Welcome to Kampala

Today I’m sitting in an internet café in Kampala, having left the hospital by matatu at 7.30 this morning. The matatu is the basic form of transport in Uganda – basically a 14 seater small minibus that stops and picks people up along the way. This morning’s was full – 22 people at one point, but also fast, and I arrived here in under 2 hours.

Its fairly surreal sitting here, having had a full English breakfast for brunch (in order to take advantage of the free wireless internet), in the middle of Kampla, in a café full of other ex-pats all sitting in front of laptops. I’ve just managed a fairly long conversation to the UK as mobile phone reception here is much more reliable than in Kiwoko. I think this country is full of contrasts, but there is certainly a big rich-poor divide, especially between the wealthy of Kampala and the rural poor of Kiwoko area.

Since I last updated, I’ve been fairly thrown into work in the hospital. Its been a bit like a constant week of emergency take back home – starting at 7.30am with a ward round, spending most of the day operating, and often not finishing until late evening. We don’t admit many patients to surgery – perhaps 5 per day – but most of them have such big pathology that we need to operate!

The theatre suite here is surprisingly well equipped – one major and one minor theatre, and there are anaesthetic technicians who look after that side of things (nominally overseen by the surgeon). A lot of stuff is under Local Anaesthetic, but we’ve used a lot of ketamine/diazepam (used for vetinary practice in the UK), and ether anaesthesia which appears to be very safe, even if it is flammable! The range of operations is huge too – most stuff this week has been hernias, large abdominal bowel tumours, and gynae ops, but we’ve also done a femoral nailing for a fracture that was sustained ten months ago. A couple of the big tumours were in 5 year olds – which is a little scary: fortunately I’m not the lead surgeon for those! Both have made good recoveries!

Last night I was on-call for the first time: basically the only doctor on for the whole hospital which involved paediatric admissions, neonatal ICU admissions, medical admissions, an obstetric emergency and one surgical patient! Its surprising how much stuff I can remember in order to cover this without too many problems, and the nursing staff are quite proactive. I think I’ll basically be on a one-in-three rota with the other two surgeons to cover a week of night-time surgical cover at a time, including one night on for the whole hospital during the week and the whole weekend including one night for everything. Then hopefully a couple of weeks without being disturbed overnight. The other medics cover the other nights, but need help for anything surgical – not reciprocated on the nights I’m on for the hospital, but I think they’ll help if I need them!

Its good to be off for the weekend. Tomorrow will be church in the morning (an English service), followed by relaxation – perhaps a bike ride in the local area. The local kids love seeing us “Muzungus” out on our bikes around their villages! They all come out and shout and wave. I don’t think they know how to say anything more in English than “Hey Muzungu, how are you? How are you?”.

I’ll also need to do some laundry – I haven’t yet got myself a housekeeper, but hopefully that will come soon. It seems strange to employ someone to do the washing-up, cleaning and laundry, but it provides valuable income for one of the locals – hopefully a win-win situation. The locals hold all doctors in quite high respect here too, so a doctor doing laundry isn’t really expected, and is thought to be very strange!

So after ten days here, so far so good! My house is comfortable, the locals friendly, the work busy but fun…. It should be a good year!

Steve

Back in Africa...

I’m actually writing this on Wednesday evening, having arrived in Uganda this morning. The last couple of days have been a bit hectic, so it’s been good to actually get here, and realise that this is home for the next twelve months.

Things in Edinburgh went fine before I left. I had a fantastic evening with friends on my last night in the UK – I was really touched by just how many people came out to say goodbye (although I had advertised it for people to come and celebrate me going as well as to say goodbye!).

Yesterday turned out well too – I was a bit unsettled in the morning, as I got everything finally packed. Once we got to the airport, my mood lifted completely, probably as a result of witnessing God’s blessing once again. I was expecting problems with excess luggage, but when I said I had one big bag, a guitar and a bike to check in, the only response was: “No problem”! In fact check-in was so quick that I was able to leave the airport and go to my parents for an hour or so, thus allowing me to say goodbye to them properly.

My flight and connections went very well. Unfortunately I was supposed to meet up with Mairi, a doctor from Newcastle, but her flight down was delayed and she missed the connection. She has to hang around London for 48 hours as the flights out are only every couple of days. My luggage all arrived securely (other than a dent in my guitar case – marked fragile!), and I was collected by one of the hospital staff.

It’s been great to arrive here at Kiwoko itself. So much is familiar from ten years ago, but there has been major building work, and the place is about three times the size it was. I was immediately taken for lunch from some of the other ex-pats, and am having dinner tonight with some more – I think the plan is to get invited out for every meal until I get a chance to get to Kampala for a proper food shop.

My accommodation here is superb too – A two-bedroom semi bungalow to myself, with electricity, running water and shower (cold), and plenty of space. It’s practically new, with only a couple living here for a few months until Christmas. They’ve kindly left all sorts of furnishings so I’ll have very little extra stuff to get.

I just have to make mention before I leave this, that it’s really pleasantly warm here (high 20s), with bright sunshine until at least 7pm. Quite a contrast from cold, wet, windy Scotland, and even more so from Austria’s skiing last week! I’m looking forward to a good year!

Steve