Hospice Africa Uganda among other things

Hello again faithful readers!

So this weekend I went to Jinja, a town on the shore of Lake Victoria, and the town is located right at the source of the NILE! It was beautiful and I had both a relaxing and exciting weekend with the other students… it was a great time to get to know everyone better and have some time away from campus!

Nile river

View from the bus on our way to the camp where we stayed

One of the monkey friends at our camp that jumped on our metal roof all night! At least they're cute, right? ;)

So that was one exciting weekend, and don't worry, I took a billion photos of the monkeys, not just one! Anyway, as you have all been anticipating (maybe?), the rest of this post is about my field placement at Hospice Africa Uganda. So, we’ll begin with a little introduction to hospice. Hospice is holistic care for those suffering from long-term illnesses. Hospice Africa Uganda generally serves those with cancer and provides palliative care for patients with AIDS; however, AIDS patients are generally in and out of care often as they tend to improve and then worsen as the cycle of AIDS goes. Some patients even have both AIDS and cancer. Generally, when I thought of hospice before working with the agency, I assumed that all patients would be near-death. However, many are stable but in need of pain and symptom management. Pain can be multi-faceted, and stems from physical pain to psychological, social,  or spiritual pain, so a part of hospice’s focus is on meeting the range of needs and relieving other types of pain, which is what makes their care holistic.

With that intro in mind, I have yet to have experienced a ‘typical day’ in hospice… this is Africa, of course! I typically leave campus around 7am, arrive at Hospice around 8:30, spend the day there or on home visits or doing other things, and leave between 4 and 5 and I’m back before 7! They’re long days, but I can only go 3 days per week due to my faith and action class. So while there, I generally see patients with a nurse or doctor and sometimes the social worker as well. Patients are seen in three ways: home visits for more critical patients, at the clinic, or at outreaches where many patients come to receive care and have their meds refilled. There is also a ‘day-care’ on Tuesdays at the clinic which patients are referred to if they have a higher level of social need. There patients can interact with each other and carers are given a break for time to themselves. I have been a part of the day care the past few weeks simply by interacting with patients and chatting with those that speak English (or using a volunteer as an interpreter for those that don’t!). I also have a few patients on my case load that I am working to find resources for or that have been counseled by others and need follow-up on the situations they were counseled on (ie, family matters, money concerns, etc.)… overall, though, my job is LEARNER! There’s so much to take in and understand about the illnesses and conditions of patients, family structures in Uganda, poverty, the role of social workers, the role of NGO’s, etc… and I’m doing my best to take it all in!

I’m also hoping to get involved with an advocacy project or fundraising project. Patients are not required to pay for services or meds, but are given the opportunity if they can afford it. Therefore, everything at hospice is supported by donors and there are Hospice Africa sites in the UK, Ireland and the USA that help with funding. Hospice was started by a woman from the UK in 1993… I’m currently reading her book so I’ll be able to tell you even more about her, her vision, and hospice in general once I’ve finished it!

On a somewhat unrelated note, lately, there’s been a ton running through my head about my future, as in what I’ll be doing the next few years (or at least just the next year!) as I prepare to graduate in May. God is teaching me so many things about people and the world and I’m doing my best to keep my mind and heart open. I ask that you pray with me as I also pray about and make decisions for the future!

Sorry this is a long post, but I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your support and interest in me! I would love to hear from you, too! Also, feel free to ask me more questions about Uganda and what I’m doing here if you have them, and please let me know if I can pray for you for anything =)

Be blessed =)

Ruth

Home stays have come and gone!

I interrupt my own list of anticipated post topics to bring you a host family post!

So, last Saturday morning (21 January), terrified and excited, we loaded into vans with a backpack, a sleeping bag, a mosquito net, and a plastic jug of about 10L of water to head to our host families’ homes for the next 2 weeks. We had been prepped on how we may need to take splash baths and use latrines outside, live without electricity, share a room with multiple people and eat lots of matoke. In just a few minutes, there I stood in front of a huge house with a few smiling faces to greet me and carry my stuff in. The family I’m with is so gracious and kind and honestly very American! They’ve travelled to America before for business affairs and they have family in Boston (I’ve never even been to Boston!). Both of my host parents work in the medical field for NGO’s at a hospital in Kampala, so they have about an hour commute everyday. In addition, the children all go to school in Kampala, they are 10, 8 and 5 (the older 2 are girls, youngest is a boy!). They are adorable, speak more polite English than I, and just finished their last week of holiday so they have been in relax mode until this week when they went back and switched into busy mode!

