I went to church with Derrick on Christmas. I asked him if
it would be all right if I tagged along with him to experience what a church is
like in Uganda. It seems that the vast majority of people are very religious
and Christian, and I thought that I would get a better understanding of their
thoughts if I experienced a service or two here. If you know me, you know I am
not religious, so this would be a new experience for me whether I was in Uganda
or not! Derrick to me Wototo Church, a large church the follows the very common
Born-again denomination of Christianity. The service was good, filled with
singing, prayer, greetings, and a video message from Wototo’s founders from
Canada. The church was very nice, but I could not help but wonder where the
money for the church was from. The sound system, projectors, screens, and
multimedia displays were premium compared to what I had seen in Uganda previously.
If only Mulago had such resources!
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| Derrick and I at the Mulago Hospital Christmas Party |
Golfing In Uganda?
On my way home from the grocery store a little after
Christmas, I finally located the entrance to the Uganda Golf Club. I had seen
the course the first day that I got to Kampala, but today I spotted the
entrance gate. I wandered inside and asked the receptionist how much for a
round. 200,000 UGx for non-members ($80 USD). A little steep for my budget. As
I was leaving a caddie came up to me and asked if I was looking to play a
round. I said yes, but it was too expensive. He said that he could talk to a
member who could bring me as his guest for 100,000. I thought that was
reasonable, only under the condition that Henry was my caddie for the day. We
exchanged numbers and some caddie stories. I never thought that I would be
golfing in Uganda.
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| What the green was made of |
Henry
called me the following weekend and we set up a 7am Sunday tee time. The golfer
I would be playing with was a 1 handicap. I got to the course at 6:45 and Henry
showed me my rental set of clubs. Hippo brand 3-PW irons and a no name steel 5
wood. The golf balls looked so warn that a driving range wouldn’t even use
them. Oh well, as Derrick says…TIA (This is Africa). The first few holes were
really rough as I adjusted to the clubs, but eventually I started to put some
good shots together. The course was pretty long, but not all that nicely kept.
The greens seemed to be made from some sort of weed. Whatever works for the
climate! I just enjoyed the experience and talking to the caddies.
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| My caddie, Henry, and I |
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| 10th hole at the Uganda Golf Club |
Rafting in Jinja
Everyone I have met who has gone to Uganda will tell you
that “you have to go rafting on the Nile in Jinja!” As such, me and two others
from the guest house scheduled a rafting trip on a Saturday we had off work. I
don’t have much to say about the experience besides the fact that it was
awesome, very fun, and the pictures do a better job describing the experience
than I ever could. I will probably do this again before I leave in July.
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| Our raft guide, David, still says he didn't flip us on purpose. Not buying it haha |
The Research
So I have talked a lot about what I have been doing during
my free time, but yes, I am also working 8-9 hours a day at the Mulago National
Referral Hospital. Every morning Derrick and I head up to the labor ward in
hopes of collecting cord blood samples from the placenta of newborn boys. The
sample collection means changed a bit from what I expected when I first
developed the G6PD project. After discussing the means of sample collection
from cancer patients, Troy and Dr. Susan and I agreed that there would be no
way to control for differences in between treatments of the patients. Likewise,
it would be a major logistical problem to the staff for me to be always
requesting the patient chart from a given blood sample. As such, we decided
that an equally good sample population would be from the umbilical cord of
newborn males. All samples would, then, have undergone the same process in
birthing and most likely would all be on the same medications (if any). So in
order for me to get my samples for G6PD analysis, it requires me to be on the
labor ward, and when a nurse takes a placenta to be discarded, I take 3 ml of
blood from it and save it for purification, separation, and freezing. Not a
task for those that may be at all squeamish.
It is, nonetheless, a very interesting learning experience to see what
the labor ward is like in Mulago.
The policy
is that services provided in Mulago are free. Where there is a shortage is the
supplied. Mothers must bring there own gloves, blankets, cloths, bleach, and
cotton in order to get care. The hospital cannot afford to provide these things
for everyone. The Uganda government have made “Mama Kits” where women can get
these supplies for pretty cheap, if not free.
The ward has about 20 beds in it, some have mattresses, some
don’t. Only mothers in active labor are allowed in the labor suite. Mothers are
given absolutely no pain medication throughout the process. Typically, within
15 minutes of giving birth, a mother will get up, clean herself off, and walk
unassisted to the postnatal unit. A nurse once asked me if the labor ward in
Uganda and the United States were much different. I hardly knew what I could
say that was similar.
Given the
little resources, I have observed that the nurses and midwives do an AMAZING
job providing care and improvising. For example, a nurse showed me how to make
a catheter from an IV line. She said they rarely have enough catheters. There
are no clamps to clamp the umbilical cord to cut it. Instead, the nurses rip of
and use the band of latex at the end of the gloves. Resourceful, calm, and
doing their best to provide care on limited resources.
Of the 40 samples I have collected, 7 have been G6PD
deficient. A good number! But now that I am in full collection mode, I hope
that I will average more samples per day so that I can meet my goal of 300-400
samples and 30-40 deficient samples. For the time being, nothing else is being
done with the samples except processing and freezing them for later use.
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| I went to Imperial Beach in Entebbe with Derrick and his family on New Years Day. Is sons, Hezron (left), and Ethan (right) |
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| During rush hour the city can get pretty crowded. Here is the Kampala "Jam" you might hear me complaining about. |
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| Here is the ad I mentioned in a previous post |
