Monkey Brain Musings

 Monday, October 7, 2024 Greetings from the Birth Center in Atiak! Whew! I made it! 😁 I left Kampala Sunday morning at 10:30am. Frank and his sister, Irene, picked me up at the hotel and away we went. Traffic in Kampala was packed, as usual, so it took us an hour just to get out of the city. We had a few light rain showers along the way, but not enough to alter our trip. It was wonderful to see how lush and green the countryside had become since I left, thanks to the rainy season.  This is the route we drove; however, Google maps has clearly never driven in Uganda. We drove for 8.5 hours yesterday and another 3 hours this morning. The entire road is a 2 lane "highway", most of it paved but often riddled with large potholes. The roughest roads are north of the park. Between the towns and villages, the speed is faster (around 65 mph), slowing down to around 30mph in the towns. Once within the National Park, the speed limit is 40kph/25mph, taking approximately 1.5 hours to driv

 Sunday October 5, 2024 Good morning from Kampala! I am only halfway through my journey to Atiak. I left Seattle early Thursday evening, arriving in Dubai Friday evening. As I may have mentioned in the past, I am unable to sleep on airplanes, so I arrived exhausted, stumbling out of the Dubai airport into heat and humidity that instantly fogged up my glasses. I tried to stay awake as long as possible but was unsuccessful and collapsed into bed much too early. I woke up at 1:30 am 😕. I was back at the airport by 8am and arrived in Entebbe around 2pm. 4 flights arrived in Entebbe at the same time, so the lines at immigration were quite long, but that meant the luggage was waiting when I got to the baggage carousel. I am happy to say, that although I did get called out at security, there was no shake down like my last trip, just a quick look into one of my suitcases and I was released. Allan was waiting for me outside and had picked up my personal items and blue towels from the ITW offic

 Hello and let the countdown begin! This Thursday I will be back on a plane, heading towards Uganda. Yikes! I have lists and notes to myself all over the place and I will start the packing process as soon as I finish here. I am feeling incredibly grateful and lucky to have Rachel and MHI (Mother Health International) taking care of all of the transportation details, especially since the main bridge over the Nile River is closed down for repairs. Planning an alternative route will add hours to the drive, which they are figuring out for me.  In the meantime, I have finished the new curriculum, made another visit to the Travel Clinic to update my Typhoid vaccine, picked up my Malaria meds, applied for and received my travel Visa, and started piling supplies on my dining room table. Thanks to the incredible generosity of friends and family (Kathy & Jim, Arnold, and Steven), on top of the medical expenses, I was also able to order more rain ponchos for the midwives and will pack an extr

Hello, friends!  I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the tail end of summer...Is it really September already?!? I have been working and traveling and working some more. After returning from Uganda and Istanbul, I really hit the ground running and was working quite a bit. It was then that I discovered that I might actually be aging. 😂 I have been consciously trying to ease up on my schedule, both at home and at work. I only took a week off to recover from my 10-week trip and it was not enough, especially when my work schedule was so heavy.  I do have some fun things to share with you all. I may have previously mentioned that I received a $500 grant from one of my professional organizations, Society of Diagnostic Medicine (SDMS). I filled out an application before I left and was awarded the grant with the understanding that I would give an interview of the work that I had done, as well as show receipts from expenses. When I returned, I was interviewed by their Marketing and Commu