Thank you readers!

I discovered this morning a pleasant surprise.  I have passed 3,400 page views for the blog.  Here's how it breaks down by country:

Entry	Pageviews
United States	2598
Australia	213
France	120
Russia	66
Kenya	63
Germany	54
Uganda	39
Japan	38
United Arab Emirates	19
Switzerland	19

Thank you Switzerland.  I have no idea who you are, but thank you for putting me over the top.

Packing for East Africa (Part 1 of several)

1Here's my list of things you should bring with you on your trip to Africa, in no particular order:

  Frye Artisan Fold Over Cross Body Bag:

Without a doubt, the best decision I ever made when packing for Africa.  Okay so maybe there is some order to this list.  This is very, very good if you will be spending any time in a large city.  The style is understated and the leather is luxurious and durable.  My Jenny cross body will make many more trips around Africa and the globe with me.  Worth.Every.Penny.

Available at:  Amazon.com or The Frye Company

L’Occitane Almond Supple Skin Oil & L'Occitane Shea Butter Ultra Rich Body Lotion

Almond Supple Skin Oil

Fabulous for the skin.  Smells soft and sweet, but not "loud".  In a pinch I have also used this light lubricant on a few sticky locks since I can't find a can of WD-40. Expensive, yes, but multipurpose.  Works well with Shea Butter Ultra Rich Body Lotion.

Available from: Sephora.com

Shea Butter Ultra Rich Body Lotion

Simply the best after bath lotion that stands up to African dry heat.  I've tried cheaper, but none works better than this at keeping dry skin away.  L'Occitane also makes very good hand and foot creams as well.  Again, expensive, but darned well worth it.

Available from:  Sephora.com

  Austrailian Sun Block

  

During my time in Uganda, my friends Carolyn and Phillip from Sydney visited.  At that time, I was burned to a crisp by the sun, so I asked her to bring me sunblock.  This sunblock is the best I have ever used.  I know, I know -- I'm saying that about everything in this post, but, hey, when the stuff works like it advertises, you can't help bug brag about it.

Available from:  Carolyn and Phillip, Sydney, Austrailia

   LL Bean backpack

    

     

   A truly wonderful backpack at a good price.  Rugged as hell.  Ergonomic too.

     Available from:  L.L. Bean

     More posts later about great stuff to pack for your trip to Africa.

     L.G.

6

Guess what you can't buy in Uganda?

And apparently for a reason I would have never in a million years thought of.  Go ahead.  Google it and see why.

Must be doing something right

Good morning everyone!  Meet  my student Irene Agadi.  Irene's husband called this morning just before 5 a.m. to tell me that she had a healthy baby boy.   Irene is doing well too which is amazing because about 1 month ago Irene developed a soccer ball sized cyst/tumor in her vagina.  Week before last, doctors at a local hospital said she MUST have surgery to remove the tumor so that she would be able to deliver vaginally.   The cost of the surgery was around 200,000 UGX (about $80 at the current exchange rate).  An impossible amount of money that required her husband to go to every relative they had plus a few others to scrape together a loan package for the surgery.

 C-sections are a curse here in Africa because the recovery time is 6 weeks and no woman in Africa has enough family support or time to recover from a C-section.  There is water to fetch twice a day, digging in the garden, clothes to be washed, homes to be swept and mopped, harvesting to be done in the garden, cooking to be done, shopping for food to be done.  There is literally no end to the list of work that an African woman must do in order for her family to survive.

And the miracle of Irene's new son is that she was able to have the surgery just in the nick of time and two weeks later, she has a brand new son.  Her oldest child, a two year old girl named Mercy, has been beside herself with excitement about the coming of the new baby.

This little boy doesn't have a name yet because it is Ugandan custom to wait until the baby is three days old.  

Congratulations!

Fixing Subsaharan Africa the Redneck Way

I've been here long enough to see that some simple products could go a long way to repairing many things here.  I've also been here long enough to know that not all really good ideas come from a working group or an official team.  Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying these are good ideas.  These are just things I think most Ugandans would find damned handy in their daily lives.  So here's a short list of items I think could really help improve the standard of living of most Ugandans.

1.     No Ugandan kitchen or office should be without the Hefty Ziploc bags that have the plastic zipper pull.  They hold most everything and keep flies where they belong -- away from food.

