Updating our blog is proving to be somewhat of a challenge: it relies heavily on power!

• Electric power - there are frequent power cuts.
• Brain power - this is severely lacking after a hard day at work!

The Gulu Walk.

Last saturday saw thousands of orange-t-shirt-clad people take to the streets to participate in the annual Gulu Walk. This is an international event in aid of the children of Gulu. It remembers the 'night commuters' - the children who walked into Gulu from the surrounding areas at dusk for safety from the Lords Resistance Army. It also remembers those children who were, or still are, abducted by the LRA and used as child soldiers.

In the intensity of the African sun the walk wound round the streets of Gulu, the music and local people creating a real carnival atmosphere. By the time we reached the events field at the end of the walk we had acquired quite a congregation of children around us. We danced with the kids as the band played. We tied a rag from our t-shirts around the wrist of a little girl and before we knew it we were besieged by children wanting an 'orange bracelet'. We were literally tearing out t-shirts to threads to ensure that everyone had one. Can you imagine children at home getting so excited about something so simple?!

A great day had by all!

The Hospital.

We've completed our first full week at work and are feeling both physically and mentally exhausted! As we'd expected it has been a challenging week and the reality of the hospital has hit us quite hard. As a patient's relative today explained, people only present to the hospital when 'the situation is at it's worst' - this basically means that they have probably been sick for some time before presenting. Subsequently these patients require a high level of care and often the facilities and medications are lacking. As a result the staff have to be very resourceful at times. A fine example of this was a patient who needed a chest drain for a pneumothorax (for all you non medical people this was to help re-inflate a collapsed lung). A bottle of saline, a giving set and a green needle later and the chest drain was in place! We will never complain about the NHS ever again!!