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 drive through the park. Frank is a tour group driver and so good at spotting wildlife and the van has a top that pops open, so Irene and I were able to stand on the back seats and look out of the top during the drive. Irene has never been through the park and her excitement at seeing the Nile and all of the animals was infectious.

We drove through the park and Frank dropped me off at Mama Washindi Lodge. Mama Washindi Lodge

Unfortunately, there was no time to enjoy the pool, we were back on the road by 7:15am. The road towards Gulu was mostly packed dirt, with patches of pavement that were often so damaged that we drove on the dirt shoulder. About 30 minutes outside of Gulu, the roads improved, then back to rough riding from Gulu to Atiak. 

Once I climbed out of the van at the birth center, I was welcomed with hugs and greetings of "Welcome Home" from the midwives and kitchen ladies. 😍 All of my gear was carried into my hut where I began the unpacking process, windows and doors opened for the light breeze, ducks marching past my doorway. Today's temperature topped out at 80 degrees with humidity at 88%. The shower was empty, so I turned on my fan and got to work.

Once unpacked, I took an hour to rest, then started the prep process. I had emailed my lectures, schedule, machine user manual and other materials to Rachel before I left, with detailed instructions on how to print everything. I'm sure you may have guessed where this is going. The printers dropped off a stack of bound notebooks about an hour after I arrived. Half of my lectures are missing, about 3/4 of what was printed was incorrect, the user manual was bound with material that was supposed to be printed separately. Did I mention that class begins tomorrow morning at 9am? Wednesday is a holiday, so while the midwives take the day off, Christine and I will drive into Gulu and get everything printed correctly. The rest of the evening was spent collecting everything needed to set up the classroom, making a list of missing supplies to be picked up in Gulu while we wait for the printer. By 6:30 the sun was setting, so I left the classroom, planning to get up early and finish setting up in the morning. 

I am supposed to be training 1 midwife from the birth center and 4 midwives from the Lacor (pronounced La-Cho) Hospital, however only 3 of Lacor group arrived tonight. A smaller group will be great, especially because I am hoping to work with some of the midwives I trained in the spring. I had a chance to meet the 3 while getting some dinner, then I retired to my hut to catch you all up and next I will organize my supplies for the morning. I will have the trainees use the notebooks that I have, but I will take them back and give them new ones Thursday. It's 9:30 pm and finally cooling down to 74 degrees, but very still. I still have some more work to do, so I am going to sign off. So far, the portable router I brought along is working well, loaded with a local SIM card, so I should be able to keep in touch throughout most of the trip! 

** I almost forgot to mention the solar lamps! For those of you new to my adventures, I had a fundraiser for solar lamps earlier this year, raising enough to buy 100 at a discounted price. I was able to mail 25 of them to Rachel on the east coast, who brought them back to Uganda with a group of students from the US. Rachel and Christine (a Ugandan Midwife and Manger of the birth center) came up with a wonderful contest of sorts for the village midwives. If they bring in 3 patients to the birth center in a month, for delivery and care, they can win a solar lamp! Christine told me that they have been so excited, mothers are being brought in for care and the midwives have a reliable light source in the village. I was able to bring 55 more solar lamps and 20 rain ponchos, that will also be given away as incentive gifts. Thank you to everyone who donated and to all of you who have expressed an interest in donating when I buy more. You have made such an incredible impact over here! **

Okay, now it's closer to 10pm, so I really need to go this time. Sending you all big love and gratitude!

Much love, Jo/MB