20. We have an earthquake!

Tuesday 20th November 2012

 

Kisiizi School

Today we have been invited to attend the assembly at Kisiizi School just over the road so we meet outside Headmaster John’s office at 7.55am. It is noticeably colder this morning and I walk over with Tom who has brought two footballs for the school. When the children see him, he is almost mobbed!

 

I have some less interesting but nevertheless hopefully useful, pencils, rubbers and sharpeners which I give to John. Whilst chatting to him we learn that he retires on 21st December but will stay on for 12 months as an English teacher whilst Spencer, a teacher who has been there for 16 years takes over as the Head. John explains there is no pension system here so I suppose although everybody complains about the level of pensions in the UK, at least we have one. All the children line up in classes – there are nine of them, and a total of 342 children in the school. Spencer gets all the children running on the spot to keep warm, followed by about 5 minutes of physical exercise with star jumps seeming to be what they enjoy the most. The Ugandan flag is raised by one of the pupils as everybody sings the National Anthem and then the Kisiizi School song. All the children then file class by class, into the main hall. They are all sitting on rows of benches when we enter and sit at the back on the plastic patio chairs provided for the benefit of visitors. After some singing, clapping and prayers we are all invited by John to come to the front. He tells the children where we are from and then asks us to each introduce ourselves and say a few words. There is a further song and the children are then set a test. Can they remember our names? I thought it was highly unlikely, however I was proved wrong. Not everybody put their hand up as John went along the line but there was always somebody that could remember. Quite a few hands went up when it was my turn and John explained my name was quite an easy one for them to remember as it is a girl’s name in Uganda. Looking at things in the country generally, not just from a medial point of view, they are about 50 years behind the UK. I wonder ... if the name Janet is as popular here now as it was in the UK in the 1950’s, do you suppose that in another 50 years there will be many Ugandans running around with the names Kai, Tyler, Kylie or Brooklyn?

 

We are invited to join a couple of the nursery classes and hear the children singing and look at some of their work which is a delight. In one class there is clearly a ‘naughty chair’ a narrow desk and chair behind the door and we didn’t notice at first there is a little boy sitting there out of sight behind the open door. The teacher says something and he comes out to sit at his own desk and join the class.

 

It’s back to Rose Cottage to start the Excel spreadsheet. I am entering information on the prescribing of antibiotics and patient information about age, date of admission, bed number, area they live and what procedures they have had as an inpatient. Well let me tell you this was no easy task. Firstly just trying to decipher the handwriting was difficult enough and then with no medical knowledge at all attempting to work out the names of the antibiotics, and the dosage and the number of times a day it had been administered, nearly had me beaten. But I wasn’t going to give up easily, so did my best knowing that I could check with Sam and correct whatever strange named drugs I had inadvertently created. However when it came to the place names, well that really was a test of my patience. I had a map and was looking from the map to the drug sheet back to the map usually by which time I had lost my place. Can you imagine trying to distinguishing between Bwambara, Bwizibwera and Bushenyi (with bad handwriting) or between Kabwoya, Kagamba, Kaswengo and Kahung, and these are just seven out of about 70 different areas. I was losing the will to live by about 4.30pm so knocked off early and had a coffee with my last two Aldi Florentines – I was impressed with the self discipline I had demonstrated, making them last this long - but today I had earned them both. I consoled myself with the fact that Sam had said me doing this job for her was really helpful and gave her time to get on with something else. I wasn’t even half way through it so knew I still had a lot to do before the task would be completed......but I’ll worry about that tomorrow.

 

We have been invited out tonight to Stella’s. She used to manage Rose Cottage but now runs another guest house down the road. We are all going along with sister Moreen so set off at 7pm just as it is getting dark. I have remembered my torch but soon it is pitch black and I wonder how all the locals manage to see as they walk along the bumpy road riddled with stones, lumps, bumps and potholes. It’s been raining and some areas are bit slippery so I need to watch my footing. I don’t want to fall over, sprain my ankle and be carried back to the hospital. As we walk down the road we hear some children calling out “Hello Tom”, it is obviously children from the school who recognised him for this morning’s assembly. Then I hear “Hello Janet” and some giggling as we walk past.

 

We arrive at The Goodfellas guest house about 10 minutes later and get a really warm welcome form Stella. Obviously most of the group know Stella from previous visits and they are happy to see each other again. We all sit down at the table and Stella asks us what we would like to drink. As a cold beer is on offer it would be rude to refuse. I sit next to Kenneth who I learn is sister Moreen’s husband. He is good company and we are soon joined by Dr Denise who was previously a physician at Kisiizi but left earlier this year when her husband Dr Tonni, who was the Medical Superintendant at Kisiizi for several years, moved to a new job. We had been sat down for probably only about five minutes when suddenly the whole house started shaking and there was a thunderous sound as if there were a high speed train speeding past in the back garden. We all look at each other wondering what has happened. “It’s just an earthquake” Stella says very matter-of-factly. It would appear that this is not that uncommon an experience. We have a delicious meal of pork, potatoes, matoke (but served in their skins), vegetables and chapattis, followed by pineapple crumble and custard – she knows it is a favourite of the Chester team! We have a really interesting evening and at about 9pm Richard arrives to have a meal; he doesn’t join us but eats with other guests staying at the guest house. At 10pm as we are getting ready to leave, he offers to drive us back to the hospital. It is a welcome offer as it is a reasonably long walk back so we all pile into his vehicle – not the luxurious nine seater that we had for the trip to Queen Elizabeth Park at the weekend - but the seven seater with the sunroof that he originally suggested for the trip. Thank goodness we paid the extra 600,000 shillings for the larger vehicle. The suspension seems to have gone as we are almost touching the floor and can feel every bump in the road as he drives over them. You would have to have been there to see the funny side of that trip home, and I won’t attempt to describe it on paper as it will be lost on you, but we were all literally crying with laughter as we got out and each made our way back to our individual houses. It had been a great night.