A typical day

Just to give you an idea of what we are doing, here is what we did on Tuesday.

We had warm showers (Joseph fills the bucket with warm water - we have no running water), breakfast (eggs, toast and coffee) and head over to the hospital.

They start every morning with songs. It's a beautiful and calming way to start the day. The entire staff sits on 2 benches and after the singing listen to announcements and prayers. Then, the day starts.

We got a tour around the hospital from Vicky - wait until I have more time - they have thought of everything. This is such a community...it's wonderful.

Sheila and I went to an outreach clinic in Buyoma (I think?) and spent the day with Patrick and Julius, two Ugandans who run this clinic that caters to that area which also includes the Batwa Pygmies.

Patrick took us around and explained everything. The building was originally a school building.They did build a new school just a couple minutes walk down the ridge.

They see patients from 8 to 5 and they see a variety of illnesses - malnutrition, hiv, diarrhoea, and malaria and some TB. Patrick had great stats on his work since they opened in June. When he is unable to help the patient - he then gives them a referral to head down to Bwindi. He told us that he end up delivering a baby in June as the mother wasn't able to head down in time. A big obstacle is transportation - it took us an hour on a bad road (looks like a river bed) with a great driver to get us there.

Painted on the exterior walls of the Health Centre are educational information for the patients"

• there is a man with an enormous hut on his back that is filled with different rooms: food, a mother and baby, 2 more children, 2 more children and then again 2 more children - some are shown with illnesses) and the man has lots of sweat coming off his face. the burden of life. And the words below say something like " a man with a small family is a wealthy man".
• there is a painting of how to properly use an ITN (Insect Treated Net)/ bed net.
• there are the food groups split us - especially showing what foods have protein.
• and a family sitting together getting HIV testing.

All very powerful images!

Patrick also took us down onto the hillside where we got to meet some Batwa people. There homes are very simple - mud with thatch roofs and some of them of them have galvinized roofs to protect them from the torrential rains.

Gotta go for lunch - hope to post more later!