Fixin' to Get Ready -

As I began writing this, the power was off and I sat in an almost empty house in the soft glow of candlelight. It’s a memory I’ll have forever.  To keep it from getting spooky, I spaced tea-candles in the hall offering little puddles of light from living room to bedroom.  I loved it! And then the scene repeated itself so often over the week that I ran out of tapers, then tea lights, then batteries...  Finally, as my neighbor seemed to have power, I checked with the landlord and we once again jiggled the wire the power department saw fit to install after they removed a fuse.  You just have to be willing to take the risk of electrocution to get the lights to come back on.    I now revel in having power and have everything I own plugged in. 

As time  comes to a close here n Gulu it’s a bit surreal.  The house feels like a shell and is essentially empty except for the basic pieces of furniture.  All the artwork is down, crafts packed.  Knowing me as many of you do, I packed the arts crafts and mementos first and those things the kids gave me to make life comfy here: battery chargers, Life Save Water Bottle, Steri-pen, solar charger.. I continued to be one of the best prepared PCV’s in country – thanks again to the forward thinking of my kids. 

Naively I thought I had only one suitcase of treasures.  Well – the joke was/is on me.  Two 40lb bags later, I realized that packing to leave is actually more complicated than packing to get here and for one simple reason:  things I forgot from home could be (and were) mailed to me and – I knew I would return to the States and the family and friends.

Leaving here, I realize it’s entirely possible I won’t return – or at least not for years.  And – as is my nature – I want to take every morsel of memory back with me.  And it appears I’m doing just that.  So – pack-unpack-repack repeat.

Mentally, I'm somewhere else.  Physically, I’m here doing what I need to do to leave.  Part of that equation is Peter and setting up a really functional and caring support network for him when I’m gone and one that can manage his continuation in school assuming his grades on his Primary Leaving Exams allow that.  Since we won’t really know that until January, things will have to move fast because school starts again on February and the group will have to find him a school and one I can fund.  Peter certainly had good people in his life before I arrived on the scene and they will be the constants in his life when I leave.  The challenge has been convincing Peter of that life will move forward, but slowly-by-slowly as the expression goes that is happening.  We gathered in the office of the DRDC (Deputy Residential Regional Commissioner) who has been so instrumental in helping Peter when problems have come up.  It’s amazing the people Peter has gathered around him – how a street kid can become friends with and befriended by high district officials, the police, pastors and others.  But it was through Peter that I began to know most of Gulu!  Anyway – that network is in place and that feels good for all of us.

I met a young woman who is here working with Educate for Change and she's taking over the house making the task of finding places for all the furniture a lot easier.  She’s also helping with Peter.  So things are falling into place. The universe works in amazing ways.

My LABE friends here are wonderful and they have just this week moved into the larger offices promised a year ago, but still have no power or water.  This is an office we're talking about - no copier, internet, lights, etc.   The library project however, seems to be in hands that will work to continue its growth and that’s satisfying.

I spent the weekend saying goodbye to friends I’ve served with and a curious thing in happening.  One volunteer I really like met Travis and Brett and will probably connect with Travis in Florida to go cave diving.  A Ugandan friend who left while I was traveling, turns out to be in Dallas now working as a CPA.  We’ll get to visit when he comes to see friends who have a house in the Austin hill country!    Another RPCV who is working here with a social-enterprise group also left while I was traveling, but is going to be in Austin the day after I arrive! So we’ll also see each other.  The world keeps getting smaller and I like it.

Today was spent delivering gifts to people who have made such an impact on my life here and I am so touched by their responses to my leaving.     It's a bag full of mixed emotions  and as time draws near - 12 days left in Gulu - my emotions careen from heavyhearted to downright giddy and everything in between. I'm teary one moment excited and visualizing myself stepping off that plane in Austin the next.  I've been warned that this roller-coaster will continue and get even worse when I'm actually back in the States.   You are forwarned! 

By the way – arriving home on Nov. 10 via United Airlines at 6:18!!!!!   I'm not sure if I'll kiss the ground first or eat at Chuys!

The Finger and the Blade Master

The Broken Digit

 

Ordinarily, one wouldn’t bother to write a blog about a broken finger.  There are plenty of worse things and more interesting, but I think you’ll enjoy or possibly gasp some of this. let me say though - up front - that the actual doctors involved in this were excellent: professional, caring and with a good sense of humor.  So Dr.  Ronald - if you're reading this know that you  and your team were great.  But someone needs to invest in a ring cutter of the non-saw-wielding kind. 

