35 things we used to take for granted

Here are two lists that I just started making in my head and thought I'd share. After living here for almost a year, it was interesting to me what we used to take for granted and now find to be a treat, and what we take for granted now that we will miss later. Its a small glimpse into how life is different over here. Enjoy!

35 things we used to take for granted that are now a huge treat (not in any particular order):

1.       Cheese, any kind

2.       Electricity

3.       Drinking water from the tap

4.       A hot shower

5.       Water pressure

6.       Fans that work all night long

7.       Privacy

8.       Meat

9.       Getting bitten by a mosquito and not worrying if that one is the one to give me malaria in a couple of weeks

10.   Dishwasher

11.   Washing machine

12.   Clothes dryer

13.   Wearing shorts in public

14.   Air conditioning

15.   Drug stores, the kind that sell everything, not the ones that just sell drugs (we have those)

16.   Pandora

17.   Netflix

18.   TV

19.   Unlimited internet

20.   Restaurant choices

21.   Take out

22.   Drive throughs

23.   Ice

24.   Dessert

25.   Family gatherings

26.   A social life

27.   Dentists

28.   Clean feet

29.   A church service we fully understand

30.   Being able to go for a walk and not be the center of attention or have “MAZUNGU, you give me money” yelled at you

31.   Grocery stores

32.   Good beer/more choices

33.   Having a full weekend off

34.   A bug/lizard free home

35.   Paved roads

 

What we will miss that we take for granted here when we leave:

1.       Wilson! Our best friend, helper, and life savor

2.       Free mangos from the yard

3.       Free avocados from the yard

4.       100s of children everywhere

5.       Awesome rainstorms

6.       Going on safari every few weeks

7.       Huge white smiles from strangers

8.       Beautiful colorful fabrics

9.       Every day being an adventure

10.   Doing something so small for someone and they react as if you gave them the moon

11.   Red dirt

12.   Summer year round

13.   Monkeys in the yard

14.   Dinner parties in Kampala where everyone around the table is from a different country

15.   Not putting on makeup or doing my hair most days

16.   Cutting Newman’s hair for him

17.   African coffee

18.   Emily, our Peace Corps volunteer’s hilarious sense of humor

19.   Being a part of something big and exciting

20.   Being content living without the entire previous list of things

 

       Oh and one last one: living in a place where riding on the roof of our car is allowed

 

"And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’" Matthew 25:40

2 blogs in one week! Are you impressed?

I am doing a second blog post because of something that has been on my heart. Some of you know that we have a relationship with a local orphanage here in Masindi called Family Spirit. Some of you have even been there, and you can attest to the extremely difficult living situation that these precious children endure. The people who run the orphanage try really hard to provide the best that they can with the resources they have for these children, but they have almost 200 mouths to feed, bodies to clothe, and minds to educate, so you can imagine the burden. Family Spirit was started as an orphanage for children who have been affected by HIV, whether they have it themselves, or they were orphaned due to the disease. Since they began, they have accepted many other children with other diseases or issues not necessarily related to HIV, but they only accept children who are really in dire need.

When you visit this place, you see happy children with smiles on their faces eagerly waiting for you to take their hand and allow them to show you around. They are so proud of their twin size bunk bed (even though many of them share with 4-6 other children), their classroom, and their animals. They love and care for each other like true siblings. Each other is all they have. You can't leave there unchanged.

We, PMI and our clinic MKMC, have the pleasure of treating these children when they need medical care. Since the PMI model is to create sustainable healthcare, we have to charge some patient fees, and we try to keep them as low as possible to reach as many people as possible. Family Spirit understands this model and they do their best with what they are given or earn to pay for their children to receive good medical care from MKMC. Most of their children have some kind of chronic health issue, and all of them live in close quarters which means that when one gets sick, many get sick. A few months ago, chicken pox broke out in the orphanage, and I think we saw just about every one of those children.

