Well. Good and busy weekend. It's already Monday. And I am not ready for another week already.

Last Thursday Alice told me...we are NOT working on Saturday. We will take the weekend off. And we will go get massages. I told her I'd believe it when I see it considering I've been told about massages 4 or 5 times since I've been here. Alice isn't exactly a woman of her word (the first week I was here, I was promised we'd go to town to get some things on Monday. And Tuesday. And every other day as well. We still haven't gone. Today I was promised she'd be back in the office around 2 to finish up this proposal with me...it's 4:45 and I was just told Alice called and said she'd be in town until 5:30 or 6 and then she'd be back. Looks like it'll be a late night at work). Let's just say I've learned to never put too much emphasis on what she says or promises. She's a busy woman though. So I can understand for the most part.

Anyways, Saturday we woke up and headed into work. We had a huge project proposal that I had been attempting all week and we wanted to get it sent to Dr. Lewis Wall of the Worldwide Fistula Fund. His organization is looking to partner with TERREWODE in creating a Fistula Care Facility in Soroti, Uganda. The facility will provide free fistula repair surgeries to patients as well as a great number of other programs and services to help women with reintegration into society. These include general classes on fistula (what it is, what causes it, etc), adult literacy classes, business/entrepreneurial skills training, and vocational training. The facility will also seek accreditation by the Ministries of Health and Education so that they can have medical/masters/postdoc students come and intern as well as medical personnel come and do their residencies and train in fistula repair. In addition, they are hoping to have a number of income generating projects like raising cows and having a garden. It will also have a small maternity ward and will offer delivery services to women at a highly subsidized rate. This will help generate a little more income as well as hopefully encourage more women to birth in a health facility. The facility will not only provide a place for the women awaiting surgery and recovering from surgery to stay, but it will also have a dorm for at-risk pregnant mothers and a long-term residency for women with fistulas that cannot be repaired. It's pretty complicated the things that TERREWODE does. The fistula care facility would just be in one region and they are still looking to scale up services across the country. Great programs but it's been over 125 hours of my internship and my head still spins trying to sort through it all. They have been asked to scale-up their programs nationwide by the Ministry of Health. Alice was explaining to me the process and said she's not sure how scaling-up a grassroots women's movement is going to work. TERREWODE's first step is to go in and just raise awareness of fistula and get people to want their services and realize the need they have for them. They work at that until the men and women of the community themselves voice what they need. Then the rest of TERREWODE's programs can move in and will be better accepted because they will come from the desire of the community. It's funny because I almost see that as manipulative but it's a good approach to take.

We got the document sent off for review only 1 hour after we said we would (not too bad). We then did a number of things in town and on the way home so we ended up getting back around 7. Welp, there went Saturday. But it was good and we did need to get that proposal done so I didn't mind too much. I figured, there's always Sunday. One great thing about Saturday was I was able to call Phil and my mom for 10,000 shillings ($4-5). Unfortunately for my mom she was called second and I didn't manage my time very effectively (I didn't know how many minutes 10,000 shillings would give me) and she ended up getting about 3 minutes before the call cut off. It was great to talk to them but made me a bit homesick. I wasn't quite expecting that reaction from myself.

