Africa!

Oh Africa...where do I even start? This trip was a huge educational experience for me. Would I describe it as a "fun" trip? No. Although I did enjoy myself thoroughly (most of the time...haha), I think it opened my eyes to third world countries and how lucky we really are to live where we do.

It all started back in November when I randomly messaged my friend Ashley. I knew her dad had been over to Africa a bunch of times to do dental work, and I had thought about going somewhere with my nursing to do humanitarian work, so I just thought I'd get some info (not intending AT ALL to go somewhere in the near future). Well, turns out he was taking a group in January, so after making a few quick decisions and trading 2 weeks worth of shifts at work, Jade and I bought our plane tickets to Entebbe.

Day 1: Welcome to Africa. And the NILE! We got to our guest house at about 11:00 Friday night, and were picked up at 6:30 the next morning for our first adventure...white water rafting the Nile. (Yes, we are both nurses. Yes, traveller's health tells you not to swim in any fresh water because you could get diseased. And yes, we were willing to risk it). I mean really...class 5 rapids? How could we not?




The roads out to Jinja (the town near where we started rafting) were SO DUSTY! My purple hoodie was orange tinged after that bus ride...



Our guest house was surprisingly quite nice. We even had hot water to shower! If you were willing to wait the 5 minutes for the water to heat up of course...


To be honest, Kampala wasn't my favorite city. Just imagine 2.2 million people crammed into the square mileage 1.5 times the size of Lethbridge. And 2 traffic lights. And traffic is CHAOS. The bigger the vehicle, the more right of way you have. Oh, and if you are a pedestrian...good luck. Just try not to get hit as you run across the street! This was Kamapala first thing in the morning...yes, that's the same city as a few pictures back. Gotta love pollution.


Sunday we headed to church at the Kololo Ward. I know people always say that its amazing how the church is the same everywhere, but I really got to experience that going to church in Africa. The members there are amazing! Their leadership is so on the ball, they are all attentive and humble and their contributions in lessons are incredible. It kind of blew me away.

And of course, a Sunday afternoon nap.



While the dental group was teaching their scaling course in Kampala, Jade and I went around to a few hospitals to observe. Drew obviously knew what he was doing when he set us up in the hospitals...the first one we went to was the Mengo Hospital, which is a private hospital. We did rounds with a couple of doctors there, and to be honest...the hospital was very similar to what we would do here (minus a couple of things...like doing a blood draw from the femoral artery...you healthcare professionals will be able to appreciate that...).

Next, we went to the Mulago Hospital, which is a public hospital. Things were a little different there...the hospital was HUGE! 5000 beds and once those fill up, they start putting people on the floor. And if we think there is a nursing shortage in Canada...try Uganda. 1 nurse for probably 20 patients or so. Its crazy. They just have one big room with people EVERYWHERE. How they can even keep track of everyone is beyond me.

The last hospital we went to go to has actually been knocked down and is being rebuilt, so we stopped by a clinic in the slums instead. HIV testing/treatment and family planning was pretty much their focus there...and that place was PACKED. Needless to say, I was happy to come home to a nice clean hospital to go to work at.

Tuesday night, the whole crew went to dinner at the Serenna, probably the nicest hotel in Kampala. After eating African food for a few days, we were all in heaven! (Not to mention their bathrooms were amazing!)


Wednesday morning, Jade and I got up early and got ready to head to Masaka to meet up with Brigitte, a nurse from Toronto. Brigitte and her husband have an amazing setup out in one of the villages. They run a clinic and school and have implemented little projects to help the people earn money to live. If they cannot pay for their medical services or school fees, they can work on the farm at the center to pay it off. (If you ever want to experience an African village...talk to Brigitte...this place was definitely my favorite!)

Right before I went to use the "toilet" a salamander came crawling out of this...lovely...

We were lucky enough to go do some home visits with Brigitte during our stay in the village. This house was built from donated money...about $300 will make an average sized brick home.

Yes, that is Obama on that baby's sweater.


These next photos are my favorite. The women in the village have a craft club where they get together and make bowls, baskets, and mats and sell them. Half of the money goes back into the club to buy supplies and the other half goes to the women so they can buy what they need to live. Its become quite the operation, and they've even started doing some microfinancing...naturally Jade and I did some shopping at their place!



This lady in the blue is one of my favorites. She kept pointing to our shoes and then to her feet (most of the people in the village spoke their native language so we couldn't communicate that well with them). I had brought a pair of old shoes that I had tried to throw away several times because they were so grungy, but I just couldn't because I always found myself wearing them. This was a win-win situation. Give the lady some shoes, and never be tempted to wear those beasts again. So I ran over to the house and grabbed the shoes and gave them to the "witch" (as she was affectionately known by the volunteers at the center). She cried and cried and hugged me, and cried some more. So naturally, I cried too. A good cry though. There was my lesson on gratitude for the trip.