Recently, they have received some new children with some pretty unimaginable stories. Some of you may have already heard about them but I want to share 2 of these stories with you.

First is a story about a baby girl named Promise and her mother Mary. Mary came to Family Spirit with her newborn baby girl Promise in January. Mary is 17, and she was raped leaving her pregnant. Being a young girl and not anticipating becoming pregnant, she did not receive proper prenatal care. Promise was born with spina bifida. Mary took her to a clinic after being born because she noticed a deformity on the child's back. Without doing much investigation, they removed the bulge on Promise's back saying that it was a tumor. Promise is now permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Also, a common side effect of spina bifida is hydrocephalus where the child's head swells due to their inability to properly drain their cerebrospinal fluid. If this is left untreated, the swelling can cause serious problems such as seizures, brain damage, and death. So as if their story wasn't bad enough, Mary's mother told her to take Promise to Family Spirit and leave her there. If she came home with the baby, she would be thrown out. Mary loves her child despite all of the obstacles she is facing, and she doesn't want to abandon her, so she decided not to return home. Some friends who have heard her story have helped Newman and I by donating and we were able to get Promise the surgery she needed to treat her hydrocephalus. She had the operation 3 weeks ago, and she is doing very well. She still faces a lifetime of challenges and her mother Mary does as well, but we are doing what we can to help and praying.

The second story is about a 7 year old boy, Tugume, who was dropped off at Family Spirit by a good Samaritan who noticed that he had been abandoned. His mother had HIV and had passed away, so he was left with his grandfather. The grandfather neglected him, and left the boy to starve. After being taken to Family Spirit, he was immediately brought to MKMC for an evaluation and treatment. He is extremely malnourished, has an active TB infection, and is HIV positive. He is being treated for the TB currently and isolated until he is no longer infectious, and then he will return to Family Spirit where he will be nursed back to health. His picture is shocking, but we are hoping that now since he has been found, he will return to being a happy and playful little boy. When he opens his mouth to speak, he speaks wonderful English and has the sweetest little voice.

I am telling you all of this for several reasons. One is that we are so extremely blessed at home. Yes, we all have struggles and there is extreme poverty in our own back yards, but we are mostly very very blessed. For those of you who already have children, I am sure you couldn't even think about some of these things happening to your child. I am also sharing these stories because God calls us to love children such as these in prayer and by physically helping them. There is no doubt in my mind that these children have the potential to become wonderful people if they are given a chance. Family Spirit struggles during times such as these to pay for the care that these children so desperately need. We as an organization would never turn them away regardless of ability to pay; however, I believe that it is our responsibility as Christians and just as human beings to help one another out when we can. Please pray for these children and their needs, and if you can, please consider helping ease the burden of Family Spirit's medical bills. If you feel lead to give, please do so by going onto the PMI website at www.palmettomedical.org and click the donate tab. There, please indicate in the comment section that the money is to be used for Family Spirit's medical bills and the money will go completely to their bills at MKMC.
Thank you so much for hearing these children's stories, praying for them, and for considering helping them. I leave you with this:
"And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’" Matthew 25:40

Back "Home"

Sorry for the REALLY delayed post! I wrote the first half of this blog about 3 weeks ago so about half way through I will fast forward to our current news…

So we’ve been back in Uganda for almost a month now after a great trip back home to Charleston. We will always refer to Charleston as “Home” no matter how long we live away from there; however, returning to Uganda also felt like we were back home. Arriving back at the Entebbe airport, hearing Luganda spoken, smelling familiar smells, and seeing all of the black faces again made us feel happy and comforted.

It’s been a busy month back. Newman’s brother Stratton and his fiancé Hunter arrived in Entebbe just 8 hours after we landed, so after a short nap at the hotel, we went back to the airport to pick them up. We spent their 1^st full day in Uganda at our friend Rabih’s house in Kampala. He is a friend we met through Michael and Amanda who lived here before us. He is Lebanese American and he is one of the most generous people I know. He had us over to his house for a traditional Lebanese brunch with some other friends. It was a gorgeous warm day, so part of the day we spent out on the huge patio with pool overlooking Lake Victoria. It was an indulgent way to begin Hunter and Stratton’s trip to Uganda. We assured them that we don’t live like this every day, but it was a fun start to our time back here.

