down, and i looked down into zeke's big smiling face and great shining eyes and he said 'come! lets play!' and i thought 'what am i doing here faffing with my camera when ive come all this way just to see this little boy!' and i at once ditched the camera and went to play with my little sweetie. Sometimes i'd just be standing around talking with his silblings and he'd come rushing up to me, beaming, and jump into my arms for a great big hug. Such small moments which I love so much!
He brought his friend, Cali, to meet me. Cali was about 5 i think. Zeke said to me 'this is Cali, he's my friend' and took Cali's hand, and my hand, and joined them together hahahahaaaaa and said to Cali 'Cali, this is my sponsor!'. I was like..yes, i guess so. we played cars together. Zeke is good at sharing. I had to teach zeke what my name was! of course, when he was one and a half, he didn't know my name, and i probably didn't bother teaching him because he couldnt talk at that age. He was a bit unsure at what i was saying at first, so i had to go through 'you are zeke, and i am emily. try and say emily?'. Oh, something super sweet is that i used to call zeke 'zekeeee' and his family do too :)
My sister recently got glasses and she's a bit self-conscious. Zeke has some really funky glasses and he seems very comfortable with them, but all the same when i first saw him again i took time to say that i liked his glasses and if he liked them. later on, the funky end of the glasses came off and he confidently handed them to me and said 'its slipping!' so i fixed it and handed them back to him and he happily tucked the rounded ends around his ears.
When I was packing up my bag it broke my heart because zeke's little face fell and his eyes looked sad and he became quiet. i felt like a horrible person, again. I'm not good at goodbyes, i tend to avoid them and just slink off unoticed (does anyone else do this??). But i didn't want to do this with zeke, cos thats not fair. So I called him up and gave him a hug and told him how much he'd grown and how he was becoming a big man these days. He smiled, and then i encouraged him to go back to playing lego and making the monkey he was working on. A simple goodbye and 'see you next saturday' was sufficient after that. So, i managed some sort of goodbye!
And actually, i didn't cry on the way home. 5 years ago in the baby home, he'd been a lost kid who needed some security in his life, which could come from a close attachment with someone. So when i left i knew it was terribly unfair, although i could see how much he had benefited from working with him. I couldn't do anything but pray that God would ensure his needs would be met. And thats all the faith i had to go on. Well, it's been so fulfilled. Kids that go to watoto don't start off lucky in life. they are abandoned or orphaned. But they end up lucky in life. All the children were well nourished, they had clean, well fitting clothes. They had their emotional and physical needs met. Watoto villages are kitted out with their own primary and secondary school, medical centre, adult and childrens churches and youth workers. The kids live with their family until they finish university. At which point they have 6 months to figure out what they're doing before they need to leave the village. They all exhibited intact confidence, self-esteem, appropriate development and all the rest of those fundamental things which the kids from the slums lacked. The children i meet in the community are thin, often dressed in very dirty clothes, and their parents probably struggle with poverty. Zeke, once so unsure of life and sat frozen like a little statue in the middle of a room full of happy kids, is now a bouncing, confident, secure little boy. And that's just exactly what I could have hoped for for him. So I didn't cry. There is nothing to cry about. I'm so excited to be allowed to be part of this wonderful little boy's life. Oh, and it wasn't at all weird to see him walking and talking! His voice is deep for a little lad, and he has picked up a strong ugandan innotation to his speech, which I really enjoy listening to because he's such a small lad with such a big personality. But when i saw him again it was just like i saw him yesterday and i know exactly who he is and that never changes, and if he's walking and talking then all the better because we can only have even more fun playing cars :)
Lots of people I've met here are a bit, let me apologise if i sound mean, odd. I refer to the 'im just travelling around' lot. Some have just quit unfulfilling jobs back in the UK/US/holland/germany and have come to get away from responsability and having to 'think about what to do with their lives'. Others just enjoy life on the road. They go back for a year, save up, and travel for 2 years or until the money runs out. They don't like making plans, saying their plan is not to plan, to live for today and not to think about tomorrow. Still others have taken up long-term jobs with NGOs because they 'want to help people' and they even make the imitated brackets in the air, as if they themselves don't really know what they mean. I don't know about you, but even talking with these people make me nervous! If i were them, id feel nervous. I'd feel a bit lost. I wasn't aware that Africa could be an escape.
These travellers also big up the 'its africa' motto of e.g. have a seat, chill. A bit like 'keep calm and drink tea'. Apart from they see it as less of a joke and more of a reality. I don't really think the 'its africa' motto is correct. I think there are lots of hard workers in Uganda, and it's just that the conditions aren't favourable. However, i was talking to a Ugandan earlier today, my host for the watoto village, and he was saying that 'westerners' work too much and too hard and don't make time for people, whereas in uganda i can see that everyone is more relaxed and there is more community. I agreed with him, and said that in the UK at least, we are well aware of our lack of work-life balance in certain circles. we've read the news articles stating that pensioners wish they'd worked less and hung out with family more.
One of these travellers sounded quite lost. He wanted to be a doctor because it was 'prestigious' and because 'thats what clever people do' and thought he should do it. He also said he doubted his abilities and quit uni and ended up travelling. On further discussion, it turns out he has depression and some kind of ruminating OCD thought thing which i didnt entirely understand.
I don't know about you, but i'm certinaly having my eyes opened to a whole spectrum of travellers to Uganda which i didn't know about! I thought, like everything else in life, you'd come to uganda with a plan, a purpose, which fitted into the rest of your life plan. Perhaps, because im a planner, im just naive to the fact that some people are planless. i couldn't hack that!
Friday, 9 May 2014
Day 9 - All about the evening!
I want to talk about road rage. I've recently decided to be bothered to get a driving license, and I'm already feeling impatient on the road. Slow pedestrian? Pensioner? They'll have me huffing impatiently. In Kampala, the roads are terrible. Minivans, cars and motorbikes squeeze into every inch. There aren't many rules. Except decide where you want to go, and then GO! Perhaps the sheer futility of road rage has resulted in the apparent low levels. I can barely get through a bus journey without irritably tapping my fingers against the side. I wish a Ugandan could come and drive on UK roads. I'm sure they'd love it. They have the patience of a saint, seemingly, and when I get back to the UK perhaps I'll be more patient just by thinking well, at least it's not like in Kampala.
I went back to Nando's, the car park shack, for lunch today. A rolex - egg rolled up in chapatti. Yum yum. I got talking with a man, Elijah. He told me about Uganda's seasons. The year starts off with the 'dry season', which isn't too hot. Then it becomes the 'wet season', which is it now. Then it becomes the 'hot season' which is 'too hot!' apparently. This is the season I experienced when I came 5 years ago. I remember the hot, stuffy nights. I liked it though. Then lastly it is the 'cold season', which is 'too cold!'.
In the back of my mind, I'm still thinking about everything Lawrence explained yesterday about slum living. I'm still thinking about Pauline. Background work as I sit outside and prepare my documents for data analysis.
I went to the shopping centre in Kampala today, to buy essentials. Mangoes, an avocado, french beans, onions, ketchup, tomato sauce. I found a recipe for tuna. Tomato sauce, chilli powder, onions, salt, pepper, garlic, then throw in the pasta and tuna. I'll try it for lunch tomor....NO I'M NOTTTTTT I'M HAVING LUNCH WITH ZEKE TOMORROW EEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was my first trip to the centre since the US embassy warning released 2 days ago. I'm going to avoid the centre at weekends. Except church, I'm still going to go to church. Now I understand why security is so high compared to 5 years ago.
