Bits and Bobs
It struck me today that due to my being away for vast periods of time and also my forgetful brain I have missed out some events from the past month or so that really deserve a mention. I hope to write and publish one more Blog before Christmas but before I do I feel a few holes need to be filled.
Dave and Raych both finished the institute and have therefore both been home all day every day. This has opened up my whole day to doing whatever I please. However the first few weeks without institute Dave and Raych found themselves to and fro-ing from Kampala almost every other day so I was on call to do babysitting if needed. Then came the epic adventure in Kumi but now I am back and Dave has been around every day I am again without a job. When I came out here I came with the idea of filling a hole that needed filling. Although I was reassured by Raych that my being around was helpful to her I felt slightly on the useless side, and felt like I still hadn’t found my niche. Earlier this week Dave told me that help was needed at the Clinic and I should talk to Uncle Roger, this I did and as I write this I have just returned form my first day employed at the clinic.
I was told to come to clinic at 9 am of Friday. I was 15 minutes late because on the bike ride over a man stopped me and wanted my life story, my families life story, he wanted my opinion of Africa, he game he his opinion of white people, ran through a large list of names and wondered if I knew them, talked about a girl called Hannah, did I know her? I considered telling this man that I had never met a Hannah in my life so I could be on my way and not late but I reluctantly told the truth that yes, Hannah is my sister. The man practically exploded. A stood there for a further five minutes as he told me all about my sister like I had never met her myself and asked when she’s coming back, is she coming back? When? What’s she doing now? Will she come back? When? And on and on… The British man inside me told me stay and chat to this kind fellow who knows my sister but the same Brit also talk me I was going to be late for my first day at work, and this simply wouldn’t do! I finally managed to wriggle away and pelt it over to New hope at high speed. I arrived to find the clinic locked and bolted. I waited a further half an hour until a lady came up and opened up explaining Uncle Roger is ill. I was given a whistle stop tour of the clinic trying to translate the American medical terms to something I might recognize. After mentally scrambling my way through ‘Band aids’ (I thought that was a music festival but never mind…) I was left to wonder what on earth I, I complete medical layman was going to do in a clinic for goodness sake! I remembered my mission statement of filling a hole that needed filling and minutes later a few holes walked in.
The first patient just needed meds and, speaking little to no Luganda, that was the job of the nurse, that patient however was followed by a guy with a larger plaster on his toe. The nurse gave me a casual look and, being fully aware of how I know nothing about medicine said, “can you redress his wound?” “Of course” is the reply.
I invited my first patient in and asked him to sit on the bed. The doctor will see you now. I found some gloves and made a complete hash of putting them on. The kid seemed unfazed by my stumbling at the first hurdle and presented me with a second. He whipped off his bandage and displayed a big toe with basically no toenail to speak of. For your information toenails and nails in general make my skin crawl. I realize if I'm going to be of any use in this clinic I need to get over the gore. I did, and did what I think was pretty good job of redressing his toe. I discharged my patient only to find another one waiting. This guy had an even gorier wound on his index finger, almost making a circumference. But fingers I can handle so I found some ‘gauze’ and wrapped it up like a true doc. The rest of the morning passed without any more patients for me, but plenty for the nurse. We ended the day at noon because of the slow traffic of walking wounded and I came home to write this. All in all not a bad first day I think. Raych is convinced I will catch the nursing bug and, like Hannah, jet off to university and make everyone proud. I'm not so sure but I'm ruling nothing out!
Going back (a lot) to the institute ending, another unfortunate effect of that was Scott going home. Scott was a 22 year old guy from somewhere in America that sounds like everywhere else in America. None the less in the weeks before his departure we had become friends and were just starting to really get along well when he went home having finished the institute. I was really upset to see him go, him being the only other single Muzungu guy on campus remotely near my age. His parting words to me were, “Catch you on the flip side” whatever that means. I gave him a look like he was from another planet and said, “Ok”, completely missing that particular Americanism. Why can’t they speak English for goodness sake!
This week I have been working with Aunty Jo on a Christmas production to show the parents of her little troupe. My challenge was to get a group of kids from the ages of 5-8 doing something dramatic. I toyed with the idea of doing ‘Les Mis.’ , ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ or ‘a Christmas Carol’ but with only a week to rehearse I decided against it. Plus the kids wanted to do something as Knights. We therefore worked together to write a play that I'm sure Andrew Lloyd Webber will be gagging to get his hands on called, “The Christmas Chocolate has been Stolen”. The play features Queen Josephine who has had her Chocolate stolen and has enlisted the help of the four bravest Knights in all the land to help her find it, along with me as Narrator. As I turns out I-done-it, and they play was a great success with the parents.
