Frustration and Funnies

I didn't blog two nights ago because I was in a bad mood and knew that it would be a completely negative post.  This yesterday morning I woke up to a txt that made me smile, cleaned my living room, and ate a decent breakfast.  The frustrations of the past few days are still here, but now I think I can supplement them with some funny stories.

I returned home from 9 days of training and 2 days white water rafting to find a colony of ants had eaten through the aluminum wrapping and completely devoured a triangle of Nouvelle Vache (laughing cow) Cheese.  While impressed with the sheer magnitude of the accomplishment I am slightly annoyed as cheese is a luxury I don't particularly like throwing away.  That's a bitanno down the drain, 500 shillings, about 25 cents.


Within 12 hours of returning home I was summoned to Masaka for a consolidation drill, missing my organizations monthly staff meeting because of it.  It was actually a nice experience.  Nice hotel, per diem, and an opportunity to eat at the Frickadellen Cafe (a danish cafe down the street from the hotel).  We also took a field trip during the day and I met a volunteer working with Interlocking Stabilized Soil Brick technologies (ISSB).

The next day I stopped by the office, on the way back to my site, and caught up with my organization.  There will be some visitors from our funding agency next week so they were busy preparing for some field work.  I volunteered to help them archive the findings of their surveys to help them prepare for the visit.  We decided I would spend Thursday at site and Friday in the office.

During In Service Training (IST), a fellow volunteer mentioned that her hospital has HIV Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), that never gets used.  Gave me an idea of a program I could easily implement and track.  An HIV sensitization effort that focused on promoting the use of PEP after risk of exposure.  What made the idea so appealing is how easy it would be track.  Increased use in hospitals could easily be demonstrated.  Thursday I set out on a 4 mile walk to Lwengo, the district headquarters to investigate if they had PEP at the district hospital and also to try to get contact info for our area's bore hole repair technician.

When I arrived at the hospital it was a ghost town.  Unlocked, drugs sitting out, nobody in site.  It was about 3 in the afternoon so I guess lunch break was still on.  (2-3 is the traditional lunch hour here)  A few women were in the waiting area but none spoke English.  I walked over to the district office to try to get somewhere with the bore hole problem.

At the district office I was told the district engineer works in a different town.  I was also told by the LC3 chairman that he was not aware his LC3 Sub-County was supposed to have two bore hole technicians trained.

I headed back to the hospital and waited out anybody who decided to actually come back to work from their lunch break. (not everyone does)  Two women did return who spoke English and were able to help me.  What they told me was very disappointing.  Not only do they not have PEP, they never have PEP, they are out of HIV testing kits, their HIV clinic is only open on Wednesdays. They are a Level 4 Health Center, the second highest level operating in the country.  Only a handful of Level 5 Centers surpass them in funding and supposedly available services.  PEP must be administered within 72 hours of exposure, if this is completed PEP can prevent the exposed from contracting HIV.   The only hospital in the area that has PEP is Masaka. More than 40 kilometers from Lwengo.  In America this is no great distance, but here it means hours of travel each way, and several days wages.  I don't have to ask, I already know that many are electing not to make the trip even after a high risk exposure.  There is a mindset here that matters of life and death are in God's hands and that His will shall be done regardless of human action/inaction.

I headed back to my village having gone 0 for 2.  I did learn something though, and that is more than is accomplished many days.  It's a hollow victory.

The next day was my day to be in the Masaka office.  I left my home at 7 AM, walked 45 minutes to the road, it took over an hour to hail a ride to Masaka and then I had to walk the last 2-3 k.  A little after 9 I got in.  A woman walked me through the results of yesterday's surveys in the field.  She grouped the sheets in pairs she felt were significant, walking me through some key points, obviously not understanding the point of database management is to capture objective trends and relationships.  Most disappointing were the two forms she brought over filled out by twins.  Neither form had any siblings listed in the appropriate field.  I asked why... she replied, "there are no others in the house."  My repeated cries that they had each other fell on deaf ears.  The woman cannot understand that the database does not know they are twins.  In the construction industry we had a saying, "What if you get hit by a beer truck?"  Nobody should be the sole keeper of information!!!

Also in the office that day was the author of a business plan I had reviewed in my first week with my organization.  It had taken me 5 minutes of reading it to suspect it was a complete fabrication, and 5 hours to know beyond doubt that it wasn't just fallacious, it was fraud.   He represents everything I hate about Africa.  He is wearing a suit, he was educated in Kampala, he is writing a proposal to try to get more money for my organization from America.  What is he writing in his proposal?  He doesn't seem to be working with any real materials, I don't think he has access to any historical data, especially since I seem to be the only one in the office that knows a thing about data management.  Is his entire proposal a jumble of buzz words and his own imagination?  How many times does it say 'capacity building' or 'sustainability?'  Did he write the proposal that allowed my organization to receive a Peace Corps Volunteer?

I've now written this section several times, and it is progressively getting softer.  It has gone from inappropriately angry, to angry, to uncaring, and now is at a level I'm comfortable publishing.  Things continue to be frustrating.  My organization does good things, but they also are seeking to grow and obtain funding, and I don't trust that. Their records are disorganized, they don't know where they are or where they are going, their 5 year plan is a pipe dream to impress funders.  They can't feed the students at their school, they had to close down a week early last term because of it, and yet they continue to seek to grow.  How do they grow?  In my experience, they lie.  And my being here is helping to make their lies more believable.

The key to Peace Corps service: Celebrate the small victories.  I learned something this week.  That is a start.

Okay... Fun Thoughts:

The flies outside my home appear to have been scared off by the rainwater tank that was just installed.

I think I gained 5 lbs in training.  Buffets 3 times a day, with usually at least one American style dish.

Becca had Shipyard's Pumpkin Ale sent in a care package and shared it with everyone.  I almost cried.

I showed up in training having not shaved in over 2 months.  Saturday I sported the Chester A. Arthur look and then briefly had a mustache before clean shaving.

My team came in second on trivia night.  Favorite question:  What schools make up the Big 10?  We got all 12... (Nebraska is currently entering)  Least favorite question:  What were the names of the original characters from 90210.  We only missed Andrea but even when we got one right we weren't particularly proud of it.  I wasn't proud at all to remember the big blonde fro guy was Steve.

Recently some of the girls in our group participated in a camp called Girls Leader Our World, or Camp GLOW.  They are trying to implement a camp for boys next year... Acronym TBD.

While I was entering data from surveys we conducted in the community one of our workers had written down that a child's birthdate was 27.  Great.

Another common response on the surveys: Most common disease experienced in home: "Headache"

A couple people had rough nights before white water rafting.  As we boarded the shuttle in the morning one person suggested to Cormack that he take the window seat just in case he felt sick, his reply: "On the boat?"