The first week with them was great, after I got home in the evenings I would hang out with the kids, either watching tv or playing, and then we usually ate dinner around 9:30 or 10, which is pretty common for Ugandans. This past weekend was a lot of fun too, we did some chores but mostly hung out, played with clay, made paper beads (see pic below) and hung out with family. Then this week got very busy as they went back to school. They leave at about 6 am, so they were leaving as I woke up! And everyone got home around 7 pm, including me. They have a maid who does the cooking and cleaning, and my host mother’s cousin, in her last year of high school, also lives with them to help with chores and with looking after the kiddos.

Paper beads!! Not finished though, they need to be dipped in varnish, but we didn't have any.

Angel! Age 10 =)

Jed, Age 5 (note the missing teeth, haha)

Bella, Age 8.... all 3 love to smile!

So, it’s a busy and lively household and I learned to make some fun food, play new card games, and I drank lots of tea! I’m excited to have a family close by to visit throughout the rest of my time here. Being in a home is definitely relaxing, God always provides us with what we need, and I was definitely in need of a family connection. I had been very worried about the experience before I met the family but I was quickly put at ease and I already miss them now that I’m back on campus!

This weekend I’ll be doing very fun things in Jinja that I will tell you all about on Monday, in addition to a post about my internship sometime this coming week as well! It’s bedtime here in Africa, so peace out dear friends!

Be blessed,

Ruth

Classes and such at UCU

Hey team!

I know this post is RIGHT after the previous one, but we are leaving campus for the weekend to move in with the host families we will live with for the next 2 weeks so I won’t be using my computer or the internet again until Monday when I come to campus for class. I've been typing up posts whenever I have the chance so I can include you in all the crzainess going on here!

So, I'll fill you in on classes here. As most of you know the main purpose of my semester in Uganda is my 450-hour senior field placement for social work, which accounts for 12 credits for the semester. I’m also taking a 3 credit seminar class at Messiah. So, on Wednesday nights (or, more accurately, Thursday mornings) I will be entering a digital classroom and participating in the seminar class real time with my classmates in PA via this lovely invention called the internet. The class is from 6-9 pm EST, so it’s from 2-5 am Uganda time! Praise the Lord for instant coffee and electric kettles =) So, I’ve already started my placement at Hospice Africa Uganda, which you will hear more about in another post, and the seminar class will start this week… prayers for alertness on Thursdays are appreciated! Also, every other Friday, the junior and senior level social work students meet with the MSW social worker on staff with USP for supervision time and to share what we're all experiencing in our placement.

In addition, all Uganda Studies Program students, regardless of emphasis (I am social work emphasis) must take a course called Faith and Action in the Ugandan Context here on UCU's campus (Uganda Christian University). For this 4-credit class, we are studying some things in the classroom setting such as Christianity and Culture and Christian Responses to Poverty, but most of the class is experiential. These experiences include living on campus with Ugandans, home stays with Ugandans, travel to other places in Uganda and Rwanda, etc. So, it ties in what we are experiencing with some readings and a lot of discussions as a class and as smaller groups. So far I've really enjoyed the class but it requires a lot of time outside of class reading so it gets stressful sometimes! There are also a few writing assignments later in the semester that will help to tie it all together. This class meets on Mondays and Fridays, which limits the amount of time I go to my placement, but you'll hear all about that soon!

Have a good weekend friends! As I mentioned in the last post I am going to meet my host family soon... prayers appreciated and more updates to come!

Ruth

p.s. sorry there are no pictures! Enjoy the ones from the previous post =)

Ins and outs of daily life in Uganda

Well hello again!

So, it’s been a really long week, as weeks tend to be these days. I’ve had a few emotional ups and downs, I seem to have forgotten how exhausting and taxing adjustments can be! So, a lot of the adjusting that has to happen in a new country is simple stuff that has nothing to do with the people or the culture, but just pertains to daily life, the topic of this post as promised =)

To begin, I’m staying in a dorm room with 3 other people. The rooms are significantly smaller than American dorm rooms. There are 2 sets of bunk beds, 2 wardrobes (each with 2 shelves at the bottom), 4 cubes/shelves on the walls (2 on each side of the room) and 2 desks. Oddly, a partial wall divides the room, making it feel like 2 SUPER small rooms. Despite the tight, close quarters, I love my roommates  =) They are fellow USP (Uganda Studies Program)ers from various universities in the states and we are bonding quickly in this itty-bitty room!

