goats

January 12, 2011

Dear Journal;

Today was another AMAZING day. We didn't get going very fast, but a lady came by the house where we are staying (at Emma's Mom's farm). Her name was Tushemerirwe Fatuma. She is a neighbor of Emma's Mom, Anna. About 4 years ago she found a 3 month old baby, abandoned. She is a clothes trader and has no children of her own, although her husband has some kids. She took the abandoned child to the police (because otherwise if she didn't go to the police and get documentation, the parents could come back and say that she kidnapped the boy). She needed some help/advice, and Emma advised her to put him in school through the universal (public) system, which is not as good as the private system, but it is better than nothing. She has been caring for this boy, Moses, for 5 years now, but she is getting old and unable to provide food, books, school fees, etc. to this boy. She asked us for help and we said we would try to find someone to help him.

Fatuma, the lady who is looking after Moses

Moses

We also went with Levy (the farm laborer) to get two goats for the women we met yesterday. We got each one for approximately 50 000 Uganda shillings, which is about $23. They were both young females and should be ready to produce in about 4 or 5 months.

We gave one goat to Nankunda Mercy, and one to Mangadelena Bamaryo (see previous post for pics). Hopefully we will find they do well and produce for the women.

We then gave out some of the clothes we brought from the Next to New in RMH. We had approx. 150 pieces of clothes in a village. There were maybe 20 kids to start with and they kept coming and coming! They were pushing so HARD to get to the front of the line and receive a shirt, pants, etc. Most of them were SO happy! The next couple of days we saw some of the children sporting their new clothing.

Then we visited a hospital. It was so weird. Most of the work revolved around labor/delivery and pre-natal education. Also they had tests and counseling for HIV/Aids and malaria. They have funding from the government but most of their supplies/maintenance comes from the Millenium Project (UNDP). Each month the facility delivers 100 babies!!! and there are 5 more facilities like this within the district, and some women give birth in the village. Sometimes they lose the baby, or die giving birth. Often transport to the hospital is a limiting factor. Rides at night from the village of Ruborogota to the health center can cost up to 100 000 UGX ($50) because the driver knows they have no other alternative for transport.

There are antiviral drugs also at this facility, but the HIV prevalence is high!! 9% of the people are HIV positive (approx. 1000 in the area). Only 150 people are on antiviral drugs. The high prevalence is because they are near a major thoroughfare.

HIV testing, HIV education and prevention are so important to decrease the HIV prevalence. And it is so important to educate people on family planning, as people have TOO many kids. Apparently it is a status symbol for men, and women sometimes compete between sisters in terms of number of children. Even the president of Uganda (museveni) encourages high birth rates. In this region, birth rates are higher than the national average of 6 children per family!!!!

We definitely learned a lot about this region and the hospital facility was quite impressive. They are supported by the UNDP, however. Tomorrow we are going to visit another hospital which doesn't have external (non-government) support, so we shall see how it compares.