Eating frog-legs in Kampala
Categories : Africa, Missions, Travel, Uganda |
Kampala last night was a crazy, choatic, wonderful combination of torrential rains, thunder and lightning, traffic jams, crashes and floods. The weather pattern I’ve generally noticed here is an early morning storm before dawn, usually dry days, and then sometimes a thunderstorm at night. The previous night we sat on the balcony for a long while watching a spectacular lightning show. But nothing has compared to the storm we had yesterday afternoon just after we arrived back at the hotel. Within minutes of the rain starting to pour and the lightning started to flash, the streets around us were flooded, drains overflowing - one of the most amazing storms I’ve seen.
The chaos from the storm continued long after the rains had eased. A few of us squeezed into a taxi and drove across town to a beautiful Belgian restaurant in Kabalagala, Le Chateau. Was great to get out and escape the hotel food again, and the dinner was a treat. I had a beautiful steak with mushroom sauce for the main course, yummy Belgian ice-cream for dessert, and for the entre we shared some frog-legs and escargot which were delicious. A great night out after a busy day working in the community clinic (I’ll update on that stuff later, when I get a chance.) But on the way home traffic was at a standstill, accidents everywhere - one of the worst traffic jams I’ve seen even here in Kampala. In the end as soon as our taxi was in sight of the hotel we decided to get out and walk through the traffic in the rain since it was moving so slowly.
Ten minutes remaining on my net time (if it works - things have been really unreliable here this week) so I’ll update on the mission stuff. This week we’ve been out at Suubi village, a beautiful spot on a big hill quite a way out of Kampala. We set up a clinic in one of the Watoto buildings for the people in the surrounding community. Over the past few days we’ve had hundreds of people through. Once again many common conditions, infections, rashes, ulcers etc - and a few more serious ones - a baby with HIV, a child with a tumour, malaria, and a poor epileptic boy aged 13 whose family had basically given up on him. He had been having seizures since the age of 6 months, poorly controlled on meds, when his family had been able to get them for him. He was brought into me having had a seizure whilst waiting outside. I got some history from his mum - he didn’t go to school, didn’t play, didn’t even do any work around the home - basically he was a big embarassment and burden to the family. Back home, such a child would usually be able to attend school and have a pretty normal life, but here a treatable condition has left him severely disabled and neglected. We got him a good supply of better meds, and when we saw him again today one of the girls on the team gave him a new soccer shirt that she had, which lit up his previously dulled face with a huge smile. She demonstrated to the mother that this child did have the capacity to interact and even quickly learn new skills. Hopefully even these simple measures may go some way towards improving this poor boy’s quality of life.
Anyway, time’s nearly up. I’m quite worn out from the clinics, especially after today when I saw over sixty patients. Two more days of this to go, then we’re rafting the Nile on Saturday, church on Sunday, and then I leave for my 2 day journey home early on Monday morning (and I can’t wait to see Jenni and the boys again - missing them heaps). I’ll try and get on and update more, including some photos, if I find the time and the bandwidth between now and then.