<><>

<> 

So, the red and green basins are leaning on the half wall, and the wardrobe for our side is at the foot of our bunk bed. Then, the other side of the room mirrors this one. I sleep on the bottom bunk =)

Beautiful roommies! Making me laugh, per usual =)

The rest of our floor is Ugandan students, some of whom have become good friends to us already =) There are other USP girls on other floors of our building, one guy in the men’s dorm rooming with Ugandans, and then about 25 students living with host families in the nearby town of Mukono. Next week, all of us on campus will be living with host families too, but only for 2 weeks instead of all semester. We have hall bathrooms in the dorms equipped with cold showers! These showers are welcome after a hot day, so I’ve quickly changed my morning shower habits into evening ones since it’s usually pretty chilly in the morning! Some girls have electric kettles in their rooms and they heat water and then carry it in a basin to the bathrooms and take warm splash baths… ingenious! We bought a kettle for our room, so maybe one of these days I’ll try it out. For now we’ll keep using our kettle for instant coffee!!

That brings me to food. The dining hall is close by on campus and it is like a huge pavilion filled with picnic-style tables. It’s so nice to eat out in the open =) and in the morning we’re usually joined by happy chirping birds, but I’ll get to them in another post!

Afternoon teatime with some friends =) (it's always teatime in Africa!) And, this is just a small portion of the huge hall, but you get the general idea.

As for meals, breakfast consists of bread and hot milk or hot tea, with an occasional hard-boiled egg (I think Tuesday is egg day). Lunches and dinners are usually rice or matoke or posha with beans or peas or g-nut sauce and some kind of cabbage or greens and either sweet or irish (regular) potatoes… aka, A LOT of food, especially starches! So, matoke is made from boiling a fruit that is like a banana but before it is ripened and then they’re mashed. The texture is similar to mashed potatoes but the flavor is a little more unique! Posha is made from corn meal and kind of looks like cornbread but the texture isn’t like bread at all and it doesn’t have much flavor. Rice, matoke and posha are the main staples in Uganda. O, and g-nut sauce is made from ground nuts (same as peanuts!) that are somehow cooked into a yummy sauce that’s really good with rice. There’s also occasionally some beef or pork with lunch or dinner, and sometimes there’s pineapple! I enjoy the food, but it gets monotonous sometimes and I feel a bit depleted of nutrients. I have ventured into town to buy more fruit and veggies which helps to supplement the meals a lot. Also, we’ve discovered rolex, a street food made from chopati (kinda like a flour tortilla) wrapped around an omelet, and it costs less than $1 and is super filling! So sometimes we opt out of dining hall meals =) I’m interested to see what kind of food we’ll get at host stays next week!

Mmmmm... fresh pineapple!

The last daily life thing to tell you all about is laundry =) So, there’s a fenced in area near our building where there are about a dozen clothes lines and 3 or 4 spigots. There, on a typical morning you find lots of people scrubbing away at their clothes and hanging them on the lines! Last week one of my Ugandan friends helped me learn the laundry process… you have to wash twice and then rinse twice (so it takes about 4 wash basins) It’s about a 2 hour event depending on the amount of clothes you wash. Drying takes a good part of the day, but the sun is pretty hot so its quicker than you might expect. It was definitely an experience and it makes me put off laundry even more than I would in America because it’s so time consuming. However, I do love being able to be outside for all of these activities, eating, laundry, etc. because we can hear all the noisy birds… and, wait for it… monkeys, while we scrub away our frustrations with the red dirt that stains our clothes!

Sorry it's dark, but this is the washing area... where I spent about 2+ hours yesterday, but now I have clean clothes!

That's all for now, but over the next few posts I’ll tell you about the other things that have been filling my time such as my classes I'm taking and my placement, because I’m sure you’re all wondering what on earth I do all day!

Thanks for reading and have a lovely weekend =) I’m meeting my host family in a few hours (I’m super nervous!) so sometime next week I’ll fill you in on home life!

Be blessed,

Ruth

Update on Life in Uganda

Hello there friends, family and followers =)

Life here in Uganda is active and engaging and I am working hard to be present and not spend too much time on the internet (easier said than done!). Nonetheless, I will be carving out some time weekly or more often to keep you updated on the goings on here.