The next week was spent up in Masindi, getting settled back into life here and allowing everyone to recover from jet lag. Newman jumped right back into work at the house and at the clinic. I began to dive into the stack of material left for me to use by the December PMI team. They did a lot of teaching with the staff about maternity care and OR procedures, so I am trying to adapt their material into teaching tools for our staff. Another project I am working on is helping a DNP student from the U.S. do research for her final project. She is measuring the effectiveness of a medication on preventing excessive maternal blood loss post-delivery. Those things as well as hosting visitors and keeping up things at home is keeping me happy and busy.

Hunter and Stratton left us after one week for some adventures and traveling in the east of Uganda and the south west. They hiked Mount Elgon, went camping in the Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria, and camped at the crater lakes outside Fort Portal. They have seen more of Uganda than we have now. While they were away, we had a group of good friends from Charleston pass through for just one night to see our clinic. They had already been in Burundi for one week for a medical mission trip and they decided to make a quick trip to Uganda a part of their trip. It was really good to see some familiar faces in our home here. Many of them were people we have known all our lives, so we loved having them here. Michael, Newman’s boss, was also with them. He stayed in Masindi with us for the next week to work with Newman. It worked out well that Hunter and Stratton were traveling during that time so that we could host Michael. He and Newman worked really hard during their time together, but I think they accomplished a lot, and I know Newman appreciated some one on one time with him to discuss everything. After Michael left, we had a few days in Kampala for Newman to do some work there and our friend Rabih hosted us once again. He was kind enough to let us stay even when he was out of the country. It was a real treat to have air conditioning and a nice house to stay in for a couple of nights.

After our time at Rabih’s it was time to meet back up with Hunter and Stratton. We picked them up and headed back to Masindi for about another week, during which I started to not feel well. I felt like I had maybe the flu or a little virus, but I decided to go up to the clinic and have a malaria test just so that I could rule it out. Turns out it was malaria, so they put me on a three day treatment of duo-cotecxin and Tylenol. After starting the treatment, I felt much better so we kept our plans of going up to Murchison Falls National Park for the weekend where we stayed at our favorite lodge, Paraa. We stayed two nights and had a great time. We went on the river safari, a game drive, spent time by the pool, Hunter and Stratton got massages, and we took a picnic at the top of the falls on our way back to Masindi. I think Hunter and Stratton had a great time, and I cannot wait to see their pictures because Hunter is a professional photographer. When we arrived back in Masindi, I had completed my 3 day malaria treatment, but I still did not feel 100%. In fact I started to feel worse when I woke up each morning. I thought maybe I’d wait a couple of days to see if the drugs just needed more time to clear it up. By Tuesday morning I thought it wouldn’t hurt to go up to the clinic and get tested again. It turns out my malaria was not gone and they decided to put me on a quinine drip. So as I write this, I am in the on call room of the maternity ward, because the other private rooms were taken, getting my first dose. I can now give my own personal testimony of our nursing care here, and so far I am very pleased. Although, I do think they are all a little amused at the fact that I am a patient. I am also happy to see our maternity ward so busy. We just had a mother deliver and there are 2 more that are getting close. Hunter is going to observe one of them as she has never witnessed a delivery. I can’t wait to hear her reaction.

