last night at NUFU house in Kampala.

Tonight is our last night staying at the NUFU house at the university since our plane leaves at 2am on sunday morning. Today we had our last breakfast from margaret which consisted of this all-star lineup: omelette with green peppers, red peppers, and onions, mango juice, toast, and pineapple (the pineapple here is the best in the world. Also, i learned on this trip that pineapples don't grow in trees but on little bushes! go figure).

Today was a free day for us so we went to the craft market by taking a "mutatu", a type of mini-bus that are everywhere in the city. we got one private hire for us, but usually they just pick up random people on the street and have routes to go on. They can cram about 15 people in them, have roll bars on the windows, and their seats are covered in a gross velvety-like cloth. Needless to say I tried not to touch much of the interior haha.The market had a lot of really neat things, so I ended up spending most of my remaining shillings. I got a bag made from various patches of fabric and several pairs of earrings...at least 6 haha. Each pair of earrings cost 2000 shillings, which is equivalent to just under one US dollar. Prices here in Uganda are generally significantly higher for foreigners, so a fair amount of bartering needs to be done when buying services such as taxi rides and buying things at markets. For example, a taxi ride from Kampala to a suburb would cost a local person approximately 500 shillings, but for a foreigner it would be about 15,0000shillings. ANother thing I have found strange here is that bribes are not uncommon. FOr example last night when our taxi brought us back to the front gate of the university, the guard at the entrance asked for money before he would let us in. We handed over 1000 shillings which is only about 50 cents, but is a fair amount of money here.

After the market we walked back towards a coffee shop that we found the other day that served very good food (ie it was american-like!). I had an amazing grilled ham and cheese sandwich and passionfruit juice. THe meal came with a free cup of coffee which was to die for, especially since it was the first brewed cup of coffee I have had since leaving the US. Most coffee here is instant coffee, which if you've ever tried it, tastes nothing like brewed coffee!! We ended up catching a taxi home for a decent price, thanks to Ryan's bartering skills. Initially the cab driver wnted to charge us 15000 shilllings for the short trip back, but he refused to pay more than 8000, so that's what we ended up doing!

last day at mulago hospital

today was our last day at Mulago hospital because tomorrow is Matyrs Day. This is a national holiday celebrated in Uganda and is a day where all state/national employees get the day off (yes, even the doctors at the hospital). It started as a day of rememberance of several catholics that were killed many years ago, but has now turned into a big celebration and involves lots of church services at the catholic churches around town.

a few thoughts from my head about the past few days:

• I saw a cervical traction device on 2 patients. These patients had broken several bones in their neck, so as a treatment until they could receive surgery, they had metal screws drilled into their head which were attached to a 5kg weight which hung over the end of the bed. The weight provided a distraction force to their spine in an attempt to realign the bones. The device essentially looked like a giant meat hook with a piece of twine and a heavy weight attached to it. It was very weird to see a device like this with open wounds being in an open-air ward next to dozens of other patients in beds just a foot or two away.
• Today I went to the OB/GYN ward with another UW student and another physio. The best part of the experience was getting to see the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit). I was surprised to see several of the baby "incubators" that we see in America, as I rarely see technology used in other parts of the hospital. However there were dozens of babies in the NICU, most were either preterm or had suffered from asphyxia (lack of oxygen) at birth. The best part was that there were several sets of twins! Twins shared an incubator because there were not enough to go around. To get into the NICU, we had to take off our shoes and remove our lab coats because the oxygen tubes and other devices are easily knocked out by loose clothing (a scary thought to me. I couldn't believe O2 tubes were just draped across the ground so hastily).
• One of the harder things to see was a woman who recently passed away due to complications from her pregnancy. For some reason they had simply draped the woman in a sheet and placed her in the hallway while they awaited her family's arrival. It was just strange to me that it was dealt with so openly and that people could just pass by the woman in the hallway.
• The highlight of my week was having a patient I had seen in the outpatient gym a few times come up to me and greet me and say goodbye to me. He said that he had to make sure he said hello again to me before I left because I had "such a tender heart" and was one of the most "human" people he has ever met. He said if I ever come back to Uganda (which EVERYONE here says the curse of uganda is that once you come, you always come back!) I need to contact him because he works with an agency that helps the elderly as well as orphaned children, and he says he would love to have me come and visit with them just to talk with them. It was quite the compliment and was nice to hear something so genuine from a patient :) I got his email address so hopefully we shall stay in contact!

Well it is getting late here and we are going to try and head to a local craft market tomorrow, so I should hit the hay. I have been sleeping very well here, in part due to the fact that my allergies have been pretty bad and have left me pretty wiped by the end of the day!

Dear blog....

SAFARI! We had a blast on our safari this weekend. We left at 7am on Saturday morning, but were very surprised to see our travel guide outside our house at 6:40. Ugandans are NEVER early, and rarely on time. Half of us were still in the shower and eating, so we had to tell him to wait for us. All 8 of us students then got into a sweet safari van, equipped with bucket seats and a roof that extended upwards so that you can stand in the van while on your safari and look at the surroundings. I got the back of the van, which ended up being a moderately poor decision because it was a VERY bumpy ride! We were told that the ride would last only 6 hours, but it ended up taking us 10 hours! Many roads were unfinished and consisted of dirt that had been eroded by rainwater. When there were cement roads, there were extremely inconveniently placed speed bumps spaced out at an awkward distance from each other. (Ugandans here apparently like having 5 speed bumps 1 foot away from each other). Needless to say, I had a pretty gurgly stomach by the time we ate lunch!

