"Haw ar u muzungu"

Hi everyone! Well Lisa and I just got back from a mini vacation  On Thursday we went with Dr. Welishe to the Kumuju Health Center 4. Basically this is a small clinic, that has a very small ward, that is down a dirt road about 25 minutes from Tororo. This center has 1 doctor that runs it, and the smaller health centers (3,2,1) have no doctors, we will see them next week. We spent the day seeing patients, and the highlight of the day was probably when a chicken walked into the exam room as we were examining a patient. No one, besides Lisa and I, thought anything about it ;) Random animals tend to be all over the hospital grounds, chickens, goats, cows, you name it. After clinic, we decided to be brave and go running on a road that leads out of town. Although we didn’t get as much attention as when I went running in Ghana, people definitely looked at us funny and of course, the children would laugh and giggle then try to race us. I have been walking a lot, but that was my first official exercise in a while.

There was also a horrendous rain storm which Lisa and I watched from the comfort of our balcony. At one point a whole fence came out of the ground. The best part about it though was that we grabbed Lisa’s Ipod and listened to Toto “Africa” and sang over and over “I felt the rains down in Africa” over and over while dancing….I think some locals across the street got a laugh out of it.

On Friday morning we came in expecting to go to “theater” the operating room. Dr. Welishe had a hernia repair, appendectomy and lipoma removal scheduled, and Lisa was going to get to do the hernia repair (she’s going into surgery). When we got to the hospital, we got the bad news that there was no water!! Anywhere in Tororo or surrounding. (Clearly we didn’t shower that AM to notice ;) It was amazing to think that there was just no water for a few days! There was a bit of water reserved for fires, and if an emergent surgery needed to be done. This did create yet another brilliant comment from Dr. Welishe, “there is a shortage of everything here in Uganda, besides Pathology.” So, our cases got post-poned and Lisa and I decided to leave for our weekend trip to sipi falls a bit early!

We hoped on the matatu to Mbale, which was crowded as usual with 4- 5 people per row, no dead chickens though! In Mbale, we had to make our way to the taxi park. While I was exploring the map, Lisa’s hand was grabbed by a man who immediately professed his love to her and would not let go, after prying his fingers 1 by 1 off her hand, Lisa was again free and we were on our way. Yet another crowded Matatu ride, and we were in the “town” of Sipi which sits on the foothills of Mt. Elgon, near the border to Kenya. We stayed at a great place that had dorms and bandas that overlooked the sipi valley and sipi falls. It cost about $15 for the two of us, which worked out really well, we had a shower, pit latrine and a dry place to stay. Best of all, the view from our pourch was amazing! From there we met Joseph, who would be our guide for yesterday and today. We went on a 3+ hr hike up and up and up, then finally back down. We wound our way around through small villages that you can only get to by trails, no roads, with a ridiculous number of children screaming at us “haw ur u muzungu” at times we were in the fields or forests so we couldn’t even tell where the little voices were coming from, but clearly they saw our white skin reflecting the sun. The hike was absolutely amazing because we saw the day to day life in the very rural setting, people cooking, women clearing fields with babies on their backs, you name it. Everyone greeted us so warmly, and I even got a stab at saying hello and how are you in the local language ( I learned half way through the hike that the languages had changed and I was speaking the wrong language to a different tribe…oops) Then the hike came through the eucalyptus and acacia trees the series of 3 falls that make up sipi falls. We also wound our way through coffee fields and learned about how they harvest and roast the beans…pretty cool!!! The children would laugh as we would slip and nearly fall in the much with our tennis shoes, then they would have nor problems barefoot. For being a “tourist area” we were the only people around, so we had it all to our selves. At the second falls, I got to go under the falls and take a mini-shower. It was paradise!!

During our hikes we learned that Joseph our guide was 1 of 17 children and that his mother was the first of 4 wives of his father! I asked him if he was going to take many wives, but he assured me that one women was enough!

That evening, Lisa and I went to a nicer hotel to eat dinner. We had the restaurant all to ourselves, and we had told them earlier what we wanted, so that cooked the food especially for us! 2 people later came though as we were eating desert. It was a really good 4 course meal overlooking sipi valley as the sunset…once again we have had our share of romantic dinners. When dinner was complete, it was already dark out, and as we left the restaurant we realized that Sipi did not have power and that it was going to be a dark ride home along the road. I don’t remember the last time I walked so fast, but, I was not a fan of walking along the road in the darkest dark night I can remember, with random animals crossing the road that I couldn’t identify, we had my head lamp, but we were glad to arrive back at the hotel.

This morning, we got up early, read our books as we watched the sunrise over the waterfalls, then took off early for another hike. Our goal was to make it to Mt. Elgon National park and hike in the park some, but when we got to the park, we decided that it would be too expensive and we decided that our hike with Joseph around the park for 4 hrs round trip would have to be enough. Once again, we were meeting people as they tended their fields, walking 2 ft from their mud homes with banana leaf roofs, with children behind laughing at the muzungus…good day! At one point we approached a family in the field, and suddenly a 2 yr old girl screamed, ran away from the trail we were approaching on, was balling and buried herself in her mothers skirt. Joseph then told us that her older brother told her that the muzungus wanted to take her and that we where going to steal her. Clearly we scared her 

We had a very uneventful ride back to Tororo. We were lucky enough to grab a ride to Mbale with a man traveling that direction (of course for a price) so we ended up sitting in the back with 2 school girls (ages 5 and 6) and their chicken…or dinner for that night. The girls where clearly terrified of us, but eventually they warmed up! So now we are back in Tororo and going to church tomorrow morning with Dr. Welishe.

Miss you all.

Crystal