HIV family day
Today the clinic had the HIV family day, which is reserved for cases of sero-positive parents with their (mostly co-infected) offspring.
I guess that only imagining it is already terrible enough but the reality is worse as most of these “families” consist of 14-17 year old girls with babies in their arms and/or uteruses.
Its so incredible frustrating!
Their stories are almost always the same:
Coming out of very poor circumstances they get in contact with old men.
Seemingly rich the men start handing out presents, some money or a cell phone.
Then they want the favor getting paid back… without condom.
I know its not right, but today I really had the feeling that a big part of this population consists of pedophile bastards. In every street you can see posters against
cross-generational-intercourse, in my eyes a tasteless euphemism for sex with children.
The second time of me getting sick was after lunch as I was invited to assist some surgeries. The first one was a lymph node biopsy in a 12 year old boy.
Staying in the airless OR with the bad impressions of the morning, seeing this kid moving (under mild Ketamin anesthesia) while we were cutting around on his heavy bleeding neck was too much for me to take. As I felt that I would faint soon I had to leave the OR and sit down for a while, digesting all those impressions.
I wasn’t too much ashamed of it as I know this reaction of mine already from Ghana.
Somehow I am quite sensitive to seeing the operations on black skin.
With white people its all somehow better differentiated and appears less alive.
But blood on black skin has such a vivid appearance that I always need some time to get used to it. After a week in the Ghanaian OR I was fine and I guess that if I would have the chance of assisting more operations here I would get along with it as well.
…so lets see what waits for me in Rwanda
At the end something nice:
Yesterday evening me and my 3 “students” sat down to go on with the first aid course.
The topics were the blood, the immune system and infections.
I was afraid that it might be too much for these 14 years old kids, but they were so eager to learn that they somehow managed to really understand!
As the topic came to HIV we also started to talk about sexuality and the reproductive organs. I explained them that this area might be a bit dangerous for me to talk about with them as it could upset some other people here. So I gave them the opportunity to tell what they learned about it in school so far and used this as a guide line.
They actually knew already quite a lot about it!
The main focus I laid on making them understand the importance of prevention and self protection.
This weekend they will learn some practical things about wound treatment so I try to get the necessary stuff now.
After the clinic I spend searching in Kampala for a pharmacy selling gentian violet in aqueous solution. Everywhere they have it only as a ethanol mix which is terrible burning on wounds. Finally I found a chemical supplier who will prepare for me a liter of the watery solution till tomorrow – for a price that if far under the one made by all those pharmacies selling only 20ml bottles of the burning variant.
Tomorrow is my last day in Mulago – sad on the one hand but on the other I am really looking forwards to my trip!
good night everyone
Basi
start of the health care program
Sula blundi everyone,
This morning in the clinic I met (besides the patients) some people willing to contribute to the health-program.
A pediatrician wrote a list of drugs that will be of use in the home and a healthcare worker will help me with educating the caregivers about drug distribution. A special emphasis will be laid on the ART treatment. We have already 3 HIV positive kids and as the project grows there will be more. The PDIC (ped. HIV ward in Mulago) offers educational programs for this purpose.
In the afternoon four very friendly medical students from England came over to help me getting started. After some rearrangements the boy’s dorm served us as a nice examination room.
Firstly we set up a file for every child, writing down basic information like the temperature, weight, height, pulse rate… Secondly we used the opportunity to give everyone a load of mebendazole to get them free of any helmitic infection.
As the day of my journey comes close I will intensify my work in the orphanage now, keeping you up to date as always ☺
musungu problems
Damn… after eating for 2 weeks at the orphanage the same food as everybody else I went to a restaurant at the weekend and cought some GIT trubble maker – nothing severe but I went home from the clinic early and spend my time in bed today, drinking rehydration solution (bahh…) and feasting bananas (whenever possible I use them instead of Loperamide – keeping it real 
In the afternoon I got up again and went to a backpackers hostel to collect some information for my trip -
Even though there wasnt too much of knowledge they have a awesome broadband WIFI connection, so here is a bunch of photos I collected over the time,
enjoy
(as many people start to check out these photos I have to declare officially that all those pictures are mine and no one is allowed to use them – in any other form then looking at them here – unless with my written permission)
weekend
Howdy,
Hopefully all of you had a nice weekend and you enjoyed your time!
I spend the time organizing, planing and thinking about my trip.
Starting from next Sunday I will be off to southwest Uganda.