Sunday I got up and did some reading while waiting for the family to get up for church. Around 7:40 Alice comes out and tells me we probably won't go to church today because we will be heading to Livingstone's village. She did say however she was thinking maybe we'd go to prayers from 8-10 and head to the village from there. I looked at my watch. And looked at her. And realized that wasn't happening. So, we set out for the village around 9:40. First we had to stop and drop Alvine and Emma at school because by the time we returned from the village it would've been too late to drop them. We then proceeded on to the village. Around noon, I was thinking we had to be getting close. As I was thinking this, Alice said we'd arrive around 1. so, I was wrong. We then stopped at a little market and Alice and Livingstone got out. I was told they were buying salt. An hour later they returned. With tons of different groceries to give family and friends. I probably would've gotten out of the car and gone with them had I known I would sit there for an hour getting stared at by everyone who passed by. We weren't in the city anymore. I think a mzungu is even more of a site where we were. Anyways, we go a little further, and Livingstone gets out of the car again to go check something. And Alice gets out to buy airtime for her phone. Again, about 40 minutes pass before either come back. After several more stops, we make it to the village. At about 3 pm. Now originally I was told we would be back at their house at 5 to rest and prepare for the work week. I could already see this wasn't going to happen. Which was fine because I had nothing else to do. I was just hoping for some time to organize my thoughts and relax. But it was SO NICE to get out of Kampala. FRESH AIR! I could finally breathe again! That was a blessing. It was also just absolutely beautiful. Nice and green everywhere. The village was small... a tight-knit community. People would stare at us passing by and get HUGE smiles on their faces and wave when they saw it was Livingstone. We then pulled into his brother's lot. His brother died 7 years ago and left behind 21 children. Yes, 21. And according to custom, it was Livingstone's responsibility to take care of the family once his brother died. So he and Alice have been helping put all the children through school. I can't even imagine...they are truly generous people. It may be the custom but they seem to always be helping others out financially. I see it with my own eyes and I hear about it from people who have been helped.

Anyways, at his brother's house he were greeted by his brother's wife and talked with her a few minutes. They then served us lunch. Funny thing about Uganda (and maybe Africa in general...I know this sometimes happened in Kenya),  you'd go visit someone and they would prepare lunch for you but they wouldn't eat with you. They would set you up somewhere and you would eat with the other guests and they would return to clear your plates. I just think it's a funny thing to do. Then again, at work the other day Robert (a student intern) asked me, "when you go to someone's house, you have to call ahead and set it up right? And when you do that, is it true that you usually stop and bring food with you or drinks?"...so, our customs are just as odd to them. Their culture is one of open hospitality and the host always prepares and gives to the guest. We like planning ahead and having potlucks. What can I say. Ok so we're sitting outside around the coffee table and they start bringing dishes out. And they look awfully familiar to me. But the plates were sandwiched together over food so I could only see the edges. I was pretty excited when we began to uncover the food and I recognized the plates. They are the same green sponge painted moose and pine tree plates that I have in my apartment in Oregon. It was a nice coincidence and it made me smile. Felt like home.

After lunch we went to check out Alice and Livingstone's plot of land. According to custom, you are to have a residence in the village of the man and people have been on them for quite awhile to do so. They just haven't been able to financially yet. And no wonder if they're constantly putting kids through school. So we visit this sizable plot of land. And then we pick up some people and drive down this foot path through the trees. We reach the middle of nowhere and get out. And then we start to trudge through the trees. 9 of us. A random kid, some elders of the village, the chairman (who is in charge of doing land titles), Alice, Livingstone, the sister-in-law, and the mzungu. We stop and pick up this pile of banana leaf branches out of a bush, and begin to take off in the middle of an overgrown garden. And we begin marking the land boundaries. By digging holes and planting these banana leaf branches every 25 feet or so. Now, to me, I couldn't even begin to see the branches amidst all the other plants but I'm sure to a more trained eye, the boundary of the land was very clearly visible. At the end of this, about an hour later, we all sat around under the trees as the chairman wrote out the title to the land. At one point, one of the elders laughed and said something about the mzungu. Apparently he was making a joke that I should be put down as a witness. I wasn't. That would've been something though huh. One of TERREWODE's focuses is land rights for women. It was good to see the process in person. She said, now you see how outnumbered women are here. The sister in law wasn't going to come but Alice insisted she did. The wife usually is not there. And of course, the female mzungu usually isn't there either. So things are decided by the men, and the wife is at the mercy of the husband. TERREWODE was initially started with a focus on land rights for women but Alice soon saw that the women she was trying to mobilize and help were all incredibly sick. So that's when she realized she needed to help treat them first (many were suffering fistula) before she could address underlying causes of their poverty and their injuries. I think that's important to remember. My program is so focused on the upstream, prevention approach which is huge and important, but I think we sometimes gloss over the fact that people are already out there sick and suffering and treatment is important too. The doctor's job is just as important as the public health person's.

