Today we decided to do a tour of the local community. Our guide, Winston, picked us up with 2 military escorts, Saturday and Stephen. Yes Saturday was born on a Saturday. They said they were there to protect some against animals but mostly to keep the drivers from getting too close as that is the norm in Uganda. The drivers don’t move over to give room, the walkers move off the road. Not so if you have a gun!
We visited a local primary school where the principal showed us around the school and took us on a tour of the classrooms. The kids loved to say hello and give high fives. All smiles. All in uniform. Apparently the school was started by an orphan that was raised by the community and he now wanted to give back. Around 400 students enrolled from 8-5 each day and most are orphans themselves. Some of the parental deaths are or were Covid related but primarily it is HIV infections. The number one boys name now is Jordan and the number one girl’s is Judith.
Our next stop was a coffee roaster and distillery. Coffee is the number one export of Uganda. Most locals have coffee trees on their land and use that as a cash crop. We watched the process of separating the husk from the bean, roasting the beans and grinding the roast. All very manual labor intensive. Hank, the roaster, also was the local distiller. He makes tequila from bananas. Along the way he also makes banana beer which the younger adults like best. They had never heard of Agave but the tequila was actually not bad.
Next was a village of Pygmy or Batwa people. They sang some songs while dancing and Winston showed us around the village. The experience was a little awkward but we did buy some things from them which I believe helps support them.
Next were the University/Nursing School and the Hospital. The director spoke to us about the current state of nursing. How they are trying to recruit more women to the school. The problem stems from the families being so poor they can only afford to send one child to the University and they almost always pick a son. The hospital was actually pretty big and had a separate HIV clinic to try to provide some privacy as there is still quite a stigma with the diagnosis. We toured the Operating Theatre where I got to speak with the nurse anesthetist there and Katie toured the ICU. They asked us if we wanted to volunteer! I had told Winston we were retired he translated that to we were ’dead’! Ah, a good laugh had by all. Tomorrow we are out early for a plane to Kenya. I hear the internet is very poor in our next two camps so you won’t hear from us for a little while. Cali, Cali (Bye)