Right before we entered the park, we ended up crossing over the EQUATOR! First time in the southern hemisphere for me so we definitely made sure to stop at the road marker and get pictures! On our way into the park we passed by a big elephant and got super excited and stopped to take pictures. Little did we know we'd get much closer to more elephants later on in the trip! We ended up staying in a hostel in the middle of the park, which had pretty nice accommodations, an outdoor restaurant/bar nearby, and lots of mongooses (mongeese??) roaming the area. In the morning we began our road safari at 6:30 am. We saw warthogs, water buffalo, antelope and elephants. Around 1 we went on a boat safari and saw tons of HIPPOS! (Also an alligator). Right as we were about to turn around we saw a family of elephants standing on the shore drinking/bathing so we rode up right next to them and watched them for a while. I got some beautiful pictures that I will have to post on here when I get back home! At night we went on another safari drive because we wanted to see some lions and leopards, but unfortauntely we did not see any. However we did see 2 crested cranes (a really pretty bird that is the national bird), lots of antelope, elephants, and a really pretty rainbow. Part of the  time I got to sit up on the top of the safari van (sorry dad, but i figured i could tell you now that you know im safe :-p)
the next morning we went on a walking tour of the land, led by an armed tour guide. we saw a massive cloud of bugs over the water, a hippo, and lots of birds that got boring to look at after a while. on our way out of the park in the morning, we had 3 elephants standing in the road blocking us. again, more sweet pictures.

i'm getting tired of typing for now, so more later!

woke up late...no time to blog about the past week before we leave for the safari, so i will just have to leave ya'll waiting in suspense! we are leaving in 15 minutes and the drive to queen elizabeth park is about 6 or 7 hours. i have a feeling it is going to be a very scenic drive though so i bet it will go fast!
if i don't get eaten by a hungry-hungry hippo, i'll blog once i am back in Kampala on Monday.
fun fact we learned from our roomate: hippos, elephants etc that are in parks around here each have several individuals whose job it is to simply walk around by the animal with AK47 guns to protect the each animal from poachers. when tourists (like us) come around, the guards keep a distance.

We're back...for a night!

Hey everybody! We just got back from an AMAZING week in Nkokunjaru at the Providence Home. The sisters there made us 3 meals a day, we got to work with dozens of awesome children at the orphanage there, and even got to do some home health PT! (Home health PT in Africa involves being on a bamboo mat, surrounded by 3 roosters, a stray dog, a big pig, a piglet, banana trees, and 4 naked children running around...though I will have to explain more later!) I will update more when I get a chance, but for right now we are all waiting to get on the internet, so I will keep it brief for now just to say that we made it back to Kampala.

If I don't get a chance to get back on the internet, we are leaving tomorrow morning for a SAFARI!!! We are going to Queen Elizabeth park until Monday, so once again, I won't have internet access until then.

Miss you all a lot! (Even more than I miss Chipotle, which I have been craving nonstop this week)

last day in Kampala for a week!

We had a pretty awesome day today, but I am pooped! We had a long day at the hospital and then went to an awesome dance show by group that is apparently internationally known for their performance. It included some AMAZING traditional dances. They involved a lot of butt shaking and stomping on the ground. At the end the women danced with pots balanced on their head (I found a picture online of this. I didn't take it but they we saw them perform this same show). Apparently the dancers in the show are individuals from around the country who have more or less been "saved" by this organization from poverty, war, violence, orphanhood, etc and are allowed to go to college through the proceeds from tickets

Anyways I can't be long on here because we are all waiting to get online, and we need to get to bed so we can pack in the morning for Nkokunjaru. This is the village about 1 to 3 hours away (depending on the condition of the road that day haha) where we will be staying at a convent with nuns and help children in the orphanage. I am super excited about this and have been looking forward to it all week!

As an FYI, don't worry about me when I don't update this for the next week because we will not have any internet access at the convent.

Miss you all a lot! (But I'm not ready to come home yet) :)

Emu, bbarri, ssatu...1, 2, 3!

Learned a bit more Lugandan today at clinic! We wrote down the words for "bend" and "straighten", both very important words to know in the physio dept.
Me and Kristi started in the ICU which was pretty awesome. We first saw a patient who was seriously injured in a traffic accident (surprise surprise) and was in a coma. Unfortunately, his identity was unknown so he had been in the ICU for several weeks. He was stable enough to be moved to another ward of the hospital, but since he had no family there to take care of him, he needed to remain there. In this hospital, families are taught how to do certain medical procedures such as suctioning out their mouths. With no family there to help him with this or with feeding, he would not survive, so they are keeping him in the ICU. We did some range of motion exercises, and some chest PT (!). By placing our hands on his ribcage and initiating a breathing-like pattern, we are encouraging proper airflow throughout all the lung in order to prevent things such as pneumonia and to help get out the gook.
Another patient we saw was interesting because he had suffered a brain trauma from a fall, and had also gotten tetanus. A side effect of tetanus is muscle spasms so I got to feel some cool muscle tone that I had never felt before. He was intubated, which actually surprised me because throughout the rest of the hospital I never saw any eletronic equipment. However, the ICU was actually relatively clean (no visitors allowed) and very quiet. They had vitals monitors on the patients which actually surprised me given the fact that we had gone on a tour of the entire hospital and I never once even saw a blood pressure cuff anywhere!
The last spot we went to was the post-ICU ICU. Basically the place where you go when you become stable, but still need fairly close attention (however "close" attention means maybe one nurse for 15 or 20 patients.) We saw a man with a craniotomy (a removal of part of the skull) after he was in a traffic accident (something should REALLY be done about the traffic here!). What I found interesting was that this man, with basically a chunk of his head missing, was sitting next to an open window (no screens) in a dirty corner. I can't imagine how many infections occur in this hospital...
Right now we are getting ready for a party because it is one of our professors birthday today. We are going to order pizza and have her over and play volleyball with the other med students from Madison who are visiting here.