Day 1: Travel to Bwindi from Entebbe

Day 1: March 22

I arrived about 1100 at the Monkey Guest House here at Bwindi, having flown from Entebbe on a 13 passenger propeller plane through rain to the mountains.  I was driven through the red mud, gully crossed roads by Hussein, who aired up his tires for my comfort.  I told him I'd been on roads like this in Nevada.  

Mist covers the valleys and mountain tops, but all is green except for the houses and the road.  People walk in the road to and from their business of the day.  There were at least 10 men at the Petrol station to help air up the tires, 5 men in Entebbe to help lift my suitcases up the stairs at the airport, 3 men and the woman pilot to help unload them at Kihihi Airport, 40 km from Buhoma, the village where Bwindi is located.  All labor appears to be manual…no electricity here except in the hospital and guest house and supposedly it’s solar, although I haven’t seen the panels.  There were many women with head burdens and I saw one with three small girls all walking with their head packages, it looked as if she were teaching them.  Pedestrians take to the ditches for vehicles, even small children.  All are curious about white faces. also very reserved--no smiles.  

Hussein explained that there are three roots of the many dialects spoken in Uganda.  Each dialect with one of the roots can usually be understood by those within the root one.  In Entebbe, they spoke Lugandan, here in the southeast, it's Rukiga.

Hussein showed me the Congolese border in the distant peaks, which is closed.  Along the way we had given a ride (back of the pickup) to a couple of soldiers, one with a gun…who was several miles from his destination.  We picked up a second in uniform, but without a gun.  We let them both out at the tea factory.  The soldiers patrol the border to prevent raiders from coming across.  There is a barracks not far from the village, Buhoma, where the hospital is.  He assured me that their president had promised there would be no more raids after the last one in 1999.  Fourteen years is a good long time to feel safe.  But Denis, the Guest House Manager also introduced me to Joshua, who is the nighttime guard.  The hotel in Entebbe had a fenced compound, with a gate and guard.

The hillsides and valleys are covered with tea plants, with some being hand-harvested.  One hilltop had women plugging rice plants—I guess at the start of the wet season it grows without irrigation.  The hills are softly molded, bespeaking the age of the countryside, with streams and rivers in the valleys, running brownish red with the rain.  Everywhere people are walking in the road, both directions.  

I had lunch here, some potatoes with mayonnaise, a small sausage, and a delicious cabbage salad.  There is tea 24 hours a day, and Nescafe with powdered cream.

 

I met Jane, the Director of the nursing school about 1430 and we had a tour of the hospital, without invading privacy.  I had been walked over to the hospital by Dr. Bugana, who was at lunch and is the Executive Director, turns out.  He showed me wood ants on the trail (very poisonous).  They were swarming across the trail as ants do.  There was talk of a snake, unseen, but I did see a small monkey in a tree briefly.  When I ran into the doctor a short while later, I mistook him for the hospital administrator, Charles and was embarrassed when he reminded me he’d had lunch with me.  He was sympathetic and said that when he’d met five new people at the Guest House, they all began to look alike to him.  Joke on me, although it wasn’t a joke. 

Jane and I walked around the hospital, a small boy was at the exit from the Pediatric unit, holding the large iron door.  I looked around for his mother.  I didn’t see anyone watching or concerned, but he also didn’t go out, probably already knew enough to stay put.  It was hard to tell if he was a patient or not, since the whole family comes when one is sick.  I didn't notice many men around, except one waiting for a circumcision…the doctor said they do several each day--but there were some in the maternity wing.  We walked over to the school, still visibly under construction.  It will be beautiful, but is very rough at this time.  There is a great room and administration building, with offices already designed.  I told Jane she needed the corner one with two windows.  There is a computer lab and a faculty office area.  The central area is for student work and study.  The dorms outline the perimeter, the kitchen area is open, with some sewer connections.  The dining hall and storage area on the other side….no connection between the two sides, which I’ll ask about, but it does bring up a clear almost class line between the professionals and workers, which I’ll ponder later.  I’m uncomfortable having people cook and serve me continuously, do my laundry, and watch me for what I might need.  They don’t do it out of concern, but because it’s their job, but they do it politely and with integrity.  Moses got as irritated as he probably gets (which is not much) when one of the dinner guests from the other Guest House was fooling around with a broken guitar when dinner was about to be served.  The rule is you sit down-at your own specified time-and they bring your plate.  This 20 something from Vermont, was just a kid on a trek who was exploring his surroundings, and hadn’t a clue until his (female) partner said, “I think he wants you to sit down for dinner”. 

Jane wants to start work Monday morning.  I’ll go to the meeting at 0800 where the staff plan and discuss the day in the Outpatient Clinic, then we’ll get started. Everyone has consistently said how much they’ve been waiting for me to get here, and are happy that I am here.

One example of their challenges is childhood malnutrition.  When a child is malnourished, both Jane and the pediatrician, Leonard explained over dinner, one of their goals is parent education.  They have a garden where they show the parents what foods to grow for the children and they do lots of other education as well.  Leonard said that the children's diet is high in carbohydrates and very deficient in protein.  Also, once they’re weaned the parents tend to feed them an adult diet, which does not meet their needs.  He says bananas are bad for children, especially since the ways in which they are prepared removes all nutrition.  However, just as in the US, malnutrition always has a social component, such as a mother ill or dead, or money being diverted for alcohol.  Also, the ground to cultivate for even a small plot is of poor quality because the tea plants take the very best soil, which led to a question about who owns the land, and he said ownership pre-dates colonialism, which I found fascinating, but in this corner of Uganda, evidently it’s been handed down from ages ago through the former tribe structure and is now divided up many times.  He says, it’s just “known” whose land is owned by whom.  Huh. 

So we certainly have to include much about nutrition in the curriculum.  I did tell Jane that I thought the basic curriculum to create a diploma nurse was adequate and doable--we didn’t pursue the topic.  

I'm in the backyard at the Guest House having morning Nescafe.  There are a mother and child red tailed monkey in the trees above me.  Pictures later.