2.     The one, the only, the stuff that holds Alabama and Mississippi together -- Duct Tape.

3.    This can fix all those cheesy Chinese made locks that aren't made of stainless steel as they should be.  The beauty of WD-40 is that it is not so viscose as to make the lock easy to pick after you have lubricated it.

4.  Loctite saved my fanny many, many times as a manufacturing engineer.  That and it's darker cousin called "Black Max" could fix anything plastic or metal that had broken.  Subsaharan Africa needs about 30 metric tons of this stuff for every manufacturing facility opened here.

5.   The Leatherman tool should be given to every student who graduates from S4 (that's the 4th year of high school).  If a student graduates from S6 (the two extra years of high school to prepare for the university), the then student gets the French Army version of this tool which includes a corkscrew.  These things can fix anything.

Send your additions via the comments section.  One of my next posts will be about all the cheap and simple things that can be done to make hospitals around these parts safe and sanitary.

Cheers:)

Brazil's answer to the Mojito

The Boma Caipiroska

1 oz Vodka 
Simple syrup mixed with the juice of 3 fresh lime wedges 
Large grain sugar on the rim of your rocks glass 
Serve over crushed ice with a lime wedge garnish


Best served by the Boma Entebbe's pool.

Cheers:)
Lisa


The Boma Hotel, Entebbe, Uganda

New International Standard Proposed: Updated

There needs to be a new international standard for the strength of deodorant.  Really.  Just think about the various situations in life that you face regularly and how your deo either cuts it or it doesn't.

For the record, in Africa, I stink.  Two hot baths a day, plus my so-called deodorant and I still smell like hell.  The problem is, in part, that I have chosen one that is "unscented".  This is perfect for my mighty endeavors of things like eating lunch with the girls where I don't want anything to clash with my carefully chosen perfume.  Can you imagine what the other ladies who lunch would say if I did otherwise?

When I was packing for this trip, I bought a flotilla of my normal deodorant being certain that they would not sell any that was worth the money in Uganda.  On this account, I was right.  Remember Ban roll-on from the 70s?  Well, all that left over Ban that did not sell in the US in the 70s is now for sale in Uganda.  And, get this, the deodorant that they do sell is kept behind the counter with the booze and condoms.  I guess smelling presentable must be more likely to lead to sexual encounters here than in the rest of the world.

So here's a starting proposal to deal with the problem of assessing deodorant strength and developing a rating system.  First, since this is a global problem that affects all Westerners and therefore it affects the non-Westerner too even though they are not yet enlightened enough to know it, I propose that the UN, the World Bank and NATO (just in case there are strategic military interests at stake in the the solution to this problem) form a joint committee to study the problem.   From my friend/colleague Carolyn from Sydney, I know that it will take 2 years to come up with a name for this working group.   Carolyn has also taught me about the skill of vague-ing things up when dealing with international committees on the resolution of anything.

But this is the rough outline of what I hope the standards will look like in ascending order of strength:

• Mall Walking for Seniors
• Part-time fast food worker
• Middle distance runner
• Endurance athlete
• Africa strength

Pretty good start don't you think?

Anna, Agnes #1, me in my ubiquitous aid worker skirt and Mary Akengo

Saturday, 18 October 2014:  I have just paid 20,000 UGX for a stick of Old Spice high endurance.  This translates at the current exchange rate into about $8.00.  8-f'ing-dollars!  I better smell darned good all day for this price.

Fatigue of the Soul

I've been in Eastern Uganda for about 3, or is it 4, months now and I love actually helping people in tangible ways.  Most of the help I give has nothing to do with crochet or selling crochet.  Most of it is health care assistance.

For example, a few Sundays ago I was taking my usual Sunday afternoon stroll around Kapuwai with my friend Christine.  Suddenly this 60ish looking woman comes running after us yelling at me to get my attention.  Of course she's yelling in Ateso so it's a good thing Christine is there to translate.  Christine barely gets out of her mouth that the woman wants me to help her (medically) and then the woman is showing us her right breast.  It is entirely withered and discolored, nipple and all.