My first stage is Kabale and I will take around a week there to relax at a wonderful lake, visit the nationalparks and get some holidays after all.
Then I am off to Rwanda.
During the last week I met a german war photographer working on a documentation about the fight against HIV in Africa. We spend the saturday afternoon takling about his experiences (Rwanda 94, traveling with mercenerys in Angola & DR Congo, living and traveling in Afrika) and my plans.
He was very affirmative towards my trip and gave me very important advice.
His name is WInfried Bauer and I am looking forwards too meet him again – somewhere on this beautiful continent. (not to say that I am very excited of getting known to the contacts he makes while making his new movie
This afternoon the home gave a farewellparty for Karijn, a duch volunbteer working here in the last month.
It was very beautifull and I got some amazing pictures of the kids doing all sorts of shows and dancing.
As the net sucks like ever you will have to see most of those after my return (and there will be enough oportunities on the various planned parties
I wish all of you a nice sunday evening, I will enjoy mine in a nearby hotel where they will give a show of traditional dances.
Basi
life goes on
Hi you all,
as we are without electricity since the last 4 days in the home I sit now in the clinic, appreciating very much their sable and fast internet… means new photos
My work here in the hospital is very interesting and I am learning a lot.
Besides the PedHIV stationI started to join the rounds in the other wards. Yesterday I saw the pediatric general ward, the ped-cancer station (all textbook cases, terrible and fascinating at the same time…) and the malnutrition ward.
I am not sure what effect all those things I see here should have on me, so far I could keep quite a distance.
Anyways there is probably no one who understands what all those kids are going through.
Its kind of surreal to discuss with a 12 year old on failing ART and chemotherapy for advanced Kaposi sarcoma her chances on second line ART… she was so incredible mature.
Everything I write here about my experiences in the clinic is such a poor discription that I almost feel like leaving that part out of the blog; so lets change topic to the orphanage.
Its going great!
Yesterday I bought mosquitonets for all of the beds. (the first time I bought only one to check if everything fits) Luckily I found out that the man selling them to me was heavily overpricing! …its not easy for a white man (musungo!) to get a fair trade in this city.
I also bought the rest of the diagnostic equipment for the home. In the following days I will have to finish the forms to use for the kids checkup.
On monday I invited 2 medstudents from england to the home. They will help me to set up a chart for every kid so that visiting doctors will have a proper history for all of them.
Now I have to hurry for lunch, from 3 there will be a case discussion and after that I will meet with the WhiteFathers here in Kampala.
I wish you all the best and send greetings from all 25 children
Basi
my first day in the clinic…
…kind of sucked
Instead of saving little lives I was filling out form A, carried it to point C,
forgot B, had to wait for it an hour just to find out that they would need some papers (shall I bring them? …no, we wont need them…) so back home, returning to the clinic…
Well, the only cool thing was that while waiting I had the possibility of making myself familiar with the place. Its a pretty huge hospital!
Most of the time though I was sitting together with the patients in the waiting area.
Its amazing how well organized this sheer mass of people is handled! (somehow it reminded me of the bus station)
Once in a while a nurse stood in the middle of the room and cave a class about nutrition and the ART treatment; nice idea of using having all those people together!
I used the time to read on about HIV care and having chats with the parents.
I also spoke to a monk running a project in the slums of Kampala, I will visit him in the next days.
At five I was finally finished, tired but happy that I can come back the next day at 07.30.
I took the bus to the city where I tried to upload some photos, but no chance!
Thank you all for reading on even without getting new pictures, I promise I do what I can to put them up.
My next aim was to get mosquito nets for the orphanage.
Even though in the west we hear a lot about “free net actions” all I found for Uganda is articles saying that free nets are a waist of money… well, for that I collected donations.
After some asking around I found a Indian health supplier selling suitable nets for 3 story beds. (Hochbetten… und dieses verfluchte Leo laed nicht… egal) The one I bought proved to work perfectly and I will get the other 7 nets tomorrow.
In the clinic I had the chance of talking to one of the pediatricians about the 3 cases we have here at the home. He agreed on seeing them at the next chance.
