After a brief blogging hiatus, I am back with a long entry. You can thank the lack of power in Mubende, the glorious three-day escape to Jinja (no BlackBerry!), and the running around with my mom and aunt for that. My mom was in town for a conference on Family Medicine in Uganda all of last week, during which time I took Shara with me to Mubende to volunteer. This week, we spent the first portion in Jinja and now I’m back in Kampala, trying to squeeze in time for work with everything else that’s going on. In Luganda, there is no word for maternal aunt. You call your maternal aunt your “young mother” (maama wange omuto). So here’s a few words about what I’ve been up to with my maama and young maama.

Training in Mubende
Last week, I went with my aunt Shara to Mubende. My organization is leading a two-week training for lay community health workers to learn how to give Depo-Provera (injectable contraceptives) at the community level. Depo is the family planning method of choice for most women in Uganda, in large part due to the discretion with which a woman can receive the injection. While a large part of our strategy involves mobilizing men to support family planning, presently many men remain a barrier to FP uptake. Many women want to use Depo because they can do so without their husbands’ knowledge. Previously, women would have to travel to a health center (on foot, or spending precious resources on transportation) and wait in line all day to receive the injection from an already overworked nurse. Training community health workers to give the injections allows women to receive Depo within their own communities, with someone they know and trust, who has more time to spend counseling them and answering their questions on family planning.

Shara, a Registered Nurse from Kentucky, got to help out with this training. The CHWs practiced giving injections to tomatoes before graduating to human beings. They also of course learned how to screen clients for pregnancy and contraindications to Depo; counsel on all FP methods; refer clients for other services (permanent FP methods, HIV testing, etc); and safety precautions and infection control. The 20 CHWs we trained to give Depo were a subset of the 250 CHWs that the organization has trained and worked with for around two years. Previously, they were able to give FP health talks, counsel clients on FP methods, refer clients, distribute condoms, and give refills of oral contraceptives. The 20 selected for the Community-Based Distribution (CBD) of Depo training are some of the most motivated, highest performing CHWs. It was amazing to watch their transformation over the first week of training. These are individuals who typically have a seventh-grade education but they are passionate about bringing FP information and services to women and couples in their communities. By the end of the first week, they had mastered the art of injections and were ready to proceed to the second week of training, where they administered injections to human beings under close supervsion.

Food in Mubende
While in Mubende, Shara and I took a survey of what the finest restaurants in town were. She was surprised (I was disappointed but not surprised) to find out that all of these “fine restaurants” serve the same exact dishes. And if you’re a vegetarian, that basically means that you’re eating matooke/rice/potatoes/chapatis plus either g.nut sauce or beans 2 meals a day, 7 days a week. By Wednesday neither of us could fathom eating another plate of the stuff (it’s good and I enjoy it, but I need variety).

With the kitchen at my house lacking a fridge and stove (they were delivered at the END of the week), we set out on a mission to find an Indian to cook for us. Well, it turns out that there is exactly one Indian in all of Mubende town. He runs a quite-well stocked supermarket (well stocked by Mubende standards: wine!!, basmati rice, brown bread, spices). We visited the shop in the early evening, both starving and with a un-curable craving for spicy Indian food. Shara marched up to him and asked him if he knew how to cook and if he would be willing to cook for us. She explained our food predicament and that her father was from India and we both love Indian food. After a long discussion, he agreed that he would close his shop early and go home and cook us an Indian dinner at no charge to us (for friendship and cultural exchange, he said).

A couple of hours later, we got a phone call that the food was ready. We got the guy who lives in the Boys Quarters behind my house to drive us to the Sunrise Guest House, where we planned to simply pick up the food, chat for a minute or two, and leave. Well our Indian friend had prepared a feast of several dishes and had laid out a mat and dishes on the floor in a lovely Indian dinner fashion. We couldn’t take the food and run. We would have to sit and eat with him. The first bite awakened my palate, which had been dormant from the (sorry, my Ugandan friends) bland Ugandan cuisine. Spices! Flavor! Garlic! Ginger! Vishal joked that the only spice used in African food is salt. He then poured me a big glass of salty-lassi, which I detest. To be polite, I pretended to take a sip every time he pointed at my glass, reminding me that I shouldn’t forget to drink up. Shara thought she was missing out on something delectable, and took a big sip from my glass. Her face immediately contorted and all she managed was an unconvincing “Mmmm, interesting.” We wound up our conversation and made our way out of the guest house. On the way out, it occurred to Shara that the guy who dropped us off at the guest house and was now waiting for us in his car may possibly have thought that we were prostitutes!

Escape to Jinja
My mom, Shara, Kris and I spent Sunday through Tuesday in beautiful Jinja (the source of the River Nile). One night at Jinja Nile Resort and one night at the Haven. Kris’ parents, and our family friends Vince and Mary Kay joined us for the first night. It was relaxing and we didn’t actually do too much. Good conversation, great food, spectacular views. Kris and I have been contemplating buying land in Uganda (probably a plot in the Kampala area to build a future home and also a plot upcountry somewhere in a beautiful spot). Kris started networking while we were at the Haven and we got the boat captain to take us to view a wonderful 19-acre plot of land about a kilometer from the Haven. It was gorgeous and had an amazing view of the Nile. The Haven sits just upriver,at the top of a wonderfully gushing rapid, and this property sat right at the bottom of that rapid.

Standing there on that property, walking through dense brush to get to the best viewing point of the river, listening to the roar of the mighty Nile, I realized how amazing it is that I was there actually contemplating buying that chunk of earth. What series of unlikely events has led me up to that moment? I could have never imagined it, that’s for sure!