 Fast Forward 3 weeks:

 So since this old post, I have fully recovered from Malaria. The quinine is not a fun drug, but it does the trick! So after recovering, we went to Jinja for the weekend with Stratton and Hunter. We had a blast. We stayed at a friend’s cabin right on the Nile river and it was incredibly beautiful and peaceful. We got to spend Valentines dinner with Newman’s old friend from his days in Italy, Asher, and her husband Dru. We got together with them several times actually that weekend. They have only been in Uganda about 2 months, and they moved here with their 7 year old, 5 year old, and 3 month old! Brave people!! They are awesome people though, and we are so glad they are here with us. They are working for the non-profit that Asher started called Sole Hope. Check out their website: www.solehope.com

We went white water rafting in Jinja, which I was kinda scared to do at first because it’s mainly all class 5 rapids, but I had only heard good things about it so we decided to go. We had a blast! It was scary but mainly really fun. We flipped over one time, which at the time was fun, but I seemed to have inhaled some of the river. It didn’t bother me at first but about 2 days later, I felt myself getting a fever and my respiratory rate was increasing. I felt like I couldn’t get a deep breath, so I started to realize something was wrong. Also, I had a very strange bite on my leg that I assumed was probably a spider bite that I got in the night at the cabin. I thought maybe I was having an allergic reaction to the bite, because I was having a lot of the symptoms of a reaction. So needless to say, I was somewhat anxious as I was only getting worse, and I wasn’t 100% sure what was causing it. That’s the not so fun part about living here. There are a lot of things that can make you sick, and it’s hard to get a definitive diagnosis with the limited amount of tests that can be run in most clinics. So, just as we were about to take Stratton and Hunter to dinner before their 11:30pm flight home, I finally told Newman that I was seriously concerned and we needed to go to a clinic because my breathing was so rapid. Luckily, no one was hungry, so we headed to a private clinic in Entebbe. It is a small clinic that is a part of a really good hospital in Kampala, so we felt good about going there. They drew blood and pushed some IV hydrocortisone and gave me an atropine injection for the potential allergic reaction. My blood test came back and my white blood cells were very elevated, so there was definitely some sort of infection. They pushed some IV antibiotics and then sent me back to the hotel for the night. We dropped off Stratton and Hunter at the airport, and I apologized for making their last moments in Uganda a little stressed. They of course were fine, and really sweet and we said goodbye. I got a few hours of sleep, and then we headed back to the clinic in the morning to see if they would let us travel back to Masindi that day. The doctor gave me the OK to go back, but with instructions to follow up at our clinic. We made it back and the next day our clinical officer Alex made a house call to check on me. By this time we were all in agreement that it was probably pneumonia from inhaling some of the river water. I had also been in constant discussion with one of our PMI doctors, Dr. Ed O’Bryan and his NP wife Claire. They were so awesome and helpful. He suggested that I change my antibiotic to a stronger one that would cover me better for this situation, so I did that and I think that made a big difference. I was in bed pretty much for the next week, but I improved every day. Now I am back to myself thankfully. We celebrated my 27^th birthday this week, on the 28^th. We had cake and dinner with friends at a restaurant in town. It was a great day. That evening, while dropping off our friends, they introduced us to the puppy that had been left at their house that week. She already has 2 dogs and many other animals, so she did not really want another dog. Of course after holding it for just a few seconds, Newman and I began to fall in love and thought maybe we could take it. We are still not 100% that he will remain ours, but I am puppy sitting him today to see how it goes. But I am pretty sure he will be ours.

We leave for Kampala tomorrow so that Newman can do some work there on Monday. While we are there we will invest in some puppy paraphernalia. Also, since Newman’s birthday is next Sunday on the 10^th, we are going to do a double birthday celebration by staying at the Serena on the Lake hotel Sunday night. It’s a beautiful spot, so I am excited to relax there by the pool for the day!

So to sum up our last few weeks here, there is never a dull moment and the adventure continues. Thanks for following us and for your prayers and support. Stay tuned for more adventures to come. Here are some pictures of the new baby! We are still trying to think of a name. I am thinking maybe Ssebo (pronounced say-bo) and call him Bo for short. Its the luganda word for Mister. But we are open to suggestions!

Love,

Trish