So we finally finish up this process, head back to the sister in law's house, visit yet another plot of their land (I was impressed by the first. Here there were at least 3), say goodbyes, and start to head out. On the way, we stop at this one compound and Alice says they are going in to visit Livingstone's grandfather. I asked if I should come and she said yes if I would like to. So I did. He was sitting in this little hut on a wooden frame of a bed with no mattress. We talked for several minutes while he sat inside and we sat on a bench right outside and I was feeling a little out of place. He had very advanced skin cancer and was telling them what was going on and what the doctors had said. He then came out and I saw his hand. It was completed disfigured with a huge gaping growth and hole, his skin simply eaten away. As he was holding it out for Livingstone to see, it started to ooze and bleed. I was shocked. I had never seen skin cancer look like that. I didn't know it could look like that. It was horrible to think that this man had been living with this. It was enough to make you sick looking at it. I found out later that I wasn't intruding and he probably wasn't sick looking at it because a few years ago he went blind. Livingstone and Alice and the friend we were with kept asking questions about his visit to the hospital, had the cancer spread, why didn't they amputate etc. Without many answers, our final consensus was that they had "escaped" from the hospital. Apparently it's quite common. People feel as if they aren't being treated or the western medicine won't help so they escape while they are still being processed. This has happened recently with Livingstone's sister. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer and Alice and Livingstone had set up treatment and were going to pay the bills. But she ran off and instead went to a traditional healer. She has yet to return. There's such a conflict between traditional beliefs and western medicine. If you don't understand western or modern medicine and you don't trust it, why would you go to a doctor over a traditional healer, someone in your society who you do trust and respect? And I do think that traditional healers do have a lot of knowledge of herbal medicines and for some illnesses, they do have the abilities to treat. But for things like cervical and skin cancer. Treatment, and more accurately, prompt treatment, is so incredibly essential. There should be a partnership between the two realms of medicine. It was difficult to see such advanced illness and no hope. I left almost feeling relief that he was blind. I don't know if that's something to be thankful for but in that moment, I was thankful for it so that he didn't have to look down and see what we were able to see.

We finally returned home close to ten at night. Ate dinner. And went to sleep.

Monday afternoon we had a great big thunder and lightning storm. It was pretty awesome. And for most of the day we had no power in the office. Alice had gone out and was to return early afternoon. By 6 the staff hired a car to take us all home since she hadn't returned. Well we made the usual rounds and dropped off Lutie and Martha and Carol and Morgans and then Edmond (another student intern and Alice's nephew) was to ride the rest of the way with me to Alice's house to make sure I got home ok. Well the last few miles of road leading to Alice's are all dirt. And we were in a little car, not the bigger 4WD vehicle. And boy did we ever get stuck. After 5-10 minutes of the driver spinning his wheels, men started to gather around the car and offered to help push. So they struggled and we finally get going but were swerving all over the muddy road and in front of us this huge truck turns out. And the two vehicles swerve towards one another and in the last second our driver turns the wheel hard the other way and we go off the side of the road a bit and through some branches. At that point I told Edmond I could walk the rest of the way. I was afraid a) the car would get stuck again further back and b) we would get in an accident if we met another vehicle again. It was slightly terrifying. I was asked to pay the guy who initially helped push 5,000 shillings and then I gave Edmond another 5,000 in case they got stuck on the way back and needed help again. I don't know if they would've asked for that much or any money at all had a mzungu not been in the car but I wanted to make sure he could make it home alright. And did I ever feel bad for the driver. He had no idea what he was getting himself into when he took this job. I think he was a bit annoyed. But also a bit relieved when we drove through the branches rather than hit the truck. I think he may have had a mini heart attack. He and the two of us in the back seat as well. We all breathed a huge sigh of relief and took a moment to recollect before moving ahead.

It's now Tuesday morning and we're still at Alice's house. Mawanda got stuck trying to come and get us. Ayyiyi. The roads are bad when it doesn't rain. When it does rain, it's near impossible! We shall see what today has in store.

Tuesday afternoon: breathe a sigh of relief. We sent off the Project Proposal. We think it's time for a quick break and tasty lunch.