A bit of personal history here -- my mother's sister, my aunt Frances, was probably a paranoid schizophrenic.  She was unmedicated all her life and since she was born in the early 30s, there was no such thing as mental health care.  She struggled all her life just to find a place where she and her only daughter Sherry could sleep every night.  She couldn't hold a job obviously.  When I was barely 18, Frances was told that she had advanced breast cancer.  She had no job and no one in the family had the means to get her treated.  During her last two months of life, she lived in a boarding house in my hometown.  One day when the weather was exceptionally beautiful, my mother received a call from the local EMS that Frances was locked in her room at the boarding house and was unresponsive.  They were calling in the hope my mother had an extra key.  We immediately went to Frances's little room to see if the sound of familiar voices might rouse her somewhat.  We tried and tried.  Finally, one of the EMS guys had the idea to jimmy open the window and have me crawl in (I was only 108 lbsf then).  I went in and found her barely breathing.  Her blouse was open and I saw her cancerous breast.  We took her to the hospital and she only lived about 18 hours more.

Until that walk with Christine, I had NEVER seen another case of breast cancer that was like what my aunt Frances had.  It was as if it were flesh eating.  

I held my emotions in check and told the woman (I'll call her Trisha) that I was not a doctor, but I could certainly help her get to a doctor to find out what was wrong.  I told her that I thought it was very, very serious and that when Edward Kedi (my right arm in Uganda) came to take her to the doctor, she must stop EVERYTHING and go with him immediately.

On Monday, Edward took Trisha to the clinic at the Pallisa General Hospital.  She saw a doctor and the doctor ordered many tests in addition to his examination.  By the end of the day, Edward and Trisha had the results of the tests, but they were not what I expected because they had nothing to do with the condition of her breast.

Tricia was now a PLWHA in international development speak:  She had HIV/AIDS and her t-cell count was horrible (Person Living With HIV/AIDS).

Because I had to be in another part of the district that Monday, Edward told Tricia her results because for some stupid reason doctors here don't want to tell old women they are dying of AIDS.  The doctor said Tricia and her husband had to come in for joint counseling right away.  They immediately put Tricia on a drug cocktail for HIV/AIDS.  In Uganda, the drugs for AIDS are free, but the ARV's and the ARC drugs aren't free or even discounted.  

"Tricia" at my apartment after the news

Wednesday morning of that week, Tricia came to see me to, get this, thank me for helping her find out what was wrong.  I cried and like all Ugandans she said "Don't cry.  We all have to go home sometime".  She brought me a rooster as a thank you gift.  

As soon as Tricia left my apartment, I packed and took Christine to Pallisa General to get better and maybe have her baby.  No time for tears or regrets.  The urgent things come at you faster than ought to be possible.

Pray for Tricia.  Pray for me that I'll stop hating her husband for doing this to her.  Pray that I have what it takes to continue this kind of work.  It's got to be done and I'm willing to do it.

Namaste.

Useful Phrases in Ateso: Revised and Expanded

The children flock around me wherever I go.  And I don’t mean 3 or 4, but like 30 or 40 of them.  And when I go to the local trading center of Abilla, the children like to practice their English on me.

The kids:  How are you?

Me: I am fine.  How are you?

The kids: I am fine.  How are you?

And you get the picture.  On the way to Abilla, every time I go there, even if it is the twelfth time in one day that I travel there, I am peppered with about 800 “How are you?” requests.  If I don't answer, the "How are you?" rate doubles or triples.  There is no escaping.  And I don't speak Ateso, so I can't tell them to give me a break.

One evening while the adults enjoyed a particularly nice and low mosquito night, Agnes 3 was cooking dinner for all and the children were all in bed.  Ah!  Peace and Quiet at last!  One of the training nurses named Ishmael made some culinary request of Agnes 3 which she didn’t particularly appreciate.  Men absolutely never, ever cook here.  That is even more likely to cause death than homosexuality.   Agnes 3 replied to Ishmael in a shout “Ari!”.

My Ateso is good enough to know that 97.5% of all Ateso words start with either an a or an e.  I’m serious – you should see an Ateso dictionary and you will be a believer.  My Ateso learning has been rocky at best.  

“Ari!” means “I will kill you”.  Ishmael got the picture and passed his culinary request to Nurse Teddy.  She didn't seem to mind.

I have adopted this phrase as my tagline for trips to Abilla when I get more than 400 "How are you?" requests and this phrase has been useful for me with the children when yelled loudly.  And the more you roll the “r”, the better.

