Astronomy, Food, People, and Our work here in Uganda

HI all, Here are a few impressions about Uganda. All is well here, except that the travel bug caught up with me so I have beeen confined to quarters most of today, but it gave me time to send this along. enjoy...

Astronomy and Geography and Climate

Uganda is right on the equator. This leads to some peculiar effects…Especially now while the sun is way up at the tropic of Capricorn at the summer solstice. Because of this, right now, the noon shadows are casting to the south, opposite of what we are used to in the northern regions. When the sun sets or rises is does so very quickly because it is almost vertical with the horizon, compared to its gradual slanted descent up where we live. The air is very thin owing to this direct path to the sun, and the high altitude, so sunburn and radiation received are maximized.
The milky way is quite visible most nights also because of this thin atmosphere. In addition, the north star is way over on the northern horizon, because we are so far from the north pole where it is overhead! We can see constellations to the south which are new to me, because they are too far south to see from our vantage point in WA.
But the elevation of Kampala, Lake Victoria, and most of Uganda is over 4000 feet, so the climate is mild. Right now it is very dry, similar to Seattle’s August weather. Something creates a rainy season in Feb-May, and again in the fall. The hottest months are Jan and Feb.

Our work with the medical/midwifery community

We have now been to 4 clinics and hospitals in the city and country, to see what they are like and how the SMS system might work for them. Right now, there is data gathered by each midwife for each birth, but most of it sits in a book in their clinic or home and never gets compiled as helpful statistics for use by the national Public Health Department. This project would make it very easy for this data to be summarized at the national level, in a paperless electronic database. It would be better than what we have in the US in some ways, because we have a mix of paper and electronic systems that don’t talk to each other.
In doing this feasibility study we go to each clinic and Fredrik, Terri, and Brad train the midwives in entering baby and mom data on their celfones as text messages (they ALL have celfones and know how to text, even way out in the bush, and coverage is better than in rural areas of the US!) Then we ask them to send sample messages and see how they like the idea in a discussion afterwards. So far, every single midwife likes the idea and most can input to it after one lesson! They see how this can help them have better information and document the causes of infant and mother mortality/illness, in order to improve things that are not working. For the most part, simple things stand in the way; owing to the large number of babies (1.5 million born annually in a country of 32 million), and the small budget for care. Also the roads are poor at best, and impassable in the rainy season so moms with problems can’t get to the clinic when they need to.
The groups we talk with are so appreciative; one sang the Nurses Anthem, whose chorus includes the words “We’re chosen to be nurses…” beautifully sung and very touching.
We visited one midwife named Sarah (many biblical names here), out in the rural area yesterday, she is a leader in her village, and has been delivering about 20 babies a month for 20 years! Adjoining her little 2 room house, is her delivery/labor room, a dark simple room with a metal bed and a dirt floor, and a bare light bulb. She is a very knowledgeable caregiver, and is respected in her community, despite a lack of formal training.

Beautiful People of Uganda

Everywhere we go we are so impressed with the people of this country. Regardless of their place in the income pyramid (and many are very very poot), they seem dignified, well dressed, appreciative, modest and softspoken, and cheerful. They are so soft spoken that we have yet to hear even one person shout or speak loudly to another adult or child in our 12 days here. They have the interesting custom of shaking hands and then holding onto the handshake for several minutes into the conversation which follows, regardless of gender. They seem very happy to see us whenever we meet, by chance or planned. Yesterday we stopped at next door to a girls middle school to meet with a midwife. About 100 girls were out on the playground for recess in their bright blue school uniforms. Before we knew it, they all were stampeding toward us, smiling and greeting us and waving as they ran! They all wanted to talk with us, touch us, and be in pictures with us! This was in a village with only dirt roads, a town handpump well for water, cows and goats free ranging in the street and yards, and just the simplest brick or thatched huts for homes, some with dirt floors, and most without electricity.

Food
The food of Uganda is very simple. Most meals include 3 starches (potato, maize, rice, yams, etc) and one dish called matoke made of plantains mashed into a pulp about the consistency of very stiff oatmeal, which sits in your tummy like a brick for hours after each meal. To this is sometimes added a small amount of (very expensive) meat, either goat, fish, beef or chicken and gravy. Ugandans eat 3 BIG meals a day, so we have to politely ask for smaller portions most of the time. They eat very little sugar, and no dessert. It is rare to see a person who is not thin, except for some high government officials and a few others, who are quite chubby! We may even come home no fatter than we were when we left!
Though they grow excellent coffee and tea for export, they rarely drink these themselves. We had to buy a boiler and Terri brought a coffee press, and coffee form Seattle! So we are all having coffee each morning.
Many homes have no running water. Kids carry two 30 pound jerry cans of water many yards from local wells, or even further strapped to their bikes. Most cooking is done on wood/charcoal outdoor stoves, usually in a cooking shed to keep the rain off. Needless to say, the city and villages are very smoky around dinner time!
Its common to see freshly killed meat hanging in the shop for sale the same day it is killed, and live chickens for sale, owing to little or no refrigeration in most homes. Most people seem to buy what they need for each meal one day at a time, because of hand to mouth income. Nevertheless, in towns and the city they have increasingly modern grocery stores and shops as a middle class emerges from the many poor families.

Malaria and mosquitoes

Houses (and our hotel rooms) have no screens on the windows so there are mosquito nets over each bed. Bugs aren’t bad at all, except for mosquitoes at night. Because of malaria risk, nets are an essential feature of each bed, hanging above them and giving a surreal ghostly appearance at night.

All for now, more later...
bill