The kids in Africa were my favorite. Their term for a white person is "Mizungo" and they would constantly be running up to us yelling "mizungo! mizungo! mizungo!" They were especially emphatic when I was carrying my camera around, and they love to pose!

During our stay in the village we also helped out with a blood donor clinic. Everything is completely portable, so they just come to the village, set up some lawn chairs on the lawn, and go to town. Jade and I even donated blood (hey, now that we've been to Africa we can't donate at home for a while, so we might as well have done it there right?) Please note the size of that needle. 12 gauge. Enought said.



The kitchen.

The craft shop.

The house for volunteers at the center.

These two kids were the greatest! We played at the playground for a good hour at least. They kept laughing at me because I couldn't balance very well on the wooden posts. In their local language, they kept saying that I needed to go slow and take my time (we had one of the English speaking boys at the park translate for us). Well, they were right! Once I slowed it down, I was a pro on those posts.











During the evening, we went out for a nice little motor bike ride with some of the villagers. This was a beautiful lookout onto the village and Lake Victoria.

After our stay in the village, we were off to Queen Elizabeth Park for our safari! The place we stayed was so nice! They greeted us at the door with a warm wet washcloth and a glass of cold Passionfruit juice. Doesn't get much better than that!

And yes, that's a lion. And an elephant. In the same picture. NBD.

P.S. Did I mention I didn't edit any of the pictures in this post? It actually looked like that!

The food did not disappoint at our safari lodge. Build your own pasta night was a favorite. As was the most incredible omlette I have ever eaten.

They even came around in the evening to turn down our sheets and pull the mosquito nets!







You can't really tell, but that's a crocodile laying on the grass...

And who did we see there? Our friends from the village!

Joseph is the bomb. He was pretty much our chaffeur the whole time we were in Uganda. If we were lost in Kamapala and wanted to go to the craft market, all we had to do was give him a call and he'd come pick us up. He was also our tour guide on the safari and is pretty much a genius when it comes to African wildlife.

Sunday we hit the road again to go to Rwanda! We Canadians had a few minor issues getting into the country, but finally we caved and paid our $60 bucks and were on our way.

Dinner at Hotel Rwanda. Like, the real thing.


The money dealing begins again...


Monday morning Drew came with us to the bus stop, gave us a couple tickets, and sent us on our way out to the Nyamata hospital. What a gongshow transportation is there! Pretty sure it cost us less than a dollar each for an hour bus trip. And I use the term bus lightly. More like minivan with 20+ people crammed into it. With Enrique cranked. Oh yeah...

Our accomodations in Nyamata weren't quite what we were used to from the safari. For the first day or so our shower dripped non-stop. Yes, that massive garbage can is full. And I'm sure you can only imagine the smell in that nice musty bathroom. Confession...we didn't shower for 3 days while we were in Nyamata. Don't judge.

It was kind of nice to be at the Nyamata hospital because we got to help out instead of observing most of the time. This is a pretty typical room in a hospital there.

Doing some dressing changes on the surgical ward

The snake bite wounds they have kind of blew my mind. They were huge!



We had a cute little man that made us dinner every night, and for the most part, it wasn't too bad. I think its mostly because we were starved by the time dinner rolled around, but whatever...

We had 4 meals there. And I'm pretty sure they were all the same...with some minor variations (mangos instead of pineapple, pasta instead of rice...)

It was pretty cold in Nyamata, and rained alot of the time. Thankfully Jade brought Scrabble to keep us occupied!

Our day in maternity was pretty crazy. I'll spare the details, but if you want to hear about it just ask me. It was insane. We helped deliver this baby. Now, keep in mind, I'm not a maternity nurse. I've been in on a few deliveries, but I am no means a professional. And doctors deliver babies in Canada, not nurses. So after this baby is born, the nurse looks at me and goes "I'm going to help with a different patient...can you deliver the placenta?". Uh...I don't know how to do that! Luckily, one of the other nurses could sense that and came to my rescue.


Nyamata Hospital

Thursday was our last day in Africa. We headed back into Kigali and went to the Genocide museum. Before going to Rwanda I really didn't know much about the genocide, except that there was one. What a terrible thing. Again, I'm glad to live where we do. This was in the garden by the mass graves.

I was much more of a fan of Kigali than I was Kampala. Kigali is CLEAN and beautiful! And they actually follow some sort of traffic laws. They even wear seatbelts! What a concept.

Well there you have it. My Africa experience in a nutshell. A very small nutshell. I could go on for days about the things that I learned in Africa and how my perspective has changed about third world countries. I was pretty ignorant before I went there. I thought I'd just show up and they would love having me there to help and bring my expertise...wrong. They appreciated that we were there, but these people are very well educated. Their nursing programs are 4 year Bachelor's programs. They aren't stupid. They just don't have resources. Or infrastructure. Would I go back? Maybe some day, but to be honest, they do great with what they have. And who's to say that because they don't have everything that we have that we need to go in and change that? Its what they know, and they are happy living how they do. I think we could learn alot from their simplistic way of life. So there you go.

Lucky #13 & #42 - check!