After being here a few weeks, I had heard parents everywhere yell “I will beat you” to their errant children.  They don’t actually beat their children; it’s just their English word for spanking.   And “Ari!” was losing it’s steam for me in getting children to give me a minute’s peace and quiet.  So, I decided Agnes 3 needed to teach me another useful phrase.

  

On a particularly mosquito-filled night when I sequestered myself at 6:30 because the pests were so bad, Agnes 3 brought me my dinner at about 9:00.  Because I had not been eating as much as she thought I should eat for the past week, Agnes 3 firmly planted herself in the chair facing the sofa so she could watch me eat.  Yes, I am old enough to be her mother and she watches me eat.  Tonight, however, she would teach me the most useful Ateso phrase . . .

Enominat eong ejo!

Translation:  I will beat you!

It’s useful with children. 

You Might Win Some

Six weeks into the beginning crochet class, things are going well.  My students are eager to learn and I have found that I love teaching.  The yarn I had shipped is running out too quickly, but that is a good thing because it means that my students are practicing morning, noon and night.  Some of the students have invested in battery-operated night lights so they can crochet after dark.  Their willingness to learn this skill and their hope it will bring them and their families a better life weighs on my mind in a way that gives me vision for what to teach each day.

My students have become a family.  They help each other, they love each other, they support each other.  And I love each woman.  I respect their strength, their openness, their hardships.  Every class meeting starts with shaking one another’s hand around our circle.  Most of them follow Ugandan tradition of kneeling when they shake my hand.  I kneel to them in spirit, because if I knelt to even one of them, I can’t guarantee that I could get up.  I have told them as much and they laugh with understanding.

Beatrice and Agnes #3 have left their families to come just to take this course.    Beatrice has two small daughters that she brought with her, Purity and Esther.  As a mother, she is experiencing the heartbreak that Purity (age 5) has sickle cell.  In rural Uganda the only treatments available for Purity are folic acid and pain killers to help her with the pain.  She  gets sick easily, but mercifully she is very resistant to malaria.  Her younger sister Esther (age 18 months) is very healthy and a sweet, sweet child.  Beatrice has two other children that remain at home.  Agnes #3 has three children, the youngest is 3 years old.  I know that these women are sacrificing so much to take this class and it is humbling.

Ann Okurut has 4 children, the youngest is about to finish high school.  Christine (Toto #1 – Toto is Ateso for mother) has 10 children and is expecting her 11^th.  She is due in September.  Irene has one daughter, Mercy, and she is expecting her second child, due in early October.   Teddy #1 is a nurse and the office manager of the clinic here at PACODET.  Teddy #2 is not yet married, but the class jokes about taking her on market day to Abilla (a village close by) and finding her a boyfriend.  Agnes #2 is also unmarried and she is completing her nursing training here at PACODET.  And there is also Benna, Florence (Toto #2), Phoebe, and Dinnah.

Most of the class has perfect attendance.  Phoebe and Dinnah aren’t coming now because they are newly pregnant and have terrible morning sickness that seems to last the whole day.  They can get caught up when they are feeling better.

But then there is the Other Ann, Ann Apadet.  She is pretty and she is very reserved.  I know from my boss Stanley that she has a very hard life.  She has one daughter, Sharon, and she has said she is expecting again.  She said in the last class she attended that she was one month along.  A few weeks ago I learned that Sharon was born very early, weighing a few ounces at most.  Sharon was hospitalized for the first few weeks of her life and kept in an incubator.  Ann’s attendance in class has been spotty at best and as a result she struggles to keep up with the class.  Her grades are so low at this point that she will not be able to advance to the Intermediate class.

This week I found out that Ann had run away from her home here in Kapuwai.  Her husband has been in Kampala for some time now looking for work.  Apparently, her husband called her and his brother answered her phone.  Customs for visiting married women are different in Uganda.  Her husband asked his brother what he was doing in their home.  Words were exchanged.  Ann left in fear of what her husband would do when he came home.  If Ann is actually pregnant, she is in great danger of severe abuse or worse.  Ann went to her family home several hours away. Not many people have considered that Ann may not have had a choice regarding participation in the sex that led to her latest pregnancy.

She is lost to many things now, not the least of which is the program.  If her husband catches up with her, she will most certainly lose Sharon.  In Uganda, children are the possession of the father.  I pray her husband will never catch up with her.

You might win some, but you just lost one.