sounds of Mbarara

For those with an aural orientation: Light starts about 6:45 am and at 7am the roosters crow, goats bleat, the sound of tasks begin. Every morning there is brushing of the grounds for fallen leaves and dust, clanking of heavy metal doors,grates, and gates. It's Sunday morning so about 8, chanting, singing and clapping from the King of Kings church 300 yards away begins and continues on and off through Sunday. There is usually pounding of metal somewhere. Boda-bodas and cars occasionally pass on my narrow dirt road. Voices from passersby and nearby houses increase over the morning. When the wind blows, the palm and banana fronds click against each other, a rustle which I've mistaken for rain. Throughout the day and evening there is loud cawing from Maribou Storks (birds taller than small children which fly overhead, convene on a nearby sports field, and perch on an electric pole near my balcony). Other bird songs and chirps are present much of the time. At night, voices and songs from the radio and guest house TV (the one station is heavy on music videos) subside at about 11pm. Intermittent choruses of barking dogs continue through the night-not intrusive but making me glad I'm not out on the very dark roads.

Hope (and anyone else!) please email me(lindarpowers@gmail.com)- I'd like to respond to your posts.

almost in the villages

I think I'm finally on the runway for getting to the villages for a more concerted period of time. I was supposed to stay last night but my room wasn't ready, so it looks like it will be Monday. I went back to the villages yesterday though- the one I went to was an hour from the 'entrance' village Ruhiira, so my total time in the car to attend a 2 hour meeting with community health workers and midwives was 3.5 + hours! The meeting was, thankfully, run in English (most conversation between Ugandans here is in Runyankole) and was fascinating and worth the trip- people wrestling with trying to have very different levels of health workers communicate effectively with a final common goal. (which sounds pretty familiar, right?) Basic things like what the community health workers actually do was shared. What they do is a lot- the CHW's each have about 200 households that they're expected to see monthly. The CHW sees households more frequently if there's a pregnant woman, a small child, someone who's sick. They do a lot of counseling (nutrition, bed nets, antenatal care, encouraging health center births, encouraging family planning); they're being trained to give vaccines; they give oral rehydration solution for children with diarrhea and can give malaria medication if the person has had a positive rapid test. A fair amount of time is spent on recording information- they have a number of data entry people who put information into a computer when it's working (also painfully familiar?) but the information tends to passed up a ladder and is not necessarily shared. The first photo is a poster of a woman's daily work (looks like everything to me-notice she has 5 arms!); the second is the village center of Ruhiira.

lots of people visit Ruhiira

Everyone at the MVP office was immersed last week in preparation for the visit on Saturday of Jeff Sachs, the director of the Earth Institute and Josette Sheeran, the head of the World Food Program. In addition to those two, there were governmental officials, large staffs, armed police, and press people- maybe 50-80 people in long lines of UN white landrovers. There's thick dust kicked up with one vehicle so the line made an impressive cloud. On one particularly steep dirt road, our driver slowed (unusual as they are very confident and skilled drivers) as he couldn't see 3 feet in front of him. The visit was a combination of chaos and celebration. The tour of Ruhiira for the visitors was similar to the one I did last week. However, this time, there were children or community people at every stop lining the entrances, singing and clapping hands. At one stop there were long and many speeches (there's a lot of gratitude for what's been done and a lot of need left; also the WFP director announced ongoing purchasing of beans from the community which the WFP uses to feed people in disaster areas and Jeff Sachs announced ongoing MVP support phase 2 through 2015) so that by the end of the tour the group split in two and we walked/jogged to and from the site. There were so many people to move and it all happened so abruptly that sometimes my ride was there and sometimes not. However, people are generally very congenial about having one more person crammed into an already packed car. I also had the opportunity of meeting Sonia Sachs, who kindly arranged my connection to this project. I am very glad I was able to get here when I did as Kampala is, by their report, jam packed with people and security checks for the African Union summit taking place there. I'm hoping to go back to villages (far from security issues!)to start my assessment in the near future, but I'm waiting for the official green light. In the meantime I'm trying to use my time to learn about the enormous number of things I don't know (OB, Quality of care, Uganda, Runyankole (the local language- although I can count to 10, say how are you/thank you/water it doesn't get me too far). The photo is at the same water site as last time, now with with lots of greeters- no photos of the dust clouds!

First Trip to the Ruhiira Cluster

Today was my first trip to the Ruhiira MVP cluster- about 45 minutes into the highlands. The topography looks like the Appalachians (I think as it's been awhile since I've seen them). Mountains with deep valleys. Lots of the tops are fairly bare as the people use firewood (if present for cooking- otherwise banana leaves). The valleys are densely planted, mostly with banana. The MAJOR issue is water supply. Lots of people live in the highlands, at the top of the mountains, while the water is lower into the valleys from springs and runoff. A huge part of the MVP program has been putting in infrastructure to get clean water (involves underground tunnels at the spring sites with protection above to protect against animal contamination). The next step will be to get water closer to the villages so a pump and lots of piping are planned in the near future. Women and girls are the ones to fetch water so imaging carrying a baby on your back, walking several kms to water, filling a 20 liter oblong jerry can, and climbing back up very steep paths with the jerry can on top of your head! It was hard enough climbing the path without a load! I also saw the SACCO (savings bank), primary school, 4 health centers, and a radio station. Amazing things are happening here! I'm just learning how to do this all so please bear with me. Starting at the top left-view from Ruhiira, women living at the hospital waiting for delivery, a clean water source, a solar powered computer lab.

Arrived in Mbarara

I arrived in Entebbe yesterday without problems- started Friday night and arrived Sunday morning with a long layover in London (enough time to see the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum- a massive museum that I spent about 2 hours at but one could go for days). There's a heavy presence of armed security people in Entebbe and Kampala for the African Union summit starting today (and not, apparently, because of the recent bombings). The drive from Kampala to Mbarara took 5-6 hours, much of which I missed because of naps. The area around Kampala was lush and hilly. Just as hilly here (altitude about 5000 feet) but a little less lush as this is nearing the end of a dry season. The word around town is that the short rainy season will start in about 2 weeks. The roads are dusty and lots of people pay for a ride on a motorbike (no taxis and I'm told I can stop any passing motorbike to get a ride) for even short distances to avoid the dust and the heat. Everyone who has told me about this says it's very dangerous and not to do it and they all do it. Although it's hot, I think it is cooler than in Boston and last night was so cool that I used a quilt- lovely! The local staple is matoke- mashed boiled bananas (I think). There are bananas growing everywhere. It is very filling and I finished about 1/4 of the matoke I was served. I was told, however, that contrary to what my mother taught me it's okay to leave food on your plate which was a great relief. I have met lots of people at the Millenium Villages office, mostly Ugandan and some interns, and remember a few of them. I've also learned that it would be helpful to learn some runyankole (the local language) so I've bought an "easy reading book" of english to runyankole phrases and hope to learn some. I'm hoping to start visiting the villages where I'll be working on Wednesday so perhaps another post then.