In the Beginning:

It was the second day of Safari when it happened.  Could have happened to anyone – and frankly I’m REALLY glad it happened to me instead of one of the kids.  We were all unfolding from the 4X4 – wild animals called – and we answered.  I had my hand in the door frame pulling myself forward from the rear seat of the Prada and seem to remember the driver commanding: “Shut the door!”  And so – the door was shut.  Thank god it was not a Mercedes of one of those other heavy, air-tight doors.  My whole hand would have been toast – or more aptly – crumbs or mush.  But this was an old and well used SUV and the doors were not so heavy nor so tight.  And this – as Martha Stewart would say – “is a good thing.”  It was a bit before anyone else realized what had happened and my hand stayed shut in the slammed door. 

Well – nothin’ to do after the scream but get out and see animals – although I have no memory of what they were.   This is Africa – no ice for swelling.  No Minor Emergency Clinic around the corner.  It was three days before we made it back to Gulu and the possibility of help.  As a good friend told his wife some years ago: “Just wrap it and go (he’s learned to regret that …)  and so we did.  I had a ring on that finger – a nice silver thing made in Ethiopia.  The finger swelled to look like a purple sausage…  Brett – traveling as always with a medical kit, devised a dandy splint and we wrapped it.  At any restaurant with ice (a rarity in these parts) we got a bag and put it around the finger.  Damn! It was my “shootin’ the bird finger!”   It’s a rather obvious finger to have wrapped and even here people know what that means and look a little askance at this white woman who seems to be making an obscene gesture – and has the audacity to wrap it in white. .  It’s not intentional – really.

Anyway – moving forward…  I called PC Medical and they called the best hospital in Gulu to see if they had/have a ring cutter – standard for any trauma or emergency center. “It is not there - but we have a man who works in the metal shop and he can cut if off under a doctor’s supervision.”  Oh Jeeze – the combination of words metal shop – cut off under supervision was making me sweat.  So we four canvassed Gulu for a pair of wire cutting dikes.  No – no such thing in Gulu.   OK – still weren’t  sure whether it  was just a nasty smash job or a break.  So we fell upon an “X-Ray and Imaging Studio”  on the second floor of a building accessed by a perilously shaky winding metal staircase leading to a balcony/walkway with no railing.  (I’m developing a better appreciation for US building codes.) I went up while the other three continue to look for a pair of dikes.    As luck would have it, while I was there I ran into the Sociopathic Head Teacher from Peter’s school - you remember the SHT?  Is there no mercy?  Well – I have broken the appropriate finger it appears.

I was ushered into a small, dreary back room, seated next to an X-Ray machine from somewhere back in the 50’s and several pictures were taken.  No protective shielding for me – 6” away, but the lab-tech left the room…  They were developed fairly quickly and I paid less than $10 US for what in the States would have been in the hundreds.   The digit was broken for sure and interesting looking bifurcated break.  How to get that ring off?

We got a private hire to the hospital and the day was getting toward afternoon.  We piled out of  the car and headed for the Casualty Department and the doctor who had been called was in surgery, so I was left to find the metal worker and negotiate the removal of the ring.  And this is where the comedy began.  You can’t make this stuff up.   And this was the sign outside the hospital the waiting area of the hospital.   I like this.

The Blade Master:

We were intercepted by a nurse to whom I told my story and suggested she might want to locate the ring-cutter soon to be known as The Blade Master.  She sent someone to the metal-working-shop and we waited outside.  Soon, a middle aged Italian man drove up in his truck, about to leave the hospital – it was  closing time, but we chatted.  He was large, boasting several days of white stubble, mischievous twinkling eyes, a  display of large fuzzy, yellow teeth and a shirt straining at the stomach.  Nothing wrong with any of  this, but not a comforting for someone who is about to cut your finger off with a saw. Oops - did I say that - I meant cut your ring off - not finger - no - not finger.

The man grinned and announced “I haf dooone eeet… using saw – don’t woorrrry!”  I WAS worried so asked how many times he had done this and he said “at least four or fiffe times.” And with what I considered a wantonly sadistic gleam in his eye, he  offered, “I haf  cut riiinggs not just frrrom feenger…!”  Asking what else had he cut rings from he said – a little too excitedly and with a deep chortle– “from peenises.”   He thought this was pretty funny and in retrospect it was downright hysterical but I’m sure  I heard several men behind me passing out.  

He left to get his equipment – and returned full of enthusiasm walking down the road toward me holding a 12” long electric rotary saw  (a router?) over his head like he the  &%#$ Statue of Liberty.  In my freaked out state, he appeared  entirely too happy about this.  There was a long cord dangling - no plug, just raw wires to stick into the outlet – meaning it could stop in mid cut… Erase any image you may have of those nice lady-like Dremel tools.   This thing was BIG with a 6" circular blade  -  rusty - well nicked.   Tim the Tool Man would have been proud.

My innards were beginning to roil as we were ushered to a treatment room where the man happily stuck the wires into a socket and turned the saw on – full squeal (the saw – not me – yet) and moved toward me – still with the twinkle in his eye – and reaching for my arm.   This man is jolly and obviously loves his work.  Me - not so much. 