But I also realized that putting this information here open for everyone in the net is not exactly ethical. Especially because photos would be needed and I wont have the time to black the faces out. So for now I considered that its best to talk with the local doctors for medical questions and keep information about patients out of here. Anyways I shouldn’t start to diagnose in my current state of education…
Ruth is facing problems with her work as they want to send her to the northern regions of Uganda. Great thing with having an orphanage to care about in the south…
Anyways its creasy what this woman does. She is really using all her loan to keep the project going. In addition she bought the new land with a credit (around 6000$) and with loosing her job she wouldn’t be able to pay it back (not to mention the interest)
(by the way, anyone who wonders about how much sense it made that she bought this piece of jungle: she really knows what she is doing! Prices for land are rising constantly in Uganda, hers is already worth more than she paid including the interest.
I had a long talk with her yesterday night about that)
My plan is to start fundraising with parties and concerts as soon as I am back in Europe, probably going back to Pecs first
The last thing for today was calling Janvier, my contact at the university of Rwanda.
I made quite a nice plan for this journey, but more about this in time.
So far so good,
Tomorrow I have to raise at six so that’s it for today
Good night and till soon
Basi
driving by
Good evening everyone,
Wow.. where shall I start?
Every day is literally a bombardment of impressions!
First of all I learned today how to drive on the commonwealth spoiled left side,
for the easy beginning in the undercrowed capital Kampala J
First to the church (whereby I have to say that the “newborn Christian” party mass isn’t exactly my thing…) than deep into the bush.
Here we checked out the ground Ruth bought as the place for the new orphanage and clinic.
If you check the coordinates: N0˚23’06.55” E32˚27’10.77” 1151
you will notice that this is indeed jungle!
So much jungle that I really couldn’t see how we could ever possibly use it.
But well, after speaking with an engineer/architect about the project he convinced me that cutting the vegetation, leveling the ground (and it is a hill!) and bringing electricity is possible…
Anyways, with building up a clinic those problems are probably the easiest ones,
and its not like we wouldn’t have enough time J
On Tuesday I will go with him to the grounds again, take some pictures and start making a plan.
Tomorrow I will have to get up early for my first day of working in the clinic,
so I say good night now.
As I use my dream reserve mostly during the day I will have a quiet sleep J
Good evening world,
After my introduction into the clinic yesterday I can start there on Monday. It’s a pediatric HIV outpatient center and I will focus on the diagnosis of the different AIDS stages and drug management. Its called the Baylor College Of Medicine – Children’s Foundation Uganda, and is a Center of Excellence in the care and treatment of children infected with HIV.
My first task after leaving the clinic was to buy a white coat… the doctors told me that this would be impossible for a tourist in Kampala; 2 hours later I was invited from the seamstresses to have lunch with them while waiting for my name getting tagged onto my new coat
(I will have to write here a extra entry about Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Its still far too overwhelming for me to get it, and there are some great photos to make. Alone the so called “New Taxi Park” is a story on its own…)
Today (Saturday) I started the class for the first aid course. My students are Peter (m, 14), Matow (m, 11) and Allen (f, 12) and our first topic were the bones, joints and muscles. They were very keen on learning and I had to go on telling them about the heart and the vascular system. After almost 3 hours I was quite tired but they would have liked to go on the whole day. In the following days we will discuss the whole body including the immune system. After that they will learn about hygienics, infections and first aid. Practical sessions will be held during the theory when suitable and whenever there is an incidence in the home.
In the evening Ruth came back from a course she took in Kampala during this week. It was the first time we had time to sit down together and speak about all the things that we plan. I won’t write too much about it now, for now its enough to know that the place the orphanage resides in now is rented and that they want to move out. Ruth bought land in another town (Wakiso) and the plan is to build a new orphanage and a health center for children there.
Right now we are here: N0˚21’52.67” E32˚31’48.09” 840
(it would be very nice if anyone could make a GoogleEarth tag for that) Currently 22 children are living here (8m/14f) aged between 1 and 14.
4 helpers are employed, they get paid whenever possible.
The monthly costs of maintenance are 1300$, paid by Ruth’s income and loans. Donations are coming in some times but not on a regular basis.(Governmental founding would require bribes that Ruth could never pay…)
The boy with malaria is currently fine. (actually its Matow, one of my students) I examined 3 more infants (between 1 and 3 years) and I will describe their cases tomorrow. If anyone knows a pediatrician please encourage him to read the cases and help me with it!
Good night everyone
Basi
early birds
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Good morning everyone!
As laughing, screaming and the rest of noises a bunch of kids produce in the morning woke me up early this morning I used the chance to take the first pictures. Enjoy J
…and in a few hours my first rotations will start, yeah!
(click on topic to view pics)
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