Dear Mom, Remember I am still alive

May 27, Friday 

Today we started out in the clinic working with a pregnant woman's group. The women would come and a health history would be obtained, get their blood pressure taken, have a review of immunizations, receive a tetanus booster if needed, have a midwife palpate their abdomen and assess fetal heart rate, hand out folic acid and iron supply to last them the month, and give anti-parastic medications if needed. Women would come as early as 3 or 4 months pregnant or as late as 7 or 8. To think how adamant we are on prenatal care… We really enjoyed watching the educators discuss proper nutrition and health maintenance with the women. Through a translator we obtain health histories and assisted in giving immunizations and dispensing and administering medications. We are excited that we will be able to participate in these sessions several times throughout our stay here. We enjoyed a quick snack as we do everyday around 11 or 12 of "chapate" a fried flour tortilla. We then set out on our first weekend excursion to Jenja, Uganda for white water rafting! We will usually be working Monday through Friday and are free to travel on the weekends, and encouraged to do so. Lisa and Doug are huge at helping us set up transportation, hostels to stay at, etc. One of the FIMRC drivers Juwali drove us the hour and a half from Bumwalukani to Mbale (the closet large city to where we are staying).  And then the true adventure began. Imagine being dropped off in a loud, crowded, dirty, foreign New York City/Chicago, where everyone speaks broken English, there are men and boys walking around trying to sell you food, drinks, fake leather purses, chicken on a stick, or dead chicken with full on feathers hanging upside down, fried corn, fried bananas, etc. We were then on a mission to find a matatu, aka a Ugandan 12 passenger van/taxi, which they of course cram full of up to 19 or 20 people. And heaven forbid the matatu leave with 1 or 2 seats empty. No we had to wait for an hour sitting in the back 2 rows, crammed with bags and Ugandans, windows open, hoping for just a moment of cool breeze. Once we finally started moving, we made frequent stops along the way of our almost 4 hour trip, I mean, who doesn't want to stop on the side of the road and watch 4 Ugandan men pee on the side of the street? Or have boys come up and poke you through the matatu windows yelling "Muzongo!", meaning "foreigner in Lugandan. At this point Michelle was attempting to play a quick version of Settlers of Cattan (a board game for those of you who don't know) while spotting cows, pigs, sheep, brick factories, etc. We decided the cows here are a special breed of "cowmel", an obvious mix between a cow and a camel, due to the large humps they all seem to have. Its somewhat of a Lion King safari here as Michelle puts it, birds tending to pose on these humps for hours at a time. After quite the cultural experience on our 3 1/2 hour matatu ride, we arrived in Jenja. Only to then have to hail down two bodas to make our way to our hostel for the night. We arrive to the hostel to be met by "Nash" a Kenyan man, with a British accents, and an afro bigger than mine or Michelle's combined! (Impossible right?) He gets us checked in and settled into our "room", which I thought was the coolest thing in the world given that 1) Michelle and I had never stayed in a hostel before and 2) not only were we in a hostel, but we were in a hostel with mosquito netting on every bunk, how many people can say they have done that? We then chose to indulge ourselves and went out to dinner at a recommended coffee/cafe where we had fresh fish, vegetables, and pina coladas :) It was incredible. Not to mention the sit down flushing toilets and warm showers that were to come later on in the weekend. We were spoiled I admit.. After a filling dinner, and time to simply decompress after a crazy day of clinic/travel, we decided to head back to the room for an early night in preparation of rafting the NILE RIVER Class 5 Rapids in the morning! Oh, and did I forget to mention that our room happened to be conveniently located right across from the hostel bar? Literally 3 steps away? And did I mention that Usher, 50 cent, Rhianna, and PINK are all very popular in Uganda? Who knew we would be lulled to sleep by bumping techno beets until midnight? Now mom, Mrs. Place, and Mrs, Fischer, please bear with me, and remember as you are reading the following entries.. we are still alive..

This group manages to find us every single day at the clinic, it took us all of 2 seconds to fall in love with them

Walking home from the clinic