I haven't been able to shake off my ponderings over the slums and all that jazz. I've been seeking time alone just to grapple with stuff. Is it just me who needs time alone to think about hard stuff when it comes up, or do other people feel like this too?? If you do things differently, do share :) Im starting to think my approach isnt logical, because 2 heads are better than one!
This evening i thought id be more sociable, so I hung around with a fun lot. They told me about how they'd run over a goat in Malawi, had to buy it off the owner, had to cut its head off because the owner wanted to cook it, and then put it on their bicycle and eventually ate it! Then there was a REALLY annoying guy who started talking really illogically about development, basically saying western people shouldnt go into slums and tell people that education is good or that they should find a job, 'if they are perfectly happy sitting under a tree doing nothing'. he was talking about the main argument for getting a job is 'to be better than your neighbour'. I don't know what kind of crap he is talking about. I told him to go and visit the slums and assured him that they wouldn't be perfectly happy in their unemployed situation. I tried to talk about how income brings the freedom to do what you want to, such as go to school, buy healthcare, and so on, and mentioned armatya sen's argument in 'development as freedom' which he snubbed, at which point i got fed up, but he left, luckily. He also said he doesn't understand ugandan culture or experiences. he's been here for a year and a half..has he not listened to anyone?! Sorry if im making things really simple, but surely to understand something you ask questions and listen?
So, I was annoyed, i went to the bar and I met a retired UK clinical psychologist who lectures in the uni and trains students at the nearby psychiatric hospital. We shared a mixture of cynicism and appreciation for qualitative research. The odd combination of finding something both useful and exhasperatingly futile. He has a son who is a 5th yr at manchester, and has applied for a grant from the UK medical research council to do a masters next year. I was really glad to hear about that! I had no idea that was available to us. Anyway, we spoke about psychology. It seems he eventually burnt out after 30yrs, and cant hack working with patients anymore so is just an academic now. I dont blame him. I think i'd last 2 days as a psychologist. I don't know how you're meant to listen to everyones terrible stories and not burn out?! He mentioned there is a great medical organisation in mbale which is really slick and i should visit it - he's going to give me the contacts. I'm excited for it, id like to go. he said his son wants to do a masters in stem cell research and 'growing kidneys' instead of using immunosuppressants for kidney transplants. he wasnt sure about this, saying it was all rather futuristic, but i said that without people like his son then medicine wouldn't really advance would it? He said his other son had studied international development but now didn't want to have anything to do with it because he's become really cynical about the whole thing. yes, its a temptation and a risk. I think the trick is to see the good things amongst the shit things that goes on, and to know that its all worth it even if just for those small good things. You won't find that line on good quotes ;) unsurprisingly.
Then i spoke to Lawrence. we are both really excited for tomorrow! im excited because im seeing zeke, and hes excited because its his day off and he's going to see the kids at compassion.
Ok friends, i'm off to bed! for the last day of waiting for the best day ever!!
I went back to Nando's, the car park shack, for lunch today. A rolex - egg rolled up in chapatti. Yum yum. I got talking with a man, Elijah. He told me about Uganda's seasons. The year starts off with the 'dry season', which isn't too hot. Then it becomes the 'wet season', which is it now. Then it becomes the 'hot season' which is 'too hot!' apparently. This is the season I experienced when I came 5 years ago. I remember the hot, stuffy nights. I liked it though. Then lastly it is the 'cold season', which is 'too cold!'.
In the back of my mind, I'm still thinking about everything Lawrence explained yesterday about slum living. I'm still thinking about Pauline. Background work as I sit outside and prepare my documents for data analysis.
I went to the shopping centre in Kampala today, to buy essentials. Mangoes, an avocado, french beans, onions, ketchup, tomato sauce. I found a recipe for tuna. Tomato sauce, chilli powder, onions, salt, pepper, garlic, then throw in the pasta and tuna. I'll try it for lunch tomor....NO I'M NOTTTTTT I'M HAVING LUNCH WITH ZEKE TOMORROW EEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was my first trip to the centre since the US embassy warning released 2 days ago. I'm going to avoid the centre at weekends. Except church, I'm still going to go to church. Now I understand why security is so high compared to 5 years ago.
I haven't been able to shake off my ponderings over the slums and all that jazz. I've been seeking time alone just to grapple with stuff. Is it just me who needs time alone to think about hard stuff when it comes up, or do other people feel like this too?? If you do things differently, do share :) Im starting to think my approach isnt logical, because 2 heads are better than one!
This evening i thought id be more sociable, so I hung around with a fun lot. They told me about how they'd run over a goat in Malawi, had to buy it off the owner, had to cut its head off because the owner wanted to cook it, and then put it on their bicycle and eventually ate it! Then there was a REALLY annoying guy who started talking really illogically about development, basically saying western people shouldnt go into slums and tell people that education is good or that they should find a job, 'if they are perfectly happy sitting under a tree doing nothing'. he was talking about the main argument for getting a job is 'to be better than your neighbour'. I don't know what kind of crap he is talking about. I told him to go and visit the slums and assured him that they wouldn't be perfectly happy in their unemployed situation. I tried to talk about how income brings the freedom to do what you want to, such as go to school, buy healthcare, and so on, and mentioned armatya sen's argument in 'development as freedom' which he snubbed, at which point i got fed up, but he left, luckily. He also said he doesn't understand ugandan culture or experiences. he's been here for a year and a half..has he not listened to anyone?! Sorry if im making things really simple, but surely to understand something you ask questions and listen?
So, I was annoyed, i went to the bar and I met a retired UK clinical psychologist who lectures in the uni and trains students at the nearby psychiatric hospital. We shared a mixture of cynicism and appreciation for qualitative research. The odd combination of finding something both useful and exhasperatingly futile. He has a son who is a 5th yr at manchester, and has applied for a grant from the UK medical research council to do a masters next year. I was really glad to hear about that! I had no idea that was available to us. Anyway, we spoke about psychology. It seems he eventually burnt out after 30yrs, and cant hack working with patients anymore so is just an academic now. I dont blame him. I think i'd last 2 days as a psychologist. I don't know how you're meant to listen to everyones terrible stories and not burn out?! He mentioned there is a great medical organisation in mbale which is really slick and i should visit it - he's going to give me the contacts. I'm excited for it, id like to go. he said his son wants to do a masters in stem cell research and 'growing kidneys' instead of using immunosuppressants for kidney transplants. he wasnt sure about this, saying it was all rather futuristic, but i said that without people like his son then medicine wouldn't really advance would it? He said his other son had studied international development but now didn't want to have anything to do with it because he's become really cynical about the whole thing. yes, its a temptation and a risk. I think the trick is to see the good things amongst the shit things that goes on, and to know that its all worth it even if just for those small good things. You won't find that line on good quotes ;) unsurprisingly.
Then i spoke to Lawrence. we are both really excited for tomorrow! im excited because im seeing zeke, and hes excited because its his day off and he's going to see the kids at compassion.
Ok friends, i'm off to bed! for the last day of waiting for the best day ever!!
Thursday, 8 May 2014
Day 8 - keep calm, drink tea, and cry
I'm tired from yesterday. I think it's the journey into kampala that takes it out of me. It's fairly chaotic and busy. You know what, we are ripped off so badly in the UK. A soda here costs about 30p. A chapatti and egg roll costs about 30p. A bus journey costs about 30p. A goat costs about 10pounds. A chicken..about 2 pounds. The less I needlessly spend in the UK, the more I'll have to spend on traval. It's a good motivation to try and be a savvy saver.
