Mbale Regional

Michelle here:

Today we woke up as usual, ate the staple breakfast of hardboiled eggs and oatmeal or peanut butter and toast, and headed off to Mbale for the day. We have become accustom to regular transportation by matatu and now I have set a personal legend of trying to fit 29 people, 2 goats, chickens, a mattress, and as many other random materials into a matatu at one time…we have only gotten up to 22 people plus random supplies but nothing worth mentioning…yet but will keep you posted. We went into Mbale to visit Mbale Regional Hospital and CURE Children's Neurological Hospital with our trusty guides Richard and Peter. After arriving in Mbale, we made our way first to Mbale Regional where we met the Director of Nursing (yes, they are still in the 1920s and wearing full white dresses and caps…pictures will be posted) and then able to walk around the facility. It is amazing what equipment and specialities they actually have for being a third world country. We walked through the Xray Unit, where they were able to do full body scans, swallow studies, ultrasound, barium edemas for bowel obstruction studies, and fluoroscopy. Then we walked through the ENT department, adult male and female wards, and the operation theatre. We were all very impressed with the use of space until we hit the pediatric and casualty wards (no not the morgue but the trauma/ortho unit). As we started towards the pediatricic ward, kids and parents were lining the outside on the walkway and I mean completely filling the walkway, where it was difficult to even walk through. Most to almost all of the children had IVs hooked up to fluid hanging from the fence posts, sitting on blankets breastfeeding, or shoved into the corner waiting in line for treatment… and I am nurse but not a pediatric nurse and I was slightly uncomfortable with the amounts of scalp vein IVs that were just walking around the compound. We must have been there in prime time for rounding and were able to see residents checking up on patients and charting or whatever you want to call it (and yes wearing white lab coats) and nurses passing meds. Then we walked into the casualty ward, where we were truly slapped in the face of being a third world country and the limitation to resources. It takes a very imaginative person to be a trauma attending here in Uganda… they makeshift traction setup from cloth and some sort of pulley system, chest tubes out of plastic tubes draining into water bottles, and casting materials that very much so looks like a clumpy plaster but it all works!! Their trauma center is very busy with all the boda accidents, tree climbing accidents, and burn victims. Bed after bed, there was another sad story of the patient falling off something, breaking something else, and needing more or better resources to care for their injuries. BUT there is a special request for Brittany Richardson to fly to Uganda to do some very needed pin care… I know how much you love your pin care. There is so much work to be done and they definitely do the best that they can with what they have. 

We met Douglas for a Western lunch at our new favorite cafe called Chat 'n' Chinos where we listened to Western music such as Justin Beiber, Gavin DeGraw, Jack Johnson, Rihanna, David Crowder Band, and many more favorites. They had the cleanest bathroom that we have seen yet in the whole country of Uganda not to mention a sitting, flushing toilet, amazing food, gorgeous painting and jewelry for sale (all proceeds go towards a orphanage close to Mbale), and slow service but that is typical in Africa (T.A.B. = Thats Africa Baby).    

Then we went to CURE Children's Hospital… it was quite a change of scenery. Just by walking onto CURE's property, you could tell that it was a USA supported hospital with its pedicured lawn treatment, different colorful arrangements of shrubbery, and beautiful brick buildings. There are several American Pediatric Neurosurgeons and one local doctor performing various surgeries such as shunt placement for hydrocepholus, meningocele tumor removal, spinal bifida, brain tumor removals, and more on a daily basis . They also have other services such as physiotherapy (as they call it), social workers, food services for patient and family members, and a housing center (aka a bunch of bunk beds like grade school camp all over again). They do so much good work and reach out to the surrounding communities of Uganda and Kenya and also all they way to Rwanda. Culture states that these babies are dead to the world, are born dirty, are not welcomed back into the community, and don't even deserve a birth name or they are named dirty or morbid names.  CURE is working with the patients and families on changing their views on these myths and cultural misperceptions, naming or renaming the babies, reuniting them back into the community, and restoring their hope. 

After the long day of touring, our adventures were nowhere near done… Douglas' mission of the day was to buy and transport a filing cabinet back to Bududa BY MATATU. 3 Ugandan men and Douglas strapped the filing cabinet to a bicycle, rolled the filing cabinet from the street side shop to the matatu taxi park, loaded it into the front seat of the matatu, and had to pay for 4 seats for transport of just the filing cabinet while Lyndsay stood by watching/videotaping the whole thing. Needless to say, the Mzungos chartered our own matatu and were riddin' dirty back to Bududa. But I am nowhere near my personal legend because we only fit 17 people, one filing cabinet, 2 wash basins, 2 fifths of vodka, one liter of Fanta, random amounts of produce, boxes of printing paper, and all our overnight bags for the weekend. Shout out to Christi Mecca for the best playlist ever and thank you for providing a soundtrack for all our enjoyable matatu rides. "Call me Conductor, I can make your matatu rock from the windows to the walls feeling anything but untouched cause we're not riding solo going along one bump at a time."