Blog 3 From Jinja

Blog 3

Jinja, Uganda

March 8, 2019

Hi!!

We have been here in Jinja, nearly two months and in slightly more than a month, we will be returning home.  In short, all is well; with us, and where we work, and in our little cottage on Lake Victoria. The cottage often has a breeze coming off the lake and it is quite cool, worth the money we pay for it.  We also have delightful Danish neighbors next door who have been bringing us roses every week.  So nice to have in the house.

One of the photos we have posted here is the Nile River, or River Nile as it is called in this part of the world.  Very beautiful and powerful.  It starts just a few hundred meters/yards from our cottage and flows more than 4,000 miles to Egypt before finally emptying in to the Mediterranean Sea.  Longest river in the world!!

A couple of weeks ago, our Kenyan “daughter”, Sunday, came to spend a few days with us.  It was her first trip out of her native Kenya.  We all enjoyed her visit, and she will come again before we leave for home.

One of our bosses, the Executive Director of St. Francis Health Care Services is also the head of the Jinja Rotary.  So last week, all of the Rotaries of Northern Uganda were going to have a regional meeting in the town of Arua, Arua is about 530 kilometers from Jinja, about a 10 hour bus drive.  It took 12.5 hours to get there.  Flat tire along the way 11  And when we finally arrived at nearly 8pm, our reserved rooms were given to some other people – actually 4 women working for the US government.  Our double room had 1 towel and 1 pair of shower shoes.  In the morning, there was no hot water because the power had gone off during the night.  Anyway, after the Rotary meetings, we left on Sunday morning at 7am.  After about 2 hours on the road, we began to smell a burning odor, and soon after the bus came to a stop and refused to go.  We all got out, and most of the men began pushing the bus UPHILL, but it still wouldn’t go.  And it was hot as hell 35 (95).  Two hours later, the bus was still broken, so everyone began hitching a ride. Lucky us (and 2 others)  plus the bus mechanic who had to get a new clutch got picked up by a cotton farmer and another guy who took us all the way to Kampala.  Left Kampala after 7 pm and arrived back home at 11pm  Total time 16 hours!!! We have finished with bus trips!!!

At Rays of Hope Hospice Jinja, our other assignment, there are teams of clinicians who go out to remote villages everyday to see patients and provide them with palliative services.  Before they go each morning, the teams report on the activities of the day before.  All we can say is that this group of nurses and clinicians who work at least 10 hours per day are the most compassionate and caring people we have ever met.  They give hope to the hopeless, prolong lives of the dying, and treat people with huge tumors, HIV,AIDS, little to no food or money, sleeping on the bare ground in tiny huts.  Our hats are off to them, and we encourage you to visit them on the internet at www.raysofhopehospicejinja.org and do what you can to help.  A little goes a long way here.

At St. Francis and Rays of Hope both, Peter has been taking a lot of good documentary photos.  He also helped develop SKYPE for inter-office communication.  Also providing fundraising mentoring, Hinda editing and writing brochures, and working on data collection and entry forms. As well as doing a review of the triage and reception area at St. Francis with the organization accepting all of her recommendations and beginning to make changes.

For the past several days we have had some big lightning and thunderstorms with extremely heavy rain.  It doesn’t last long but does cool things off.  The only problem is that the power usually goes off when there is a heavy rain, so then we are left in the dark.  Oh well, such is life in Africa.

Bye, talk to you soon

Love, Hinda and Peter