Yesterday, over lunch with the staff, they asked me where I was from and said 'oh ok so that makes you English!' I beamed, inwardly thinking 'yes! English, not muzungo!'. I think, when I get called muzungo, I'll start saying something like 'no, not muzungo, English'. I'm going to try it and see how it goes.
I decided that I should probably spend thursday and friday preparing for the research, which starts on monday. The weather is overcast, which helps with motivation to study instead of having a good time. However, the weekend is going to be great. Im seeing zeke on saturday and im visiting mabira forest reserve with Martin, the vet phd researcher, who is a big plant fan and im sure will teach me many things! I don't share his enthusiasm for collecting insects, however.
I got a good amount of work done today. I re-found my enthusiasm for my study, and actually, it gives meaning to why I'm here in Uganda. It's good to remind myself of what I'm doing. My purpose.
I've been feeling a bit 'meh' today. I think I'm still thinking about the kids I met yesterday, the OVC project and about the Bwaise slums in general. Coming to terms with coming to terms with it :)
I love the mornings in Uganda. Mornings are when the world rudely interrupts your life with alarm clocks, enforced schedules, demands and requests for your attention in class, or simply family members unsympathetically stomping over the house and slamming doors on their way out, making you jump awake. Or, the worst, shouting your name from somewhere downstairs until it eventually infiltrates your dreams and you wake up. Mornings are the time when I have the least autonomy back in the UK. But here in Uganda, the mornings are ALL. MINE. Nobody is here to call me awake. Nobody demands my attention or thinks I'm 'wasting the day' because I'm still in bed. The only alarms I set are the ones I want to set. The schedules are schedules I set. Autonomy. That's what I have here. Peace and quiet. I love it. I wake up in the morning and listen to outside the window..everyone minding their own buisiness and letting me mind mine. I look over at my door..nobody's going to come and pester me here. Then I stretch out under my mosquito net and enjoy this delicious moment where my peace and quiet is respected :) Anyone else feel the same?
Today I met someone very interesting. He's a Ugandan security guard here. He said that in 2008-2010 he served in the US army in the Iraq war. Apparently the US outsourced recruits from Israel, the middle east and Africa. Once inscripted, he was signed up for 2 years and his title is 'US soldier', which is why UK media never mentioned the US army was made up of anyone else except US soldiers, and I assumed, US citizens. He said al quaeda were 'crazy' and that the challenge was that you never knew when they were going to strike. That they didn't appear in large teams, it was just one or two people hidden just beyond the barracks. He said the US army send out drones to take photos of the surrounding area to try and spot them. That he was given night vision binoculars and 'killed people' of course. He laughed when I made a face at this. He said it was important to kill them before getting killed. I asked him why he signed up, he said because of the money. I asked him about how he adjusted back to life in Uganda. He said he's still not totally adjusted, and he has problems with his hearing due to firing loud guns. He said he wouldn't sign up again. I asked him if he took a break in those 2 years, he said no because al quaeda targeted their planes, so once you're there it's best to stay there instead of risking being shot down on your way out or in. I wonder why the UK media keeps it so on the down low that the US outsources it's army recruits? Uganda's army is currently active in sudan, nigeria and somalia, apparently. They've asked him to sign up but he refused, saying he's retired from the army and wouldn't go back. I wonder if it was worth the money? He said he was offered US citizenship together with his job in the US army. At the time, he didn't get this opportunity because his boss was killed in action. I asked him if, now, he wished he had taken the US citizenship. He said no. Not for a military job.
I had such a gross dinner. Tinned tuna with soy sauce. Let me tell you friends, that this is NOT a way to eat tuna! Out of desperate I added the only other sauce I had - sweet chilli - which definitely helped. Still disgusting though, not helped by the fact that I don't even like tuna. I'm out of ham and rapidly going off tinned chicken. This leaves me with tuna and mackeral..neither of which are particularly palatable! I'm already excited for the plane food. On saturday I know Im going to have a nice meal - ill be visiting Zeke and his family! Let me guess...matooke and beans?
I was still feeling 'meh' in the evening and then I read about a US embassy terror alert for Kampala in May/June so I felt even more 'meh'. So I made some tea (keep calm and make tea guys!) and went down to the bar by the pool. I got chatting with a guy who works here called Lawrence. We chatted about general stuff and he teased me about my tea. He said he likes my goings on..apparently I like a lot of tea, I like times alone, and I often pat my hair down! Well, today i was being rather isolated working on preparation for my study. And my hair..is a mess, and no amount of patting is going to sort that. He said he works with Compassion. From my church in plymouth I have heard about compassion, but I never really knew what they did. So I asked Lawrence about what compassion do and his role with them. Compassion, in Kampala, provides spiritual, emotional, physical and...2 other things..support for vulnerable children aged 6-22. Lawrence is one of the counsellors, i.e. advises the kids. I asked more about these children - how are they found? They're from the community and are identified by community workers. Vulnerable children are inevitably from the slums. I said I'd worked with children form the slums yesterday, and they had some sad stories. Lawrence said he worked at compassion because he used to be one of those kids. I was a bit..taken aback. Lawrence is a peace and quiet kind of person. I asked about life in the slums. This is the general picture. Slum dwellers don't think like those who are 'rich', that's most of the problem, which is why compassion is so important because it helps to change the kids' mentality. Lawrence said he is who he is today because of compassion. In the slums, adults are always stressed out about finding enough food for the day. They fear about how they are going to find food tomorrow. They usually spend 5 dollars a day on food for the family, often going into the forest to try and find vedgtables to cook. Because the parents are so concerned about surviving, kids get somewhat neglected and perhaps aren't treated well. Love and care might be side-tracked. Their motto in the slums is 'I live to eat' rather than 'i eat to live'. They don't live like a 'rich person might live, they just exist. They are just alive. Apparently. There is a certain mentality and peer pressure in the slums. The generic thinking of 'how can i make money the fastest' - the answer of course is crime. The children see the parents living like this, and follow their lead. Alcohol and majurana are rife - they believe these can take away their stress. But when they sobor up, they think even more about their problems than before. Lawrence mentioned slum dwellers think an awful lot. Stressful thoughts. How will we get enough food. How can we get money. He mentioned that slum dwellers have a 'lower capacity to think'..so a 'rich person' would think, i need to go to school, i need to get a job. A slum dweller might think 'i need to get money really fast, whats the fastest way'. And those kids who do go to school become influenced by peer pressure, i.e. no-one else is going to school. They end up thinking 'why the hell am i wasting my time going to school? whats the use of going to school for me?' and they drop out. There is a lot of disease among slum dwellers. Malnutrition, alcohol- and drug-induced ill health, mental stress, and so on. Lawrence said slum dwellers are the sickest people in Uganda. Lawrence asked me if i ever wished i was bill clinton or obama. I said no. He asked me if i've ever wished i was super rich so that I could change something in the world. I said yes. He said he does, and he wishes he could send a ship load of money to the kids families he works with. I asked what is the best for these children? He said..helping them to change their mentality. Because when they change their mentality, they can work to get themselves out of that situation.
