I remember some aspects of my time there as a medical student very well. I hadn’t done that much travelling before, and had absolutely no idea what to expect from Africa before I went. I think a cousin’s friend had been to Kiwoko Hospital a couple of years earlier and that’s how came to know of it. I do remember finding it very isolated for the first couple of weeks. There was one other medical student there with me from Leeds, who I fortunately got on with well. He appeared back to the house we lived in one afternoon with a bag of aubergines, very excited about finding them in the local village. “I hate aubergines!” I remember saying, much to his dismay. That comment found its way into his diary, I found later, with the comment: “I wonder if we’re going to get along!”
Kiwoko Hospital Main Building in 1996 and 2007In those days, the postal service was the best method of communicating – mail from the UK took about a week to arrive. I did manage one phone call home, after about a month, from a call box in the main post-office in Kampala. Nowadays, with mobile phones, communication is much easier, and mobile phone reception is excellent and pretty cheap. Kiwoko also has a functioning internet connection via a satellite receiver at the nearby New Hope Orphanage. That allowed me to maintain email and blog communication when I was there, and was great at helping to source equipment and resources for the hospital.
Kiwoko Hospital Entrance 1996 and 2007Other memories include the food – we had pretty much the same each day: rice and beans, sometimes with gravy, sometimes matoke (savory steamed banana). You had to be careful with the rice, as it had many small stone in it! At one point we had some Ugandan medical students there who shared our meals, and after one such lunchtime I found one of them, Diana, sitting beside me stroking my arm... “Hello!” I thought, but it was just that Ugandans have smooth arms, and my arm hair was amusing her greatly!
Of course the hospital has moved on since those days, and is now about twice the size. But the thing I appreciated most when there 12 years ago, and also when working there in 2007 was the ethos of the place, which hadn’t changed. Kiwoko Hospital is still an oasis of God’s love in the midst of a poor developing country – aiming to reach out in His strength to make a difference in people’s lives, physically, socially, and spiritually. The vast majority of staff are there serving God, and relying on Him day-to-day to provide all that the hospital needs. I certainly witnessed many miracles of healing (see earlier blog posts) and of finance at just the right time during my stay there.
Of course, I shouldn’t be jealous at all. I’ve had three opportunities to return for brief visits over the last two years. I have a good job here that gives me the money to support the hospital in many ways, and to sponsor several students there, as well as paying for airfares and associated costs of trips back to Uganda. I’m also just back from a superb skiing holiday in Austria, which gave me a much needed break from work as well as great exercise and intoxicating amounts of fresh air!
Schladming 2010I'm also planning a further visit to Kiwoko later this year, perhaps at the time of the Nursing School Graduation, when I’ll be able to support the students who I’ve sponsored over the last couple of years. But I am excited for Charlotte, heading off into the unknown, and hopefully about to have a life-changing experience. Who knows, she may end up working there again at some point in the future – both myself and the current Medical Superintendent at Kiwoko Hospital were once elective medical students there in our time!
Steve
