KAREN:
As our time in Gulu draws to an end we have been reflecting on what an amazing experience we have had in Uganda. The last six months have been challenging to say the very least but thankfully the good time have far outweighed our sorrow and frustrations!
We finished work at Gulu Regional Referral Hospital last Friday. Saying that we still have a series of lectures and presentations to make and so our mission in not yet complete! Our send off from the hospital staff was very moving with much praise from the Senior Principle Nursing Officer and the Chief Nurse for all our efforts at the hospital. By the end of their speeches we resorted to feeling like we were once again 10 years old and the 'teachers pet!' We were glad to have an opportunity to offer our thanks to the staff for all their support and new found friendships. Our official duties were completed by the staff singing us the Uganda Nursing Anthem:
"We have been chose, we have been chosen (high pitched!)
Chosen by God, chosen by God,
Chosen to be Nurses, chosen to be Nurses,
Our Holy people, to love and serve."
A thank-you and farewell party is being planned by the hospital staff in our honour for tomorrow night! Such gratitude has been show to us for our work and many of the nurses have thanked us by inviting us to their homes and preparing us a feast of local specialities: beef or chicken stew (chewy meat no longer repulses us!), malekwang (green leaf in peanut and sesame sauce), posho (a white bouncy lump of maize), kal (a brown bouncy lump of millet), rice, chapatti, sweet potato, bans (obligatory!), boo (pronounced 'bo') and dodo (chopped flavoured green leaves). One spread even included the local delicacy of 'bush rat' - you may well wretch - I certainly did! The challenge is to eat until you are ready to explode...and then eat a little more! We are always humbled by such a spread of food as people here have so very little yet always share so much. The average pay of a nurse is £100-£200 a month and often wages are late in being paid.
Our friends homes have ranged from modest houses to simple mud huts. With the UK housing market being so expensive we are contemplating building ourselves mud huts on our return to Britain! To be invited to a local village is something we always feel is a real honour especially when the whole community want to greet us and the children run up to us shouting "mwnw, mwnw, mwnw!" (white person) with such excitement and giggle when we respond with a smile or a wave! With such pride, Sister Caroline, our Chief Nurse, took us for a walk around her village introducing us to the community by our Acholi names: Lamaro Karen - meaning I show passion and dedication, and Aber Deborah meaning beautiful good girl. Traditionally if an Acholi name is shared with an elder, a chicken should be offered which means that by now we would have our own chicken farm! Sister Caroline showed us the spring where water is collected for cleaning and washing and the bore hole from where drinking water is pumped. The heavy canisters of water are then carried home on the heads of local women. She also gave us a cookery lesson teaching us how to prepare local food and showed us how to plant ground nuts on her land. We are now officially Gulu Girls!
DEBBIE:
Along with the great friends that we have made by working with the nurses at the hospital we must also mention the patients. We've met some truly inspirational patients and relatives on the ward who cope with so much in such a humbling way. Relatives here (referred to as the patients 'attendant') have to care for their family member 24 hours a day and their dedication is amazing. Some people, however, do not have adult family members to preform this vital role and so the responsibility falls on their children. Here is an example:
A patient was admitted onto the ward and was very sick with chest problems. When she arrived she was sitting on the floor by her bed looking like she didn't have the energy to move. A young girl followed and began attending to the woman and helping her into bed. This young girl, aged around 6 or 7 years, was the sole carer for this patient: her mother. Each day she cooked food, fetched water and cleaned clothes for her mum. The girl and her mother had very few belongings and it transpired they had fled from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Uganda for safety, speaking volumes about the state of affairs in the Congo. The isolation felt by this mother must have been huge as she could not speak the local Gulu language of Acholi and spoke little English. Thankfully one or two nurses were able to speak her native tongue of Swahili but these staff were few in number.
One day on the ward we brought some sparkly masks left over from a Christmas parcel we had received. The little girl was fascinated with the mask and wore it all day! From this day forward we were considered to be her friends and every time she saw us she ran up the ward to give us a cuddle and a huge beaming smile! Her mother was diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB) and thankfully started on the appropriate treatment but remains very sick. This situation seemed so desperate to us but is simply accepted by these two strong-willed ladies who coped so well. Extraordinary!
