Uganda - Clinic Day #4

Today started early for me when I woke up at 5:30am after having my second good night's sleep on this trip.  As folks started to trickle into the kitchen I found out that three of our team members had fallen ill overnight.  Vomiting and diarrhea - not too fun when you have a walk 30 yards in the dark to get to the cho (rhymes with snow).  Their cots were moved to the room next to the kitchen before we went to devotion time so that they would be in a room with a nice cross breeze instead of stuck in a hot tent during the heat of the day.  This way we could also keep an eye on them.

Devotion was once again led primarily by the Africans - with the chorus singing lead by Abraham, Patricia, and Mary.  Dr. Jeff, Mary, Patricia, and Jerry sang a quartet.

 Fredrick gave the message from Matthew 5:13-16.  He spoke about Christians being the salt of the earth, the light of the world.  He said that salt heals wounds, preserves, and enhances flavor.  As Christians we were added to the earth to add life.  Healing the sicknesses and healing spiritually.  As the light of the world we reflect Christ and live as an example to the world.  As we reach out to others we are putting our light on the lampstand to share Christ.  Prayer time included praise for work being done, for Christ to prepare the hearts of the those we serve, and prayers for the school and local leaders.  The Jesus film folks reported that 220 attended the film, 80 people prayed the prayer of confession, and 60 people stayed afterwards for followup.  In the clinic on 1/27 we treated 510 patients, fitted 75 pairs of glasses, and 24 people attended the pastor's conference, received bibles and materials.  A special prayer with the lovely Christ chatter was raised to asking for healing for our members Heidi, Nancy, and Mike.  

Clinic seemed a little like it was going in slow motion this morning.  I think that this being clinic day #4 we are starting to have a little fatigue.  In getting started we had a couple of very interesting cases.

Although disfigured, this little girl had the brightest eyes and her face lit up when she smiled.

This sweet little 9 year old came in with a condition she has had since birth.  We saw her today because she has scratched several spots and developed a secondary bacterial infection.  I hate that she has the infection but had this was something that neither Mary, Dr. Jeff, or Dr. Mike of I had ever seen before.  It is probably a parasitic or fungal infection.  She had the sweetest disposition and a lovely smile and I am so glad that I got to meet her.  Right after this I had a little boy come in that had a hugely swollen right jaw.  I looked in his mouth and used a tongue depressor to very gently move his cheek just a bit and a very sore molar abcess started to bleed freely.  He really didn't feel well and unfortunately all I could do is give him meds for pain and infection.  He has a big trip to the dentist coming, poor guy.

The morning was a mix of kids with malaria, STDs, lots of skin funguses and parasites, pregnant mommas with babies strapped to their backs.  Their garb is as diverse as could be!

Yea!  Someone who was a happy with or without the camera. Beautiful smile.

Another proper lady. We saw many.

Go Packers!

We saw the proper ladies with their high shouldered, gathered, and brightly-colored finest to dirt-poor little kids wearing filthy, threadbare t-shirts.  From government officials to dirt farmers - we saw them all!

During the week we have been drinking bottled water that was purchased in cases of 1.5L bottles.  Needless to say we have collected dozens of bottles.  One afternoon Mark and Harrison took a few big boxes of bottles out to the waiting crowd and gave them out.  The folks were very happy to receive the bottles!  I guess if you really don't have much, a clean water bottle with a screw-top lid is a treasure.  They sure went fast!

Mark and Harrison just walked to the crowd with two boxes full of empty water bottles.

10 seconds later

20 seconds later

Mission accomplished!

We had a bit of a conversation with one of the women from the African team when we asked her about the Jackfruit.  It is a terribly odd looking fruit - about the size of a medium watermelon but the bright green rind was covered in pointy bumps.  The woman not only told us about the fruit, but walked us past our neighbor's property and took us to a 30' tree that had several clusters of the fruit growing in it.

Here are the small watermelon-sized jackfruit growing on the tree near the trunk.

It takes a big tree to produce such big fruit!

This is that the flesh looks like.  It has dozens Brazil nut-sized seeds.  You pick and eat the orangeish sections that are around the seeds.  It is terribly sticky and has a mild flavor of a starchy apple/strawberry combination.  The Africans love them but honestly I think it is too sticky and too messy to be worth the effort.  I spent more time getting the sticky gunk off my hands than I did trying to eat any of it.

 On  our walk back from the jackfruit tree Dr. Jeff and I stopped to speak to our camp neighbor.  His name was Franco and he was quite the farmer.  As soon as we showed interest in his hand-woven corn storage he was very glad to engage us in telling us all about how he made the corn basket and how he keeps the goats out of it.

He went on to well us about all of the crops that he grows and was surprised when I told him that we grow some of the same crops in Alabama.  The names were different for the crops:

Corn is called maise.

Okra is called otugo

Peanuts are amodo

Sesame seeds (for oil) are simsim but are called nono in the local dialect

Sugarcane is ninang

Casava root is mogo

Jackfruit is fene in the local dialect

Franco was so friendly and gracious to spend time helping me understand the agriculture of the area.  He was very proud of his hoe that he uses to turn his fields.  He explained how he rotated his crops and how instead of burning off the fields he hoes the spent crops under so that they will rot and fertilize the ground.  He also raises goats that roam free in the area during the day but are gathered up and put in his goat house at night.  He was very proud to show me his kitchen hut and how they cook their food.  I was fascinated how they can cook over fire inside a thatch-roofed hut.

inside the kitchen hut.  Notice the black thatch.  

Pretty sweet set up. Notice how they burn their firewood.  They don't cut it, they just keep one end in the fire and just advance it closer as it burns.  Whatever they were cooking smelled pretty good.  I didn't mention this for fear that I would be offered a portion.  

The kitchen hut from the outside.

What I didn't take a picture of was the little solar panel around the side of the hut.  This is to charge his cell phone.  It amazed me how many solar panels I saw outside of huts.  No electricity or plumbing, but they can hear me now.  

 I am curious, but forgot to ask, why they make their huts so low.  Just about every hut that we saw had mud walls that were approximately 4 feet tall.  This means that they have to bend over to walk into their homes.  He also showed me how where they bathe.  He has a thatch three-sided screen where they have some privacy as they bathe out of a bucket.

This is Franco's bathing screen.  Just take a bucket of water in there and you can have your own spa day!

 His home is certainly  primative but very functional.  BTW, I was writing on my hand while I was talking to Franco because I didn't want to forget anything that he told me about the names of the different vegetables.  Being a creature of habit, as soon as I got back to camp I cleaned my hands with alcohol sanitizer and wiped off everything I had just written!  I took Mark with me and introduced them and then Franco very graciously re-taught me the words.  This was a wonderful encounter with a lovely Ugandan gentlemen.