The last patient
And so it ends. Finally today after two full weeks of clinic, we saw our last patient. Actually my last patient was a home visit to a mother with HIV/AIDS who was in pretty bad shape. Hopefully they will get her to a hospital for some more intensive testing and treatment and she will be okay. Her case illustrated another obstacle to adequate HIV treatment - superstition. She, like many other people, was in denial about her HIV status, rather believing that she had been cursed by a witch or something along those lines. Just last night I was reading in my book “The Shadow of the Sun” by Ryszard Kapuscinski, about how prevalent such beliefs are in Africa. Even amongst Christians, they still hold on to a lot of these traditional beliefs as well.
Now that I’ve mentioned this book, let me just say that this is one of the best books on Africa I’ve read thus far. Kapuscinski is a Polish journalist who spent over 40 years in Africa as a correspondent. The book contains a series of vignettes - portraits of everyday Africans and everyday African life from all over the continent - combined with brief historical lessons and philosophical musings. It’s amazing how much of what he writes rings true, especially reading it whilst over here. And he really gets into the unseen life of the African populace like no other author I’ve read. Not just touching on the shakers and movers, he visits the homes of the millions upon millions of people eking out a meagre existence and ponders why? For anyone who has ever been to Africa or has any interest in the place, this is a must read book.
As I said, today was our last clinic. I think we probably saw over a thousand people in the last two weeks, and I believe we made a difference in the lives of many of those. If nothing else we showed them that somebody cares. Tonight the girls on our team are at a Women’s Conference at KPC church, whilst the two of us men caught a boda boda to the shops, did a little shopping, had a nice pizza, and then discovered that the “best” internet cafe in town was again not working. But not to be deterred we walked down the hill into Kampala central and found an ever better one - the most productive half hour I think I’ve ever spent on the net in Uganda. Tomorrow we are heading off to Jinja to raft the rapids of the Nile, Sunday it’s church and then a concert in the evening, and early morning on Monday I leave on my journey home. Can’t wait to see my family again. This trip has been great, but I have missed them so much.
Categories : Africa, Missions, Travel, Uganda, books | 17 Comments
