Raising for Another Hope

Hi everybody and welcome to Uganda!

There are many reasons why you could have stumbled upon this page and some of you probably know already all about me.  But as I hope for all kind of people to read this, I will start with a short introduction of who I am and what I do -
sitting right now under a mosquito net here in Nansana, a small town next to Kampala – the capital of Uganda.

My name is Sebastian Hesse, but most people refer to me as Basi.
I was born in 1984 in Ulm, Germany.
As life goes I experienced the ups and down of childhood, youth and adolescence but the details are not of too much importance here.
What matters is that as I left school I knew that I want to dedicate my life to the struggle of helping Africa.

A month before starting medschool I visited Dr. David Abdulai in Tamale, Ghana.
Clinical wise there wasn’t much to learn for me as I didn’t have too much of a medical background. But this stay confirmed me in my decision that my future will happen on the black continent.

After 3 years of university this is now my second visit to Africa.
Over the Internet I came in contact with Ruth Nambowa, executive director of the orphanage “another hope”.
Aware of my still limited medical knowledge I spend a lot of time thinking about my possibilities how to help those children.
First of all there is always the need of money, so I set up a charity party in Pécs, a marvelous city in the south of Hungary and the place where I went to medschool. Some of you reading this probably attended the party and I want to thank you again for the generosity you showed, donating more than 2000$ that night!
I will write in the next days what we will do with the money.

First of all I will have to spend some time living here before I get an idea of what could be useful – but ideas are coming up J

There are 2 boys – Peter and Matow -  who want to become doctors one day.
They are 14 and already drew some pictures about organs that I couldn’t have done before anatomy!
The next days I will teach them about the human body and some basics about medicine. Back in Germany I wrote down a program for a first aid course for kids. I think those boys are going to be the first participants.

Tomorrow will be my first day in the hospital.
I am really looking forwards to start with some clinical practice!

Here in the orphanage there was already a sick boy when I arrived.
(I will see if I can set up an extra section here with case reports)
Every symptom of him suggests an acute malaria attack:
Fever, headache, splenomegaly and weakness.
He got better today but we will have to see in how many days the fever comes back. Hopefully I will find a possibility to diagnose his blood in the next days – and start him on treatment then.

As our electricity goes on and off without control working with the computer is kind of tiring.
Please excuse that I don’t put on photos and more text right now,
but this blog is in progress and I will try to improve it day by day.

So much for now,
have a good night and please don’t hesitate to suggest me what you are interested in about the place and the project – but give me some time to react

With the best wishes to wherever you are

Basi