Aside from some very busy weekends and nights of operating, the last few weeks have been relatively quiet at Kiwoko Hospital, Uganda. There hasn’t been a large amount of day-to-day surgery (possibly because I’ve done it all at the weekends!), and it’s been good to relax a little, catch up on sleep and enjoy being in the middle of rural Africa.
This weekend I was hugely reminded that our nice rural setting is actually the middle of wild Africa – courtesy of a gigantic 4 metre long snake! I was out with Dr Rory on one of our cycling expeditions into the local countryside, and about 40 minutes out, we stopped to visit a small homestead where Rory had met several football-mad boys on a previous occasion. They were very excited to show us their evening’s entertainment from a couple of nights earlier – a huge snake had made its way into their front yard, and was recognised as one who had eaten a whole calf earlier in the month! Around nine small boys had attacked it with sticks and panga knives, and had succeeded in killing it without getting injured themselves in the process! The boys proudly took us to where they had buried their snake, and dug it up for us to see! The monster pictured above was the result!
Its very easy to assume that things are very safe here at Kiwoko – the main annoyance is the insects and mosquitoes, with the occasional small rat or grass snake seen escaping into the bushes, and the only really scary animal being one of the many long-horned cattle that graze freely in the area. However, there is a lot of African wildlife around, as demonstrated by the size of that snake… And I’m aware of people being brought to the hospital with injuries sustained from crocodile bites, and even a leopard mauling, sustained only 15 miles away! However, we have good security guards on the hospital site, even if it is slightly scary seeing them patrolling at night with a homemade bow and arrow!
Sunday afternoon’s cycle ride was great for more than just the snake. The family we visited were rural subsistence farmers, with ten girls, nine boys, three mothers and a father all living in five mud huts surrounded by a boundary hedge – a really beautiful little compound. The boys would go out and look after the cattle, the girls would help with digging the ground for their crops, and they seemed to survive very well, if very basically. Being out in the middle of nowhere, two Muzungus on bicycles were the centre of attention for a couple of hours! The bicycles were rapidly borrowed (along with the excitement of a pair of Oakley sunglasses), and great fun was had! We were welcomed to Chai (hot milky tea), pineapples, bananas, and an impromptu Ugandan music and dancing display, followed by a photo-opportunity for their milk-jug collection (!!). Rory was lucky to escape getting married off to one of the twenty-something daughters, and two of the nine-year old girls seemed to be getting promised to me, so we stopped the chat and played football with the boys for a while!
Ugandan people are so welcoming and hospitable; it is sometimes difficult to know how to respond to their generosity, especially when it is obvious how poor they are. There is a danger in insulting them by refusing what they offer, and you want to respond in kind without being seen as a rich condescending westerner. In the end, we escaped without any extra gifts, and left behind a small plastic football, with promises to return again soon.
The social side of life here at the hospital has picked up a little recently as well. I’ve been getting involved with playing some volleyball with the some of the students, and have enjoyed various times of music with others. I have a number of budding guitarists who are very keen for me to improve their knowledge of different chords and rhythms, which is also great fun. I have another visitor from Scotland arriving on Sunday, so it may well be time to arrange another ceilidh (Scottish country dancing) in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks again for all the emails, letters and comments I’ve received over the last few weeks. Its quite exciting to get random messages from people I’ve never met who have been reading this blog – isn’t the internet an amazing thing! Everyone’s prayers, support and encouragement are most appreciated. God bless, whatever part of the world (safe or unsafe) you may be in at the moment!
Steve
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