Throughout my posts, I will paint for you a picture of the way of life here that I am engaging in and experiencing. Uganda is not defined by the characteristics and logistics that I’ll be explaining to you but by the people here who are journeying through life just like those of any culture. I pray as you read my posts you’ll keep in mind that I am simply sharing my perspective of Uganda. I also pray I’ll have integrity in my words in how I portray life and people here. I invite you to learn with me and journey with me using your imagination as I share my thoughts and ideas with you.

So, there are a few things I’ll try to cover over the next few posts:

1.       climate and geography (this post!)

2.       daily life

3.       academics and schedule

4.       social work placement

5.       first weekend retreat, 14-15 Jan

6.       birds

I’ll start with climate and geography today =) So, Uganda is very near to the equator and therefore it’s pretty toasty! The sun rises at 7 am and sets promptly at 7 pm everyday, and this consistency is so welcomed. I have not yet had a day without sun, such a blessing! Being on the equator also means the sun is nice and hot so I have turned a little pinker than I was just a week ago =) From what I’ve gathered this is the hottest month and later in our time here it will turn to rainy season. However, there have been some climate changes over the past years, as have been experienced all over the world, so the weather can be unpredictable. For instance, there was an epic rainstorm last week but it has been dry ever since!

As for geography, it is less flat than one might anticipate at the thought of Africa. As you saw in the picture in my last post, there are quite a few small mountains in the surrounding area. There’s also a great deal of greenery everywhere, even the suburbs/ cities, and the red dirt is endless (as you can see in the above picture). I do believe my feet will be a nice shade of orange when I return in May =) Also, the trees are breathtaking. There are many palm trees as well as bunches of other types and shapes and sizes of trees that I could never name for you! Either way, they are breathtaking and speak powerfully of the creativity of the God we serve.

Well, that’s all for now =) I pray you’re enjoying your own climate and geography where ever you are. Be blessed!

Ruth

Speechless in Uganda

Dear friends, family and followers,

There’s so much I want to tell you about Uganda! The journey here was long but worth it and I am immeasurably blessed. I did not deserve this opportunity to travel and see this part of God’s vastly breathtaking creation. I wish I could put into words the experiences I am having and the ways that all my senses are overwhelmed with newness! I hope to reveal these things to you over time, for now I will tell you that the greenery here is greener than I’ve ever seen it, the mud is redder, and the smiles brighter. I am falling in love with Ugandan people, especially university students who have reached out to us and accepted us as fellow students on their campus. From their sweet and soulful voices at worship time to their peaceful demeanor in passing on the pathways, I am always touched and I feel the hand of God in my interactions with them.

So far, we have been soaking it all in! I left D.C. on Thursday evening and we arrived on Uganda Christian University’s campus late, late, late Friday night.  Saturday came after only a few hours of sleep and we experienced some exciting orientation sessions and activities. Sunday brought a lively church service and some free time to explore and be adventurous. On Monday, we began classes. I am only taking one actual class here, called Faith and Action in the Ugandan Context. The rest of the day we did more exploring. Tuesday was the BIG day when I visited my practicum site, Hospice Uganda for the first time. To read more than I can currently tell you, here’s the website: http://www.hospiceafrica.or.ug/index.php/home.html. ;) I will be spending 450 hours at this site over the course of the semester. After I attend their orientation there over the course of the week I will be able to share with you a little more about what I’ll be experiencing and doing! I know there are many more things you want to know, from where I’m living to what things are ‘really like’ ;) so, patience my friends! I’ll post again soon.

Be blessed!

sunset

Times are changing

Hello friends!!

Once again I am gearing up for another traveling adventure! This time I am going to Uganda with a study abroad program to complete my senior field placement in order to finish my social work degree!! I will be gone from January until May and I'll get back just in time to give my senior presentation and then GRADUATE! ;)

So, I ask for your prayers as I gather myself (and my stuff!) once more and embark on a new adventure. I'm anxious to see what's in store for me and to gain exposure to a new culture and a brand new continent! I hope to keep you updated here on the goings on and such, and I'll always try to post a few pics. I recently got a new camera so this time the pics should be a main attraction!

In the mean time, I'll be celebrating the birth of our Savior with my dear family, squeezing in as much quality time with them as possible and being grateful for all the good things in my life and the opportunities I have. I pray you'll be doing the same, spending precious time with the ones you love and focusing on the positives!

One of my other essential activities of the next 2-ish weeks is epic snuggling and play time with this huge, adorable bundle of love =)

Merry Christmas, my friends. Be blessed!