A group was beginning to form as all of us gasped in horror and began to pull away from the saw, explaining loudly that he not getting near my hand with that saw.  This was pretty much the conversation:

Blade Master (BM):   “Don’t worry. You not move – no problem.”

Me: "It’s not YOUR hand."

BM: “You too anxious. Someone hold her down.”

Travis and Brett:  “You have to protect the knuckles.”

BM: "If she not move – no worry."  I sense that this man is very good at making and repairing all things metal, an expert in fact - but my finger is not metal

Me again:  "Your blade (did I say it was a 6" blade?)  is bigger than my hand and wider than my knuckles… what if it slips?”
BM - Broad grin: "No worries - if it slips - we're in hospital!"  Hahahahah

BM: “Give her drugs maybe… zanax,” but I'm thinking they're gonna have to chloroform me to get any closer with that blade...

Brett: "The safer you make this, the less you have to worry about her moving.”

BM: Grabs my arm – puts it on the table: “You just hold her.”     whirrrrrrr

Travis: “Alright everyone quiet!  Conference – outside. You - turn off the saw."

There are now six people in the room, including two Ugandan staff are frantically trying to find things to protect the knuckles and have come up with flat metal pieces to guard the rest of the hand.  Molly has left the room – feeling a bit faint at this point. 

Me: “You have a metal shop – right? You cut wires? Yes?  Go get some metal cutting dikes – now-now. This ring is silver – soft metal – dikes will work.”

BM - crestfallen: “Saw will work – you too anxious! That ring stainless – dikes not work - but we try.”  He left muttering but returned with two sets of dikes and a hacksaw. 

The smallest pair of dikes and a strong hand did the trick. The Blade Master left shaking his head over this bunch of weenies.  Wish we’d filmed this – but abject terror kinda puts the lid on creativity – especially when the photographer was getting nauseous ;-)  I think Molly got a picture of me with him the next day.  He was a good sport - asked if we had another ring to saw off. 

Great Doctors

Next day: no setting of the finger yesterday.  By the time we got the ring off everyone had left and the doctor was still in surgery but called me at home to apologize.  Really nice man - would never happen in the States.

I was met the next morning by the Dr. Ronald Okidi, the doctor PC had called.   Lovely man – he walked me through all of the paper work – short-cutting the process by hours and we were escorted into a surgical room.  Again – this would not have happened in the US.  Very personal treatment.

Everyone was allowed to stay and somewhat of a party atmosphere filled the air out of pure nervousness.  Pictures were taken…  These guys are very professional and gave me the requisite shots to eliminate any possibility of my feeling anything while they worked on the hand.  The shots were hideous I have to say and there were a lot of them.  But I had impressed upon the PC doctor who relayed the information to this doctor that I did not want to feel pain. 

Well – the broken bones in the finger had already begun to fuse  and I’ve never seem so many un-natural movements of a finger, but by that time I was feeling no pain.   Six or so x-rays later, it was clear that this finger was not going to budge and so they re-splinted it and gave me some nice little red pills for pain later.  Surprisingly, there was very little.  The knuckles are intact and I think I’ll get full range of motion with the finger someday but right now it’s still a little sausage like and the tip dips down like it’s embarrassed.

The entire bill from “soup to nuts” was  just about 200,000sh – less than $100 US dollars. 

The experience with the Blade Master – priceless.

In relaying the Blade Master story to a friend, she jokingly suggested maybe they wanted the finger for a witchcraft ritual and sent me this link: http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/648018--i-believe-my-brother-was-eaten.html

Read at your own risk – a little cannibalism goes a long way. You can always rely on your friends to make you feel better.

Safari!

Started on September 23...

Perched in a cushioned blocky wooden chair on the front porch of Carpe Diem Guesthouse overlooking Lake Victoria in Entebbe, it’s 7-ish on a cool, misty morning as I drain my cup of French press coffee.  Birds twitter and there’s an occasional rooster down below.  Every once is a while a Hornbill flies overhead cackling raucously at the world below.  They are so noisy and obnoxious that people have been known to cut down trees to keep them from roosting nearby and they’re loud enough to drown out any competitor. I'm back to "just me," but with fresh memories of a beautiful three weeksTravis, Brett and Brett's girl friend, Molly.

They flew out last night and I’m glad we waited until almost the end of my time here to have our visit, because it would have been even more dreadful to put them on a plane had I much more time left in country.    They got the full Uganda treatment with the exception of taking public transport.  Thank God for that – because even private pushed the limits of most sane peolpe.

I picked them (as the Ugandans say) from the airport September 4^th and we spent the first night in Entebbe. It was pure magic seeing them arrive that night and the beginning of a dream come true.  I’ve been on a countdown for the last 6 months! And I have to say they looked spectacular even exhausted after 24 hours of travel.  So we hit the hotel and got down to the business of beer pretty fast.  Then their first run at mosquito nets.

