Raising for Another Hope

Yoy everybody,
A few days ago I arrived in Kampala, quite happy to be back in my beloved Uganda. The weekend I enjoyed the city’s nightclubs, introducing the one and only DIRTY SANCHEZ to East Africa ☺

Ruth and all the children say thank you too all the donors that helped us to overcome the crisis, thanks to your generosity we were able to collect 601 Euro, enough to buy food for the next 5 month!
I really appreciate your trust in me. Some people told me that there are many sites out there in the net, claiming to collect donations for some good cause while in reality there is no one benefiting from it but themselves.
Be assured that your 100% of your donations go directly to the kids.
I will try to set up a follow up system for the money with Ruth but hopefully you will understand that this will take us some time.
In any case me and Ruth are always available for your questions!

As I had no internet connection back in Rwanda I will put on now some of the photos from the last week, enjoy ☺

(sorry, somehow the conection lags terrible right now, I will uplod the pictures later- sorry for the inconvenience)

As we have no electricity in the orphanage my rhythm gets quite adjusted to the natural one. At 7pm the sun is down and this means total darkness here;
most nights we have clouds so there isn’t even the moon to shine.
After some reading (the Zanzibar chest, I highly recommend it!) with a petroleum lamp I go to sleep around 9. Together with the healthy food and swimming in the lake everyday its really giving my soul and body some rest; I enjoy it very much!
The kids rise with dawn at 5.30 and this is mostly the time I wake up as well.
Then I check some medical cases in my books, have breakfast and take the half hour walk to the clinic to arrive there at 8 am.
At first there is a one-hour staff meeting and then we start our rounds.
I work together with a young Doctor who is quite eager to teach me all about tropical medicine and at the end of the day I have a list of things to check for the next morning.
I cover the pediatric and internal medicine ward till noon and assist deliveries or operations after lunch. (if possible cesarean sections as I got somehow hooked on them)

right now I got the information that there are 2 babies waiting to get cut out so I better scrub in ☺
See you soon
Basi

..might be a giant leap for an Rwandan orphanage

Dear friends,
Thursday noon I received the ok from the orphanage to come and took the next bus to Kibuye. After 4 hours by bus it took another one-hour ride by motorbike along the shores of lake Kivu till I arrived at the “les esperance” orphanage.

This part of Rwanda (southwest) is very influenced by the 7th day Adventists, a Christian society that developed from the Protestants. They live according to rules that are a Jewish-Christian mix (no alcohol, no meat, Saturday is Sabbath, praise Jesus) and do most of the humanitarian aid-work in this region. If you have red “WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES” you know the region; it is the Mugenero hospital (described in the first chapters) were I will work during the next weeks.
(I don’t know if I should recommend the book as it is pure violence and horror; describing real stories of Rwanda in ‘94)

The orphanage’s director, Victor- from Guatemala by origin, spent several years living in Germany. Running “les esperance” since almost 3 years now, his plan is to make it self sufficient within the next six. Caring for 101 children, it is mostly important for him to become independent from foreign donations, as they hardly offer a sustainable income.
Provided with a lot of land he wants to start exporting dried fruits, serving a good running marked in the western world. Situated in one of the most beautiful landscapes I ever saw, his second project is building a hotel at the lake’s beach.
This is a perfect example of how important it is for one to realize and use the potential of the given situation in Africa. This man is quite special in the way he thinks and acts and I am very happy to have the chance to learn at this place.

A second unique circumstance at “les esperance” is the cooperation with EWB (engineers without borders). Since 6 years they regularly visit the place, constructing and enhancing their inventions to make a living at a place without electricity and running water. During my stay the group from the NASA was around, currently working on facilities to dry fruit.
It was very inspiring to discuss with those guys the technical solutions for the problems we will face in Uganda and they were all willing to help our project.
One of the first things will be to build their water purification system.
It would be too big and powerful for “Another Hope” right now (providing a maximum of 5000 liters of clean water daily), but it will be a fine solution for the place to build. I also made contact with a Rwandan engineer (“one of best you can get in Africa” according to NASA sources studying in Uganda who was eager to visit our place and help with the construction.
Besides the awesome technology, the cooperation with Huston brings such nice circumstances as the recorded CD from the orphanage spinning around the earth in the ISS with the team of international astronauts dancing to it.

Wow, what a day!
For the first time in my life I was allowed to be part in the wonder of birth.
It is simply amazing to see a very small but very real human coming freshly into this world.
My approach of simply taking the chance and going to the Rwinkanwavu Clinic of Partners in Health found different kinds of approval.
On the one hand there is the Rwandan staff who welcomed me exceptionally friendly. Especially Dr. Blaise, who invited me not only to work with him but also to live with him in his house was a pure pleasure to meet!
On the other hand there was the American staff that was quite critically about my arrival. Somehow they couldn’t handle the idea of someone just coming to learn. They considered it highly offensive that I didn’t go through the “normal” ways of applying through their headquarter in Boston.
(Well… its not like I never wrote to them, I just never received an answer before actually coming here)
Even though the chief of medical staff (a Rwandan) allowed me to stay and work in the clinic, I was told this afternoon that they (the Americans) don’t want to see me around any more.
Of course I understand their worries about patient care and that’s actually the point I appreciate most about the work of Partners in Health.
I respect their wish to keep things in the right order and not to let potentially dangerous and harmful influence enter their system.
Any organization has to fight a lot of problems, especially when working here in Africa. Partners in Health is really doing an excellent job with providing health care in the developing world and that was my reason why I wanted to see it with my own eyes. Their organization has become quite big and famous nowadays and they probably tons of requests from people with the desire to work with them. Of course they cant just invite anybody, but common – we are here right in the middle of Africa! Its not like anyone would travel to the far out eastern region of Rwanda. As I was told this is the bloody first time that someone really comes here! For gods sake, when we really want to help those people living here we should work together and appreciate everyone’s willingness to contribute.
And its not like I would need anyone’s care or time. I came here on my own, have my own accommodation and get along perfectly with the local staff.
I have found very nice doctors who would really like to work with me and I wouldn’t disturb any American with anything but the fact that I didn’t take the official way. I didn’t even eat with the Musungus here! So what the f*** is your problem? And by the way, Dr. Farmer didn’t write any mails to Haiti…

Anyways, as I don’t feel walking around here as a persona non grata I will leave them tomorrow.
Blaise helped me to find a place in the department of Gynecology & Obstetrics in Kigali and I am really looking forwards to work there!
So good night world and please search for any sticks up your ass and remove it in case you find some

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

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 ☺

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