Anyway Christmas is just around the corner. A big thank you to those who have sent out presents, I have a slowly growing pile in my room I am keeping away from prying eyes and hands! I keep waiting for the weather to cool down and the first frost to come, but I think at this rate the chance of me wearing a jumper on the 25th would be a fine thing. Take care,
Dan
Dave and Raych both finished the institute and have therefore both been home all day every day. This has opened up my whole day to doing whatever I please. However the first few weeks without institute Dave and Raych found themselves to and fro-ing from Kampala almost every other day so I was on call to do babysitting if needed. Then came the epic adventure in Kumi but now I am back and Dave has been around every day I am again without a job. When I came out here I came with the idea of filling a hole that needed filling. Although I was reassured by Raych that my being around was helpful to her I felt slightly on the useless side, and felt like I still hadn’t found my niche. Earlier this week Dave told me that help was needed at the Clinic and I should talk to Uncle Roger, this I did and as I write this I have just returned form my first day employed at the clinic.
I was told to come to clinic at 9 am of Friday. I was 15 minutes late because on the bike ride over a man stopped me and wanted my life story, my families life story, he wanted my opinion of Africa, he game he his opinion of white people, ran through a large list of names and wondered if I knew them, talked about a girl called Hannah, did I know her? I considered telling this man that I had never met a Hannah in my life so I could be on my way and not late but I reluctantly told the truth that yes, Hannah is my sister. The man practically exploded. A stood there for a further five minutes as he told me all about my sister like I had never met her myself and asked when she’s coming back, is she coming back? When? What’s she doing now? Will she come back? When? And on and on… The British man inside me told me stay and chat to this kind fellow who knows my sister but the same Brit also talk me I was going to be late for my first day at work, and this simply wouldn’t do! I finally managed to wriggle away and pelt it over to New hope at high speed. I arrived to find the clinic locked and bolted. I waited a further half an hour until a lady came up and opened up explaining Uncle Roger is ill. I was given a whistle stop tour of the clinic trying to translate the American medical terms to something I might recognize. After mentally scrambling my way through ‘Band aids’ (I thought that was a music festival but never mind…) I was left to wonder what on earth I, I complete medical layman was going to do in a clinic for goodness sake! I remembered my mission statement of filling a hole that needed filling and minutes later a few holes walked in.
The first patient just needed meds and, speaking little to no Luganda, that was the job of the nurse, that patient however was followed by a guy with a larger plaster on his toe. The nurse gave me a casual look and, being fully aware of how I know nothing about medicine said, “can you redress his wound?” “Of course” is the reply.
I invited my first patient in and asked him to sit on the bed. The doctor will see you now. I found some gloves and made a complete hash of putting them on. The kid seemed unfazed by my stumbling at the first hurdle and presented me with a second. He whipped off his bandage and displayed a big toe with basically no toenail to speak of. For your information toenails and nails in general make my skin crawl. I realize if I'm going to be of any use in this clinic I need to get over the gore. I did, and did what I think was pretty good job of redressing his toe. I discharged my patient only to find another one waiting. This guy had an even gorier wound on his index finger, almost making a circumference. But fingers I can handle so I found some ‘gauze’ and wrapped it up like a true doc. The rest of the morning passed without any more patients for me, but plenty for the nurse. We ended the day at noon because of the slow traffic of walking wounded and I came home to write this. All in all not a bad first day I think. Raych is convinced I will catch the nursing bug and, like Hannah, jet off to university and make everyone proud. I'm not so sure but I'm ruling nothing out!
Going back (a lot) to the institute ending, another unfortunate effect of that was Scott going home. Scott was a 22 year old guy from somewhere in America that sounds like everywhere else in America. None the less in the weeks before his departure we had become friends and were just starting to really get along well when he went home having finished the institute. I was really upset to see him go, him being the only other single Muzungu guy on campus remotely near my age. His parting words to me were, “Catch you on the flip side” whatever that means. I gave him a look like he was from another planet and said, “Ok”, completely missing that particular Americanism. Why can’t they speak English for goodness sake!
This week I have been working with Aunty Jo on a Christmas production to show the parents of her little troupe. My challenge was to get a group of kids from the ages of 5-8 doing something dramatic. I toyed with the idea of doing ‘Les Mis.’ , ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ or ‘a Christmas Carol’ but with only a week to rehearse I decided against it. Plus the kids wanted to do something as Knights. We therefore worked together to write a play that I'm sure Andrew Lloyd Webber will be gagging to get his hands on called, “The Christmas Chocolate has been Stolen”. The play features Queen Josephine who has had her Chocolate stolen and has enlisted the help of the four bravest Knights in all the land to help her find it, along with me as Narrator. As I turns out I-done-it, and they play was a great success with the parents.
Anyway Christmas is just around the corner. A big thank you to those who have sent out presents, I have a slowly growing pile in my room I am keeping away from prying eyes and hands! I keep waiting for the weather to cool down and the first frost to come, but I think at this rate the chance of me wearing a jumper on the 25th would be a fine thing. Take care,
Dan
posted by Daniel at 4:43 PM
2 Comments:
doctor dan will see you now!
or alternatively director dan: "lights, camera, action!"
you can have some of our coldness also! love you gazillions xxxxx
hey dan, all those episodes of scrubs and holby city seemed to have paid off!! sounds like great fun tho. glad u got my parcel also :)
love u lots xxxxxxxxx
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