Greetings here from Janet! I'm here resting this morning in
the hotel sending this message and doing some laundry in the bathtub. Meg
left at dawn for a series of ministries' meetings including among others with
the Ministry of Education and The Ministry of Health. There is still much work
we need to do in these next five days before we leave for home on Saturday
night.
It feels really good to be back at our base hotel here in
Kampala. Our last road trip to Hoima and Lira were very grueling and at the
same time so very worthwhile. We drove west for several hours to visit a hostel
of girls who come from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds and still aspire
after high school to become nurses. We met with the group which sang
beautifully for us and then met with girls individually. We examined their
grade reports and exhorted them to keep up their dreams and work very hard in school.
The next day we had an arduous all day drive on poor
roads northeast to Lira. We were lucky to be able to break up the day by
viewing rhino's in a sanctuary and then later we viewed some beautiful
waterfalls and rapids. The government is working on a hydroelectric dam to
create more much needed electricity for the country. It was a sight
for sore eyes after a long journey. I know Meg wrote more in detail about these
stops so I've only mentioned them briefly here.
In Lira, as Meg has written, we visited our scholar Acio and
traveled out with her on a dirt road for an hour to the health clinic where she
works part-time in addition to her studies in Kampala. The conditions at the
clinic were truly shocking. No running water and only a little electricity
powered by solar in the whole clinic. Staffing for all these in- and
out-patients was extremely minimal. People were being treated for malaria, TB
and HIV. There was also a maternity ward on the premises but no
provisions for emergency c-sections. We were so proud to see this great
scholar of ours taking on such an immense job.
Signing off until tomorrow. (JP)
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