Lawrence shared his story. He was one of those vulnerable children. From the age of 16 he would work to pay his way in school. He worked in various marketing jobs, then when he was 18 he took on a security job as a bodyguard and got badly beaten up and broke his arm. When he was doing this security job, for 2 years, he'd get about 3 hours sleep between his night job and school during the day. As a result, his grades really suffered. He took a job at the supermarket near here, but his boss got suspicious because he was a quiet guy who just came to work, did his job, and minded his own buisiness. She gave him grief. The manager of red chilli (my accomodation) visited the store and dropped her purse by mistake. He retruned it to her, and she offered him a job at red chilli. So he's been here for 2 months.
He said that he's currently working at red chilli whilst taking 2 courses in computer science and graphics. He said he's still continuing and not giving up because he has a 'rich friend' who told him 'now is not the time to eat Lawrence', i.e. now is a time to work hard and when you finished, then you can enjoy your life. Lawrence thinks it will be his 'time to eat' when he finished his courses and starts his own buisiness. He doesn't want to be employed by someone else. He said he is young now, but now is not the time to enjoy life. That's for later. :(
He said that when he was young, he was a proud, arrogant guy who was very angry and got into many fights. He was big (muscly) and did wrestling as a job. When compassion started working with him, he changed his mentality, he also became a christian and he became a peace and quiet kind of guy. He doesn't fight anymore, he's not an angry guy. I like him a lot - he's a gentle, thoughtful, lovely person. Lawrence said he loves to help others who are like him. He says their stories make him tear up. He's working until midnight tonight, and he has an exam at 9am tomorrow. Writing the source code for how calculators work. I asked him if he's watched source code..he hasn't. i told him he should :)
He said he can take me with him the next time he goes to work with compassion. and I can meet the kids and say 'Hello, I'm Emily!' I do want to go.
He asked me about my studies. I told him I was studying medicine and had 1 year left to go. He said he wanted to be a doctor once but gave up on that idea because he wouldn't be able to handle corpses. I told him I can't either! I felt..not guilty..but not happy about saying what I studied. He's worked so hard in his life he should have much more than he does now. And ive had it handed to me on a plate. It's not my fault at all, obviously, but the discrepency is not fair. He was gracious though..we passed over this discrepency without awkward moments. Its neither of our faults, right? Like he said..sometimes life is shit, and thats life sometimes.
I wonder why vulnerable children are angry and rebellious? And then, when they get helped out, they go through this transition of becoming peace and quiet kind of people? Sometimes even more desiring peace and quiet than people who were never vulnerable. I want to find out.
I'm thinking of Pauline. She's 5, she's not in school. I wonder if she's going to adopt the slum mentality. I wonder if she's going to get into crime, or be pushed into it. I wonder how little love and care there is in her home. She was malnourished...so her family is very poor. She hasn't even got a mother. I wonder what her mentality is. I wonder what compassion could do for her?
Well, I don't feel 'meh' anymore. I'm just sad. I think I need to have a good cry. Cry about all the ways that life can sometimes just be shit. Cry about all the ways that life can sometimes get better. Cry about all the people who are having a hard time. Cry about all the people who once had a hard time. Cry about continuing struggles, and old struggles. Cry because life is both good and bad, but somehow can still be amazing when people work at it. Perhaps to cry about how amazing people can be, even in the face of adversity. Cry that angry, hurt, vulnerable people can become peace and quiet, loving people who want to help others. So much to cry about!
Oh God. Is this what my day has come to!
Flies have invaded our life here at red chilli. They come with the rainy season, apparently. A spider dropped from the room just in front of my mug of tea. I didn't even flinch. I'm getting good at bugs.
Yesterday, over lunch with the staff, they asked me where I was from and said 'oh ok so that makes you English!' I beamed, inwardly thinking 'yes! English, not muzungo!'. I think, when I get called muzungo, I'll start saying something like 'no, not muzungo, English'. I'm going to try it and see how it goes.
I decided that I should probably spend thursday and friday preparing for the research, which starts on monday. The weather is overcast, which helps with motivation to study instead of having a good time. However, the weekend is going to be great. Im seeing zeke on saturday and im visiting mabira forest reserve with Martin, the vet phd researcher, who is a big plant fan and im sure will teach me many things! I don't share his enthusiasm for collecting insects, however.
I got a good amount of work done today. I re-found my enthusiasm for my study, and actually, it gives meaning to why I'm here in Uganda. It's good to remind myself of what I'm doing. My purpose.
I've been feeling a bit 'meh' today. I think I'm still thinking about the kids I met yesterday, the OVC project and about the Bwaise slums in general. Coming to terms with coming to terms with it :)
I love the mornings in Uganda. Mornings are when the world rudely interrupts your life with alarm clocks, enforced schedules, demands and requests for your attention in class, or simply family members unsympathetically stomping over the house and slamming doors on their way out, making you jump awake. Or, the worst, shouting your name from somewhere downstairs until it eventually infiltrates your dreams and you wake up. Mornings are the time when I have the least autonomy back in the UK. But here in Uganda, the mornings are ALL. MINE. Nobody is here to call me awake. Nobody demands my attention or thinks I'm 'wasting the day' because I'm still in bed. The only alarms I set are the ones I want to set. The schedules are schedules I set. Autonomy. That's what I have here. Peace and quiet. I love it. I wake up in the morning and listen to outside the window..everyone minding their own buisiness and letting me mind mine. I look over at my door..nobody's going to come and pester me here. Then I stretch out under my mosquito net and enjoy this delicious moment where my peace and quiet is respected :) Anyone else feel the same?
Today I met someone very interesting. He's a Ugandan security guard here. He said that in 2008-2010 he served in the US army in the Iraq war. Apparently the US outsourced recruits from Israel, the middle east and Africa. Once inscripted, he was signed up for 2 years and his title is 'US soldier', which is why UK media never mentioned the US army was made up of anyone else except US soldiers, and I assumed, US citizens. He said al quaeda were 'crazy' and that the challenge was that you never knew when they were going to strike. That they didn't appear in large teams, it was just one or two people hidden just beyond the barracks. He said the US army send out drones to take photos of the surrounding area to try and spot them. That he was given night vision binoculars and 'killed people' of course. He laughed when I made a face at this. He said it was important to kill them before getting killed. I asked him why he signed up, he said because of the money. I asked him about how he adjusted back to life in Uganda. He said he's still not totally adjusted, and he has problems with his hearing due to firing loud guns. He said he wouldn't sign up again. I asked him if he took a break in those 2 years, he said no because al quaeda targeted their planes, so once you're there it's best to stay there instead of risking being shot down on your way out or in. I wonder why the UK media keeps it so on the down low that the US outsources it's army recruits? Uganda's army is currently active in sudan, nigeria and somalia, apparently. They've asked him to sign up but he refused, saying he's retired from the army and wouldn't go back. I wonder if it was worth the money? He said he was offered US citizenship together with his job in the US army. At the time, he didn't get this opportunity because his boss was killed in action. I asked him if, now, he wished he had taken the US citizenship. He said no. Not for a military job.
I had such a gross dinner. Tinned tuna with soy sauce. Let me tell you friends, that this is NOT a way to eat tuna! Out of desperate I added the only other sauce I had - sweet chilli - which definitely helped. Still disgusting though, not helped by the fact that I don't even like tuna. I'm out of ham and rapidly going off tinned chicken. This leaves me with tuna and mackeral..neither of which are particularly palatable! I'm already excited for the plane food. On saturday I know Im going to have a nice meal - ill be visiting Zeke and his family! Let me guess...matooke and beans?
