Saturday, June 14, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
The Weekend
On Thursday, Nadia and I mainly worked in the pharmacy on Thursday. It is a therapy clinic day, so clients are coming in to get their antiretrovirals. Each client has to get enough for 4 weeks, so we did a lot of counting out sets of 28 or 56 pills into containers, and labeling them with how often they should be taken. It was really eye-opening in terms of health care here- people were just counting these pills by hand, I’m sure that some counting mistakes are made, leaving some people with not enough pills for the allotted time. It seemed to us like people should be given a couple of extra pills, or at the very least everyone should have been wearing gloves. Similarly, in the afternoon, we were entering the ID numbers of patients who had picked up their medication into their computer program, and then the computer froze, so some of the data that was entered was lost. We weren’t able to re-enter it later because the power was flickering and it just would have been lost again. It’s frustrating to see these limitations that wouldn’t happen in the US.
On Friday, we finally started our projects at TASO. I’m going to be working on their sustainable livelihood project. This project aims to help clients on antiretrovirals return to their normal lives in ways including employment, food security, their domestic situation, etc. In the past, the program at the Jinja center has focused mainly on clients with children. I’m going to be researching past progress reports on the system, interviewing clients who have gone through the program, talking to local business partners who help with the program, and looking into a similar, successful program in Bangladesh to try to develop a series of guidelines for a program that can be used at all of the centers. It’s a little overwhelming, but I have some great resources in Simon and Sebastian, so I think that they will be able to help me get started.
On Saturday, Nadia and I went to the source of the Nile with Sebastian. It is just down the street from our hotel, we were able to walk right through the golf course. On the way in, we saw monkeys! Later, on the boat, we saw a tree with lots of monkeys climbing in it.
The source is the point at which Lake Victoria turns into the Nile River. From there, it takes 90 days for the water to reach the end of the river in Egypt. You can actually see where it changes, but you have to take a boat out to it.
On Sunday, we went out to lunch at another local hotel with a few members of a group of American military men staying at our hotel. They are working with the Ugandan army, and have helped introduce us to the area.
Later on, we walked down to the town by ourselves so that I could use the ATM. We’re finally getting used to walking around by ourselves, although it’s still an adventure. Everyone that see’s us yells out “Mzungo”, we are always having close encounters with motorbikes, and there are chickens, goats, and cows wandering around on the sidewalks. When we went into town on Saturday we got pretty lost, but we’re beginning to know our way around Jinja.
On Friday, we finally started our projects at TASO. I’m going to be working on their sustainable livelihood project. This project aims to help clients on antiretrovirals return to their normal lives in ways including employment, food security, their domestic situation, etc. In the past, the program at the Jinja center has focused mainly on clients with children. I’m going to be researching past progress reports on the system, interviewing clients who have gone through the program, talking to local business partners who help with the program, and looking into a similar, successful program in Bangladesh to try to develop a series of guidelines for a program that can be used at all of the centers. It’s a little overwhelming, but I have some great resources in Simon and Sebastian, so I think that they will be able to help me get started.
On Saturday, Nadia and I went to the source of the Nile with Sebastian. It is just down the street from our hotel, we were able to walk right through the golf course. On the way in, we saw monkeys! Later, on the boat, we saw a tree with lots of monkeys climbing in it.
The source is the point at which Lake Victoria turns into the Nile River. From there, it takes 90 days for the water to reach the end of the river in Egypt. You can actually see where it changes, but you have to take a boat out to it.
On Sunday, we went out to lunch at another local hotel with a few members of a group of American military men staying at our hotel. They are working with the Ugandan army, and have helped introduce us to the area.
Later on, we walked down to the town by ourselves so that I could use the ATM. We’re finally getting used to walking around by ourselves, although it’s still an adventure. Everyone that see’s us yells out “Mzungo”, we are always having close encounters with motorbikes, and there are chickens, goats, and cows wandering around on the sidewalks. When we went into town on Saturday we got pretty lost, but we’re beginning to know our way around Jinja.
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