Back to the Island

I feel a bit spoiled because in some ways the internet here on the island is easier to access than it is on the mainland. One of the long term staff has a mobile internet adapter that you can just plug into a USB; since Lingira is only a few miles from the mainland the cell phone towers still reach.

I returned to the island on Thursday in part to say goodbye to the We International team, they left for Wisconsin early yesterday morning. The first photo from today’s post shows me pulling up the anchor in Victoria bay, I was lucky enough to catch a private boat and avoid the overcrowded and often coal-filled public boat. After returning to the base on Lingira in early afternoon, the clouds were just right for a spectacular sunset. Two of the members of the We team are photography students, when I caught up with them at the edge of one of the Camps called Choya, I snapped that photo.

I’ve had a few inquiries as to how the food is here on the island, so last night I took a moment to photograph what was served for dinner. Rice and G-nut sauce is the main staple here at the SHIM base; in case anyone was wondering, G-nuts are basically peanuts. Now that there are only a few of us here at the base we’ve been getting better food for breakfast (eggs, chapatti, and pineapple), but the lunches (pocho and beans) and dinners have essentially been the same.

I took Friday morning to prepare for my First Aid instructor course and had the opportunity to sit in on the farmer’s association meeting in the afternoon. The girls from UW that just left were part of a new student organization called the Empowerment through Development and Gender Equality (EDGE) project; it was their work that got the farmer’s association off of the ground. The meeting had quite a bit of disagreement amongst its sixteen members, but I felt that it was borne out of a strong desire to improve the situation of agriculture on the island.

I divided today into two separate sessions with my small class, this morning I focused on reviewing and sharpening first aid skills that I taught last week. Around lunch I handed out practice teaching assignments to my students and told them to take three hours to prepare.

I was very impressed with the enthusiasm and confidence that I observed during the afternoon session (4th picture). These five individuals have only undergone about eight hours of training thus far and only two of them have had previous medical experience. Yet, when it came time to demonstrating the skills that I showed only a week before, they appeared proficient (5th picture).

I will be returning to the mainland tomorrow morning and I’m planning on taking the day off; it seems that I’ve been working on weekends quite a bit these days. Initially it was my plan to keep my feet on dry land for awhile, but after talking with my students at the end of today’s session it looks like I’ll be returning again on Wednesday. In between then and now I have to finish their teaching manuals and put together a First Aid training box for the island. That being said; this sound be a busy week, I’m starting work at the main hospital’s lab in Jinja on Tuesday and starting a similar position at the children’s hospital/training the triage staff in the use of a new blood pressure/vitals monitor on Wednesday. Somehow I’m going to have to figure out how to finish that up and still have it to the boat dock at 2 pm to catch the public boat. On Friday I need to leave the island early so I can make it back to the Capital by mid-afternoon, I am finally fulfilling my promise to visit my friends that initially took care of me in my first few days here in Uganda.