I was still feeling 'meh' in the evening and then I read about a US embassy terror alert for Kampala in May/June so I felt even more 'meh'. So I made some tea (keep calm and make tea guys!) and went down to the bar by the pool. I got chatting with a guy who works here called Lawrence. We chatted about general stuff and he teased me about my tea. He said he likes my goings on..apparently I like a lot of tea, I like times alone, and I often pat my hair down! Well, today i was being rather isolated working on preparation for my study. And my hair..is a mess, and no amount of patting is going to sort that. He said he works with Compassion. From my church in plymouth I have heard about compassion, but I never really knew what they did. So I asked Lawrence about what compassion do and his role with them. Compassion, in Kampala, provides spiritual, emotional, physical and...2 other things..support for vulnerable children aged 6-22. Lawrence is one of the counsellors, i.e. advises the kids. I asked more about these children - how are they found? They're from the community and are identified by community workers. Vulnerable children are inevitably from the slums. I said I'd worked with children form the slums yesterday, and they had some sad stories. Lawrence said he worked at compassion because he used to be one of those kids. I was a bit..taken aback. Lawrence is a peace and quiet kind of person. I asked about life in the slums. This is the general picture. Slum dwellers don't think like those who are 'rich', that's most of the problem, which is why compassion is so important because it helps to change the kids' mentality. Lawrence said he is who he is today because of compassion. In the slums, adults are always stressed out about finding enough food for the day. They fear about how they are going to find food tomorrow. They usually spend 5 dollars a day on food for the family, often going into the forest to try and find vedgtables to cook. Because the parents are so concerned about surviving, kids get somewhat neglected and perhaps aren't treated well. Love and care might be side-tracked. Their motto in the slums is 'I live to eat' rather than 'i eat to live'. They don't live like a 'rich person might live, they just exist. They are just alive. Apparently. There is a certain mentality and peer pressure in the slums. The generic thinking of 'how can i make money the fastest' - the answer of course is crime. The children see the parents living like this, and follow their lead. Alcohol and majurana are rife - they believe these can take away their stress. But when they sobor up, they think even more about their problems than before. Lawrence mentioned slum dwellers think an awful lot. Stressful thoughts. How will we get enough food. How can we get money. He mentioned that slum dwellers have a 'lower capacity to think'..so a 'rich person' would think, i need to go to school, i need to get a job. A slum dweller might think 'i need to get money really fast, whats the fastest way'. And those kids who do go to school become influenced by peer pressure, i.e. no-one else is going to school. They end up thinking 'why the hell am i wasting my time going to school? whats the use of going to school for me?' and they drop out. There is a lot of disease among slum dwellers. Malnutrition, alcohol- and drug-induced ill health, mental stress, and so on. Lawrence said slum dwellers are the sickest people in Uganda. Lawrence asked me if i ever wished i was bill clinton or obama. I said no. He asked me if i've ever wished i was super rich so that I could change something in the world. I said yes. He said he does, and he wishes he could send a ship load of money to the kids families he works with. I asked what is the best for these children? He said..helping them to change their mentality. Because when they change their mentality, they can work to get themselves out of that situation.
Lawrence shared his story. He was one of those vulnerable children. From the age of 16 he would work to pay his way in school. He worked in various marketing jobs, then when he was 18 he took on a security job as a bodyguard and got badly beaten up and broke his arm. When he was doing this security job, for 2 years, he'd get about 3 hours sleep between his night job and school during the day. As a result, his grades really suffered. He took a job at the supermarket near here, but his boss got suspicious because he was a quiet guy who just came to work, did his job, and minded his own buisiness. She gave him grief. The manager of red chilli (my accomodation) visited the store and dropped her purse by mistake. He retruned it to her, and she offered him a job at red chilli. So he's been here for 2 months.
He said that he's currently working at red chilli whilst taking 2 courses in computer science and graphics. He said he's still continuing and not giving up because he has a 'rich friend' who told him 'now is not the time to eat Lawrence', i.e. now is a time to work hard and when you finished, then you can enjoy your life. Lawrence thinks it will be his 'time to eat' when he finished his courses and starts his own buisiness. He doesn't want to be employed by someone else. He said he is young now, but now is not the time to enjoy life. That's for later. :(
He said that when he was young, he was a proud, arrogant guy who was very angry and got into many fights. He was big (muscly) and did wrestling as a job. When compassion started working with him, he changed his mentality, he also became a christian and he became a peace and quiet kind of guy. He doesn't fight anymore, he's not an angry guy. I like him a lot - he's a gentle, thoughtful, lovely person. Lawrence said he loves to help others who are like him. He says their stories make him tear up. He's working until midnight tonight, and he has an exam at 9am tomorrow. Writing the source code for how calculators work. I asked him if he's watched source code..he hasn't. i told him he should :)
He said he can take me with him the next time he goes to work with compassion. and I can meet the kids and say 'Hello, I'm Emily!' I do want to go.
He asked me about my studies. I told him I was studying medicine and had 1 year left to go. He said he wanted to be a doctor once but gave up on that idea because he wouldn't be able to handle corpses. I told him I can't either! I felt..not guilty..but not happy about saying what I studied. He's worked so hard in his life he should have much more than he does now. And ive had it handed to me on a plate. It's not my fault at all, obviously, but the discrepency is not fair. He was gracious though..we passed over this discrepency without awkward moments. Its neither of our faults, right? Like he said..sometimes life is shit, and thats life sometimes.
I wonder why vulnerable children are angry and rebellious? And then, when they get helped out, they go through this transition of becoming peace and quiet kind of people? Sometimes even more desiring peace and quiet than people who were never vulnerable. I want to find out.
I'm thinking of Pauline. She's 5, she's not in school. I wonder if she's going to adopt the slum mentality. I wonder if she's going to get into crime, or be pushed into it. I wonder how little love and care there is in her home. She was malnourished...so her family is very poor. She hasn't even got a mother. I wonder what her mentality is. I wonder what compassion could do for her?
Well, I don't feel 'meh' anymore. I'm just sad. I think I need to have a good cry. Cry about all the ways that life can sometimes just be shit. Cry about all the ways that life can sometimes get better. Cry about all the people who are having a hard time. Cry about all the people who once had a hard time. Cry about continuing struggles, and old struggles. Cry because life is both good and bad, but somehow can still be amazing when people work at it. Perhaps to cry about how amazing people can be, even in the face of adversity. Cry that angry, hurt, vulnerable people can become peace and quiet, loving people who want to help others. So much to cry about!
Oh God. Is this what my day has come to!
Flies have invaded our life here at red chilli. They come with the rainy season, apparently. A spider dropped from the room just in front of my mug of tea. I didn't even flinch. I'm getting good at bugs.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Day 7 - orphaned and vulnerable children's project
This morning, on my usual commute into kampala central, I saw a casual young man with a bag slung over one shoulder, and an AK47 over the other, strolling through the marketplace. Thanked my lucky starts I was in a matatu.
Today I worked at the orphaned and vulnerable children's project at Kawempe Home Care.
The community health workers, or staff, identify children who are orphaned or vulnerable, and offer to put them onto the OVC programme. Vulnerable children are those who are HIV positive, have a difficult home life, are malnourished, and so on. The project runs on wednesdays from 8.30-2pm and takes children until the age of 5. They arrive and change into clean clothes, do writing, then play, have a good breakfast, play some more, have a good lunch, get washed, and then go home.
