Heart Surgery

When the first Mission Doctors opened the hospital at Kisiizi they made God the centre of the work. The existing old flax mill building was split into 3, with a ward on either side of the central chapel.

 

Services are announced, not by the peel of church bells but by the sound of African drums.

 

 

Faith remains central to the work here. Every weekday there is a morning service in the chapel, attended not only by hospital staff and students but also some of those patients who are mobile.

 

 

Sunday services is led by one of the hospital chaplains. As part of the Anglican church of Uganda many parts of the service are familiar.

 

Each morning a short message is shared by a member of staff. Ann is a Church Mission Society Mission Partner who has worked at the hospital for many years. In addition to taking her turn to speak at morning chapel she also leads a weekly bible study for staff.

Voting with their feet

Uganda has recently introduced a way to cut the cost of local  elections that might save money in the UK.

The opening of thousands of voting stations, employing staff and printing ballot papers is expensive. About 9 years ago Uganda introduced a much cheaper method, but just for electing the local town council.


At 11 am the candidates for chairing the Council arrive on a piece of land and the electors turn up. Each elector stands in front of the person they want to vote for. They have an hour to decide. At 12 noon the person with the most supporters is elected chair of the Council.

He, or she, then chooses from their supporters the other Council members.

 

All done in just over an hour. No delay in counting unnecessary secret ballots etc.

 
The bad news is that most people Malcolm spoke to didn't intend to vote. If they were seen to vote for the wrong person, who lost, the successful chair person might hold a grudge. The Local Council Chairman does hold a lot of power in the community,

The good news is that everybody gets a Public Holiday in order to be able to go and vote.

In Kisiizi the current chairman was unopposed so he got straight on to choosing his Councillors.

He then paraded through the village to celebrate his victory.

 

This week Malcolm left the hospital site for the first time. He needed to go the the nearest town, Kabale, to help pay money into the banks to pay staff their mid-month salaries.

 

It was also an opportunity for the Guest House Manager to purchase stock to cook meals for guests.

 

When he returned Malcolm discovered a visitor had walked to the front of his house, also looking for food.

Despair to Hope - Darkness to Light

The grounds of Kisiizi Hospital includes a traditional site which is not only a popular tourist destination, but also symbolises the work of the Hospital; Kisiizi Falls.

 

For the local tribe, the Bakiga, it is traditionally great shame when an unmarried woman gets pregnant. Up to 100 years ago this resulted in the woman’s family pushing the woman to her death from the top of the Falls. The task was given to her oldest brother because he was the one to suffer financially. On marriage the eldest son benefitted from the ‘bride-price’ paid by the groom to the woman’s family – having a child severely diminished the woman’s value on marriage.

 

The United Nations Tourism Development Fund paid a local craftsman to construct from concrete a memorial which highlights the despair caused by this practice, (which ended in 1921, in part it is rumoured because one woman pulled her brother over the falls with her).

 

In agreeing to the memorial the hospital wanted to contrast the despair of the tradition with the hope the Hospital brought to the area. Rather than the Falls bringing death to mothers and their child, it brings hope.

 

It is possible to climb to the top of the Falls to get a view of the Hospital grounds

 

Bringing some light to the situation

 

Normally Kisiizi Hospital has a very reliable source of electricity. One of the reasons the site was chosen for the Hospital sixty years ago was that it was formerly a flax mill with its own hydro electric scheme. This has been upgraded over the years and it normally provides power not only for the hospital but also for many houses in the district. The source of this power is a small river which feeds a waterfall in the hospital grounds, but also has enough ‘head’ to drive a water turbine.

 

And then, in March, the Hospital was flooded under 3 feet of water.  It was thought the turbine was not damaged, but just before Malcolm arrived the alternator burnt out, probably because the flood water damaged the insulation.

 

 

A hospital cannot operate without power. Fortunately there is a small standby turbine big enough to power the hospital but not for the staff houses and other customers.

Cost of new alternator - £30,000. Delivery time from Germany ?????

 

Fortunately, by necessity, East Africans are skilled at mending all sorts of items and a team of ‘fundis’ from Rwanda have come to rewind the alternator – a job that can take up to 3 weeks and needs over 350 lbs of copper wire.

 

 

 

In the meantime, since it gets dark by 7pm, it is usually an early night for all.

Not one for early nights Malcolm has invested in a small solar panel and battery to provide some light at night.

 

What a bright spark!

 

PS Some people think Malcolm looks better in the dark.

Malcolm's Get Away

This week Malcolm went on a visit to South West Uganda. For the first part of the trip he had a lift with Richard. He is the country manager of one of the hospital’s major funders. Enroute we visited another ISIS project – a home for former street children whose education and care ISIS have funded.

 Malcolm’s first visit was to Kisiizi Hospital to complete the audit of the Power Company. There is no mains electricity to the area so the Hospital has to generate its own. It sells its surplus to the local community which helps keep the running costs low. Apparently it is the most reliable electricity supply in Uganda – which is not saying a lot.

 

At the end of the audit George, the Manager who visits from the UK during the winter months, gave a tour of the power house

And then onto Kisoro to audit the accounts of Potter’s Village. We first arrived in Kisoro in late 2010 and even in that short time there have been many changes as the town as expanded.

 On Friday Malcolm returned to Kiwoko. The total journey took about 16 hours door to door. Time for a rest, me thinks

 

The ‘bug of he week’, spotted on George’s house, was a large beetle.  Even though it had lost a leg it was still able to climb up the wall. Tough these African bugs!

 

 This weeks Proverb from the BBC Africa web-site is from Kenya, and was particularly helpful to Malcolm in keeping him going in the past week: "He who starts on a long journey does not put a banana to roast under the ashes”

 

Stop me and............................

It’s a long and windy road – from Kisiizi and Kiwoko.

Malcolm returned from Kisiizi Hospital by the ‘Kanungu Express’. He had checked the departure time the day before with the driver and so turned up at the bus stop at 5.50 am. The bus arrived at 7.40 am (the driver had forgotten the bus is later on Sundays) and started the 10 ½ journey to Kampala (with no official comfort breaks). In part it was that long as half way there was a hissing sound from the rear tyre and the bus had to stop to repair a puncture.

During this break, when the boot was unloaded to get to the spare tyre, Malcolm saw that 2 of his fellow passengers were a live chicken, and a duck packed in a sack with just its head showing. He assumed this is the best way to carry fresh food safely to Kampala.

 

Always with an eye for business an ice-cream salesman arrived on his motor bike. You know when one is coming as they sound similar music to ice-cream vans in Britain – only there is no limit to how long the music is played.

 

A few days later in Kiwoko Malcolm came across a group of children eagerly waiting by another salesmen for their strawberry ice-cream cones.

Irene was also stopped when she was walking by 2 girls who were pleased to pose to have their photo taken.

This week’s proverb from the BBC Africa web-site is from Kenya  “A frog's large eyes will not stop a cow from drinking water”