Things get tough

Reality started to set in today. I spent the morning touring the Nyahuka Health Center, which is a few minutes walk down the road. The intensity of the suffering there is remarkable, and is compounded by the close-packed conditions, lack of ventilation, and darkness of the wards. The new maternity and pediatric wards built by World Harvest are immeasurably better than the old ones (which are still used), but they are still rather shocking to an American.

 

The reality of the work started to appear to me when I was visiting the female ward, and Dr. Scott was discussing a patient with a lab worker. I saw this woman, who is HIV positive, is suffering from carposi sarcoma, and possibly infected with TB. They can’t administer anti-retrovirals for the HIV until they know if she has TB, but the health center is out of TB tests and the new shipment is late getting here. So there this woman lies, weakening every day, with nothing that anyone can really do about it.

 

Next, upon entering the crowded pediatric ward, we were informed that a child in the corner was dying. Watching this tiny, frail boy gasp for air, eyes wide with terror, while his family sat helplessly by, simply struck me to the core. It hit me in the stomach and brought tears to my eyes. I then went to see some of the outpatient clinics, and upon re-entering the pediatric ward no more than 20 minutes later, I was told that young Daniel had died. It was heartbreaking and sobering, as this is simply what happens here on a regular basis. Added to this was the doctor’s frustration that even though has had been in the hospital for some time they were unable to save him, since any food given to him was instantly vomited back up, making his recovery impossible.

 

Together, these events made for a very sobering morning, as I have been confronted by the reality of the suffering here in rural Uganda and the difficulties faced by those trying to address them.

 

This afternoon, however, I had the wonderful opportunity to play football (real football, or soccer to Americans) with the boys at Christ School. It was a lot of fun and a great way to build relationships with people here – it truly is the universal language. I found myself in terrible shape after not having played much in recent months, but there’s no better way to get it back than to keep playing. The coach invited me to come and play every day, and we started talking about how I might work with the team and do soccer programs for other youth. On my walk back from the school I stopped to talk with several people who I didn’t know, and they asked me how America was. I mentioned that the election was tomorrow, and their faces lit up and crowed gathered almost instantly. Everyone here absolutely loves Obama, as his father was Kenyan (Uganda shares a border with Kenya) and he has talked about East Africa. People are really passionate about him, and they continually expressed to me how much they followed out election and how much they cared about it. I’ve also seen some newspaper articles talking about Uganda is at the top of Obama’s agenda, though they never say in what way. I have no idea how people have gotten this idea, since I have yet to hear Obama utter the word “Uganda, ” and I fear that people will be horribly disappointed should he be elected. But they really do care, and they love him. It’s very interesting to see such intense interest in our election here.