Today 6 kids turned up. Most spoke mainly Luganda, the local language, but know stock english phrases. it's easy to know what kind of home life kids have, just by looking at their behaviour. Joel was 5 years old and was going to school. He was quiet at first during the first exercise, writing. Joshua was about 3 years old, and enjoyed the activities but wasn't too interactive, i think he was a bit young for chatting. The third kid i can't remember his name, lets call him Jamie. Jamie has a good time at home I think. He was about 4, and was displaying appropriate behaviour. He was very chatty, smiling, laughing, wanting to engage with adults, not afraid to speak out. He brought Joel out of his shell. Later, when they were playing, Joel would call him 'Mum'. Then there were a brother and sister, i can't remember their names. They were reserved. The older brother was mildly developmentally delayed. Then there was Pauline. Pauline is a 5yr old girl. She came in with a sad, sad face. Her eyes were dark and haunted. We tried to engage her in the first exercise. Did she want to try and write her name? She just looked blankly at the page. It seemed to me like she had something on her mind. She wasn't concentrating. The other children were going about their writing, and she started looking worse and worse. About 15 minutes later she walked up to the staff member she knew, looking terribly sad. She showed her her elbow, it just had a little graze. So the staff member took her top off and had a look all over. There wasn't anything else to see, so she started doing writing with her. Pauline looked more relaxed, as if something was off her mind. But she doesn't attend school, and is very behind on literacy. She doesnt even know the alphabet, whereas Joel, also 5, was writing full sentences.
The staff members said Pauline's behaviour had changed suddenly. This is always a strong indication that things at home have started going badly. Apparently she used to be a bright, alert chatty girl, and now they were worried because she was very quiet.
I started working with Pauline. Unlike with Jamie or Joshua, who already are willing to go along with you and engage, the first thing to do with Pauline was to build up some kind of rapport. She was very very reserved. She didn't really speak. She looked sad. I persevered. Eventually she would repeat the alphabet after me, and after some time, practice writing some letters. All children need encouragment, and pauline probably more so. But i also sensed that she needed a kind touch. So, after each letter, id lightly put my hand on her back and say how well she was doing. Verrryy slowly, she started looking at me. Her eyes became a little brighter. Her mouth less downturned. She started tappig me to draw my attention to her letters. But still, very reserved.
Then it was playtime. Jamie got cracking, lovely little boy. He loved to engage with the adults and play with them, or show them his toys, and laugh and smile and engage Joel in games. Joel followed his lead, more quiet than Jamie. jamie was a lot of fun. He said i had a watch, but no arms. The staff said thats perhaps because my watch is black and my arms and white and they dont look like his arms. He also started talking jibberish to me after a while, which was an imitation of my accent. I found him hilarious, so did Joel! Joshua played in his own little world. And the brother and sister..kind of played in a strange manner. The sister seemed a bit removed from the rest of the kids..kind of her in own little world. She was younger though, or she looked smaller anyway. I spent some time with Jamie, encouraging him with his little speaking keyboard he'd found. We went through the animals, speaking their names and listening to their sounds. He is a funny happy kid. It was more difficult to engage Joel. Eventually I found a game he liked - throwing and catching the ball. He loved that. Joshua liked it too, so when they both started engaging in it, it was better to ask them to play together. These children, I was told, also benefit from the project because they get to engage with other children. So, when I could, I'd encourage them to play with other children instead of me. Pauline..was more difficult to engage still. She hovered on the edge of the group. With Pauline, the first thing to do was to show her that playing can be safe and fun. Does she want to play with lego? No? But look, i can show you how it can be so much fun. Does she want to play with the ball? No? But look, playing with someone else can be so much fun. Eventually we found she liked skipping. And then she wanted to play ball. And out came the smiles. She's missing her 2 front teeth. I wonder where they went, or if they are late. All the other kids had front teeth. She didn't laugh, perhaps she thought she would make too mcuch noise if she let herself laugh. But she smiled a lot, and there was finally some joy in her face. We played lego together. She wouldn't play with the other children, so I tried to bring other kids to join our lego. Joshua came over, and pauline started engaging with him. That was good.
At about 3hrs in, Pauline was so different. No longer the haunted, frozen girl who looked haunted and scared - she was reaching out for cuddles, interacting with the other children. Still not talking, or laughing, but at least smiling. She was very hungry. When the kids were given breakfast and lunch, she was always the first to finish, and the kids gave her all of their leftovers. She ate it all up quick. Poor girl. The staff tell me she used to be stunted and malnourished, but she caught up after they gave her food support. Jamie was socutest..and, i found out, ticklish. He's very sweet.
At home time, I was very interested to see who would come to collect pauline. A child who comes in looking like she does, with the behaviour she has, is not a happy bunny at home. And the sudden change in behaviour is also a warning sign. A man walked up the drive. He had a cold face, looked a bit older than someone who would have a 5 year old child. The children were all aggregated by the entrance of the room, waiting for their parents. As he approached, none of the kids started squealing with recognition for this man. I hoped so much he wasn't here for pauline. i looked at her. She was frozen, by the chair. Just looking ahead of her. There was no flicker of recognition in this man for pauline, and no movement from pauline. and yet he was heading right towadrs us, and with a heavy heart i knew he was here to cpick her up. He walked right by her without even looking at her, and pauline didn't even move. He walked past her and sat down to talk with the staff. Pauline slowly turned and put her hands on his knees. It was so sad to see her face. She looked haunted again. Deeply sad, with dark haunted eyes, and slow movements. She was looking around the room, probably trying to get the last couple of glimpses of good times. He sat for about 5 mins, then said he would go. He looked at pauline, finally, and said is she ready to go. Pauline turned and faced the door, frozen still. The staff members called out her name to say goodbye. She didn't move, didn't turn around. The staff embers called out again. Pauline? Pauline arent you going to say goodbye? My heart broke. This was probably the most diffiuclt moment in Pauline's day. Wrenching herself away from this safe and happy environment, and steeling herself for another week at home. Of course she didn't want to turn around, of course she didn't want to say goodbye. She was probably protecting herself from the deep heartache she would feel if she had. I almost couldn't bear to look, it was painfully uncomfortable. The man stood up and tapped her on the back. She took a few painful, robotic steps and silently followed him a few paces behind. By the time they reached the gate, she was about 6 paces behind.
She's a 5 year old girl and she's already not doing well. But in the right environment, she recovers to some extent. I have no idea what would be the best thing for her. She's 5 so she's already attached to her family, even if they are not nice. Should she be removed from the environment, she would surely suffer the loss of her family and perhaps wander about rejection, not being wanted and why she couldnt be with them. probably even if they are not nice to her. however, she would probably spend her life living a more comfortable and happy time. should she stay with her family, she wouldnt feel their loss but she would slowly get more and more damaged. she's very young, and has a long life to live with them before she can escape. After they all left, the staff told me that pauline's mum had abandoned her after she was born, and her father had been contacted to come and look after his daughter. The only thing I hope for is that she gets enough interaction with 'outsiders' i.e. people outside the home, to retsore to her some of the things the home life takes away. That she hasn't got to be so quiet, that people value her words, her person. And so on. On my walk home I wondered what little house she was in. I wondered what she was up to. What doorway she might be sitting in. What corner she might be sitting in? What sad things she might experience that make her sad little face even sadder.
all the children are HIV positive. The brother, from the brother and sister duo, had such a chesty cough i didnt need to a steth to hear it bubbling away. I wasnt surprised to hear that he had had TB. If he was england, he's probably be in hospital overnight on antibiotics.