The next day we got a hire back into Kampala via  a detour to tour an organic farm and bio-gas installation. Although that was Brett’s idea, it was a great introduction to Uganda for everyone else and sparked a lot of conversation about sustainability of resources and life in Uganda for the rest of the trip.  It gave real-world significance to the Heifer Project.  (Check it out if you're looking for a different way to do Christmas and want to change a life.)  We met some new friends (see below), collected some seeds, and saw how the manure from two cows provides cooking gas and lights for this whole installation.  Cool...

New friend

The next night they were introduced to my life away from home by staying at the Annex, sharing a shower, bath and city noise.   Figured I should so this gently before they hit Gulu - after all there was still hot water...  Moses, our intrepid Language trainer and tour operator picked us on time at 6AM the next morning and we set off to see the wilds of Africa – starting with a some baboons along the road and a family of five Rhinos at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and moving on to chimps later in the day. 

Yep - we're really that close

 What a gift it was to see Uganda through the fresh eyes of those not jaded by too many “it-is-finished-spoiled-not-there” explanations for almost everything. It was a loooong day.  We hit the top of the falls at Murcheson Falls in late afternoon to gape at the Nile as it tumbles and plunges 65 feet through a 6-foot crevice and into what’s know as the Albert Nile.  Spectacular to say the least.  Think we won't be rafting this one.

Chimp - watching is watch him

 

Top-of-the-Falls

I’m glad we had a stellar day, because by the time we arrived at our grim lodging for the night we were almost too tired to care.  I had to let go f the idea of a "gentle" introduction to the realities of Uganda...  This place made the Annex look like Four Seasons.  The cold water hand-held wand-shower was barely a dribble, none of the fans worked, only one outlet worked to charge multiple cameras and phones and stomach trouble had found some of us already. I’d been informed that the place was “nice,” so it was a rather rude shock – and this from someone who's lived here for two years and is "used" as they say. 

Someone had put an almost empty beer bottle on a counter as we entered the place and before we could get back to the door to get the rest of our luggage a Goliath-sized cockroach already had its butt in the air as it peeked head first into the bottle.   Brett put a    It take a long time to full a hippo.  This portion of the Nile is hippo-central: they laze around in cool  water during the day and waddle out to eat about 88 lbs of grass at night.

The next day, somewhere during the excitement of people piling out of the car to see wild-things my hand was slammed in the car door, breaking the middle finger, but more on that later.  It was it own adventure worthy of another blog installation.   How I managed to break only that particular finger I don't know - the whole hand was in the door.  I'm just lucky that way I guess...

After that bit of excitement on the heels of the first night in the little house of horrors, we opted for some luxury the following night.   The kids had hit the jet-lag wall and come into full contact with heat, dust, bugs and – the realities of travel in the third world and none of us were in the mood for a possible repeat of the roach hotel.   We'd spent a wonderful afternoon (in equatorial sun...) on a barge cruising up the Nile and watched a man catch the biggest fish (Nile Perch) I've ever seen in fresh water.  Paraa Lodge was right up the road offering good food, pools, cold beer, full-time electricity, hot water and ice for the finger.  We went over budget and took it!  Aaaahhhh...

It had rained during the night, so the next morning offered everyone first hand experience with the roads I've been complaining about for two years.  We watched as a big army truck nearly  fell over and had to get pretty creative to get our own 4X4 out of the mire.  The next two days were full tilt (no pun intended) as we rode on the top of the vehicle to see everything the park had to offer:  Boks, water buffalo rooting in a deep mud-bog, 
 

Mud Monster

wart-hogs prancing with their prissy flag-like tails, giraffes (including a rare siting of a mama nursing her baby), elephants,  and an amazing close-up-viewing of a lion stalking a huge herd of Boks, their defensive maneuvers rivaling the most sophisticated choreography.  No kill - she lost interest and walked leisurely up the road in front of  four safari vehicles and wide eyed tourists any of which she could have had for lunch.

The park was truly spectacular though marred a bit by new oil drilling which has begun to disturb the elephants. Our sightings were distant and we searched to the bitter end to find their new haunts, but they had moved deeper into the wild areas and away from the new oil-company roads.  On the way back to Gulu though we had a great surprise when we whizzed by a big bull munching on a bluff two feet from the road.  It happened so fast, we asked our driver to back up, which he did slowly and reluctantly, because elephants are famous for charging and crumpling vehicles that startle them.  By the time we crept back, he was long gone, but to get that close was still a thrill and all-in-all our Safari was a complete success.

If you'd like to see the pictures posted thus far,  go to my face book page.  More will come later.  And stay tuned for the "Mad Italian with the Electric Saw."  You can't make that stuff up...