Kawempe provides the children with food support or shoes or clothes if they need it. im sure they do more but this is all we spoke about today. The pencils they used for colouring in needed sharpening, but they had nothing but knives to sharpen them. The work they do with these children is so important. I want to learn more about child protection issues. i dont even know what the protocols are in the UK. Perhaps some parents want to learn to be better. perhaps some dont want to learn. perhaps some cant learn. what's best for the child in each situation? I don't think poverty causes mistreatment. I think it's a choice.
Lunch was a very yummy mootoke and fish from the nearby fish factory. Mootoke is steamed or boiled bananas, seasoned with salt and it came with a really yummy fish sauce. It was super nice actually, even though 5 years ago i hated it. although then it had been served with mashed ground nut, which was unpalatable. the children ate on the floor, without utensils. there was a dirty mattress in the corner which the young girl had a nap on after she fell asleep at the table, colouring in! but i think this is normal for them. the children knew how to eat with their hands, it didnt look new for them. pauline managed her plate and a plate of leftovers! thats more than my meal, and i was full!
Although Uganda is beautiful and I love doing touristy things, the things I really value doing are things like volunteering with these projects. The rest of the stuff is pleasant, but empty in comparison.
The Dr asked me if I wanted to work in the clinic. I said I wasnt allowed, which im not as im not insured for a medical placement, only research. In any case, i havent done medicine in nearly 10months and im sure id be fairly useless.
The mother who died on monday when i was in had arrived very unwell and directed to mulago hospital immediately. she died minutes after being admitted. she leaves a young daughter behind, who attends the OVC project. she had taken herself to kawempe that monday morning. I wonder why she didnt come earlier? we've learnt about 1st, 2nd and 3rd delays..which are a structured way of identifying delays to medical assistance. It sounds like it was a first delay.
I found out that Kawempe is one of the 5 subdistricts in Kampala, and home to Bwaise slums, consisting of poor or very poor communities afflicted by what i'm going to call the grouped side effects of poverty, to save myself going through the sad list. Kawempe Home Care has a page on its education programme for children most in need..where we can sponsor children. You know it only costs less than 200 pounds/year to sponsor a kid through primary school? So cheap. I could spend that much on a day's worth of shopping. Education is a door-opener isn't it. It also empowers. I'm a big fan.
I used to struggle with these things. Not accepting that its OK that unfortunate things happen, as if we should prevent everything and if we dont then its not acceptable. But a while ago i spoke to some people about this, and what their perspective was. Im glad i worked on it, because it helps now. Its essentially, shit happens and life is unfair, and it happens. Not easy, but i suppose, reality. its better to be able to accept reality than to be disturbed by it.
On the way home, i saw 2 children pushing a third down a red earthly slope in a rusty wheelbarrow, laughing.
Children call me muzungo. Muzungo means 'white person'. It encorporates anyone from europe and america apparently! My ugandan friend told me. He asked me what europeans call people like him. I said ugandan. He said but if they call us muzungos then we must have a similar name for them. I said no, we just say ugandan. if we need to discern between two people who have the same name then we can use descriptive factors like white or black. but aside from that its just ugandan. He didnt believe me. I wasn't about to explain this history to him and so i left it. i said it would be nice to be called an english person instead of muzungo :)
Tomorrow im going to mpanga forest reserve for some walking trails and tree-spotting..apparently it also has clouds of butterflies.
Today I worked at the orphaned and vulnerable children's project at Kawempe Home Care.
The community health workers, or staff, identify children who are orphaned or vulnerable, and offer to put them onto the OVC programme. Vulnerable children are those who are HIV positive, have a difficult home life, are malnourished, and so on. The project runs on wednesdays from 8.30-2pm and takes children until the age of 5. They arrive and change into clean clothes, do writing, then play, have a good breakfast, play some more, have a good lunch, get washed, and then go home.
Today 6 kids turned up. Most spoke mainly Luganda, the local language, but know stock english phrases. it's easy to know what kind of home life kids have, just by looking at their behaviour. Joel was 5 years old and was going to school. He was quiet at first during the first exercise, writing. Joshua was about 3 years old, and enjoyed the activities but wasn't too interactive, i think he was a bit young for chatting. The third kid i can't remember his name, lets call him Jamie. Jamie has a good time at home I think. He was about 4, and was displaying appropriate behaviour. He was very chatty, smiling, laughing, wanting to engage with adults, not afraid to speak out. He brought Joel out of his shell. Later, when they were playing, Joel would call him 'Mum'. Then there were a brother and sister, i can't remember their names. They were reserved. The older brother was mildly developmentally delayed. Then there was Pauline. Pauline is a 5yr old girl. She came in with a sad, sad face. Her eyes were dark and haunted. We tried to engage her in the first exercise. Did she want to try and write her name? She just looked blankly at the page. It seemed to me like she had something on her mind. She wasn't concentrating. The other children were going about their writing, and she started looking worse and worse. About 15 minutes later she walked up to the staff member she knew, looking terribly sad. She showed her her elbow, it just had a little graze. So the staff member took her top off and had a look all over. There wasn't anything else to see, so she started doing writing with her. Pauline looked more relaxed, as if something was off her mind. But she doesn't attend school, and is very behind on literacy. She doesnt even know the alphabet, whereas Joel, also 5, was writing full sentences.
The staff members said Pauline's behaviour had changed suddenly. This is always a strong indication that things at home have started going badly. Apparently she used to be a bright, alert chatty girl, and now they were worried because she was very quiet.
I started working with Pauline. Unlike with Jamie or Joshua, who already are willing to go along with you and engage, the first thing to do with Pauline was to build up some kind of rapport. She was very very reserved. She didn't really speak. She looked sad. I persevered. Eventually she would repeat the alphabet after me, and after some time, practice writing some letters. All children need encouragment, and pauline probably more so. But i also sensed that she needed a kind touch. So, after each letter, id lightly put my hand on her back and say how well she was doing. Verrryy slowly, she started looking at me. Her eyes became a little brighter. Her mouth less downturned. She started tappig me to draw my attention to her letters. But still, very reserved.
Then it was playtime. Jamie got cracking, lovely little boy. He loved to engage with the adults and play with them, or show them his toys, and laugh and smile and engage Joel in games. Joel followed his lead, more quiet than Jamie. jamie was a lot of fun. He said i had a watch, but no arms. The staff said thats perhaps because my watch is black and my arms and white and they dont look like his arms. He also started talking jibberish to me after a while, which was an imitation of my accent. I found him hilarious, so did Joel! Joshua played in his own little world. And the brother and sister..kind of played in a strange manner. The sister seemed a bit removed from the rest of the kids..kind of her in own little world. She was younger though, or she looked smaller anyway. I spent some time with Jamie, encouraging him with his little speaking keyboard he'd found. We went through the animals, speaking their names and listening to their sounds. He is a funny happy kid. It was more difficult to engage Joel. Eventually I found a game he liked - throwing and catching the ball. He loved that. Joshua liked it too, so when they both started engaging in it, it was better to ask them to play together. These children, I was told, also benefit from the project because they get to engage with other children. So, when I could, I'd encourage them to play with other children instead of me. Pauline..was more difficult to engage still. She hovered on the edge of the group. With Pauline, the first thing to do was to show her that playing can be safe and fun. Does she want to play with lego? No? But look, i can show you how it can be so much fun. Does she want to play with the ball? No? But look, playing with someone else can be so much fun. Eventually we found she liked skipping. And then she wanted to play ball. And out came the smiles. She's missing her 2 front teeth. I wonder where they went, or if they are late. All the other kids had front teeth. She didn't laugh, perhaps she thought she would make too mcuch noise if she let herself laugh. But she smiled a lot, and there was finally some joy in her face. We played lego together. She wouldn't play with the other children, so I tried to bring other kids to join our lego. Joshua came over, and pauline started engaging with him. That was good.
At about 3hrs in, Pauline was so different. No longer the haunted, frozen girl who looked haunted and scared - she was reaching out for cuddles, interacting with the other children. Still not talking, or laughing, but at least smiling. She was very hungry. When the kids were given breakfast and lunch, she was always the first to finish, and the kids gave her all of their leftovers. She ate it all up quick. Poor girl. The staff tell me she used to be stunted and malnourished, but she caught up after they gave her food support. Jamie was socutest..and, i found out, ticklish. He's very sweet.
At home time, I was very interested to see who would come to collect pauline. A child who comes in looking like she does, with the behaviour she has, is not a happy bunny at home. And the sudden change in behaviour is also a warning sign. A man walked up the drive. He had a cold face, looked a bit older than someone who would have a 5 year old child. The children were all aggregated by the entrance of the room, waiting for their parents. As he approached, none of the kids started squealing with recognition for this man. I hoped so much he wasn't here for pauline. i looked at her. She was frozen, by the chair. Just looking ahead of her. There was no flicker of recognition in this man for pauline, and no movement from pauline. and yet he was heading right towadrs us, and with a heavy heart i knew he was here to cpick her up. He walked right by her without even looking at her, and pauline didn't even move. He walked past her and sat down to talk with the staff. Pauline slowly turned and put her hands on his knees. It was so sad to see her face. She looked haunted again. Deeply sad, with dark haunted eyes, and slow movements. She was looking around the room, probably trying to get the last couple of glimpses of good times. He sat for about 5 mins, then said he would go. He looked at pauline, finally, and said is she ready to go. Pauline turned and faced the door, frozen still. The staff members called out her name to say goodbye. She didn't move, didn't turn around. The staff embers called out again. Pauline? Pauline arent you going to say goodbye? My heart broke. This was probably the most diffiuclt moment in Pauline's day. Wrenching herself away from this safe and happy environment, and steeling herself for another week at home. Of course she didn't want to turn around, of course she didn't want to say goodbye. She was probably protecting herself from the deep heartache she would feel if she had. I almost couldn't bear to look, it was painfully uncomfortable. The man stood up and tapped her on the back. She took a few painful, robotic steps and silently followed him a few paces behind. By the time they reached the gate, she was about 6 paces behind.
She's a 5 year old girl and she's already not doing well. But in the right environment, she recovers to some extent. I have no idea what would be the best thing for her. She's 5 so she's already attached to her family, even if they are not nice. Should she be removed from the environment, she would surely suffer the loss of her family and perhaps wander about rejection, not being wanted and why she couldnt be with them. probably even if they are not nice to her. however, she would probably spend her life living a more comfortable and happy time. should she stay with her family, she wouldnt feel their loss but she would slowly get more and more damaged. she's very young, and has a long life to live with them before she can escape. After they all left, the staff told me that pauline's mum had abandoned her after she was born, and her father had been contacted to come and look after his daughter. The only thing I hope for is that she gets enough interaction with 'outsiders' i.e. people outside the home, to retsore to her some of the things the home life takes away. That she hasn't got to be so quiet, that people value her words, her person. And so on. On my walk home I wondered what little house she was in. I wondered what she was up to. What doorway she might be sitting in. What corner she might be sitting in? What sad things she might experience that make her sad little face even sadder.
all the children are HIV positive. The brother, from the brother and sister duo, had such a chesty cough i didnt need to a steth to hear it bubbling away. I wasnt surprised to hear that he had had TB. If he was england, he's probably be in hospital overnight on antibiotics.
Kawempe provides the children with food support or shoes or clothes if they need it. im sure they do more but this is all we spoke about today. The pencils they used for colouring in needed sharpening, but they had nothing but knives to sharpen them. The work they do with these children is so important. I want to learn more about child protection issues. i dont even know what the protocols are in the UK. Perhaps some parents want to learn to be better. perhaps some dont want to learn. perhaps some cant learn. what's best for the child in each situation? I don't think poverty causes mistreatment. I think it's a choice.
Lunch was a very yummy mootoke and fish from the nearby fish factory. Mootoke is steamed or boiled bananas, seasoned with salt and it came with a really yummy fish sauce. It was super nice actually, even though 5 years ago i hated it. although then it had been served with mashed ground nut, which was unpalatable. the children ate on the floor, without utensils. there was a dirty mattress in the corner which the young girl had a nap on after she fell asleep at the table, colouring in! but i think this is normal for them. the children knew how to eat with their hands, it didnt look new for them. pauline managed her plate and a plate of leftovers! thats more than my meal, and i was full!
Although Uganda is beautiful and I love doing touristy things, the things I really value doing are things like volunteering with these projects. The rest of the stuff is pleasant, but empty in comparison.
The Dr asked me if I wanted to work in the clinic. I said I wasnt allowed, which im not as im not insured for a medical placement, only research. In any case, i havent done medicine in nearly 10months and im sure id be fairly useless.
The mother who died on monday when i was in had arrived very unwell and directed to mulago hospital immediately. she died minutes after being admitted. she leaves a young daughter behind, who attends the OVC project. she had taken herself to kawempe that monday morning. I wonder why she didnt come earlier? we've learnt about 1st, 2nd and 3rd delays..which are a structured way of identifying delays to medical assistance. It sounds like it was a first delay.
I found out that Kawempe is one of the 5 subdistricts in Kampala, and home to Bwaise slums, consisting of poor or very poor communities afflicted by what i'm going to call the grouped side effects of poverty, to save myself going through the sad list. Kawempe Home Care has a page on its education programme for children most in need..where we can sponsor children. You know it only costs less than 200 pounds/year to sponsor a kid through primary school? So cheap. I could spend that much on a day's worth of shopping. Education is a door-opener isn't it. It also empowers. I'm a big fan.
I used to struggle with these things. Not accepting that its OK that unfortunate things happen, as if we should prevent everything and if we dont then its not acceptable. But a while ago i spoke to some people about this, and what their perspective was. Im glad i worked on it, because it helps now. Its essentially, shit happens and life is unfair, and it happens. Not easy, but i suppose, reality. its better to be able to accept reality than to be disturbed by it.
On the way home, i saw 2 children pushing a third down a red earthly slope in a rusty wheelbarrow, laughing.
Children call me muzungo. Muzungo means 'white person'. It encorporates anyone from europe and america apparently! My ugandan friend told me. He asked me what europeans call people like him. I said ugandan. He said but if they call us muzungos then we must have a similar name for them. I said no, we just say ugandan. if we need to discern between two people who have the same name then we can use descriptive factors like white or black. but aside from that its just ugandan. He didnt believe me. I wasn't about to explain this history to him and so i left it. i said it would be nice to be called an english person instead of muzungo :)
Tomorrow im going to mpanga forest reserve for some walking trails and tree-spotting..apparently it also has clouds of butterflies.
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