Wherever I go people say “Mzungu Hello!” or “Mzungu how are
you?!” or the best is the children who just scream and point… Now I know how
Roger the UPS guy feels.
As I’ve visited many villages I’ve noticed that one of the
biggest health problems is children with worms. I talked to my friend Dr. Jan
who told me the local clinics should be providing deworming medication for
free. I was confused and next asked my friend Dr. Dennis about the problem; he explained
that every child should be able to easily be dewormed unless their village is very
far from a clinic. I was still frustrated because neither response answered why
the children weren’t getting dewormed. So I went to the source- the local
government clinics. I discovered that many of the government clinics had the same
problem- they are only given a small number of deworming pills each year. These
pills hardly cover a fraction of each community’s children (not including the
nearby communities without government clinics). By working with two clinics
this week, I was able to organize a deworming outreach. I acquired enough
deworming pills for 500 children. And on this Wednesday- 500 children were
dewormed.
Picture of a teacher having his school kids line up to receive pills.
While we worked to provide deworming medication, the clinic
workers were busy giving vaccinations. About 20 children were immunized.
The next big project this week was to teach a community
about First Aid. We met with 30 teachers from 6 different schools (some
traveled for 2 hours or more to hear us teach) and taught
them what to do in emergency health situations. After teaching we answered
questions for at least an hour.
When questions were finished we took them
outside to practice basic bandaging techniques. Instead of teaching I got to
distract the children so they wouldn’t disturb the teachers. Luckily I had a
story book about how to stay clean and healthy- they loved it. The way they
acted you might think they’d never seen a story book before. Perhaps some never
have.
While I was teaching the younger kids about staying clean and
healthy, a teacher interrupted to ask if I could look at a couple of the
student’s cuts. Before I knew it, there was a line of children with serious
cuts asking for help. In the class to the adults I stressed the importance of
being prepared to help in any situation- thankfully I had packed my first aid
kit that morning and was able to clean an bandage dozens of wounds. Because
there were so many students with cuts, I was able to demonstrate to the
teachers how to clean the wounds with alcohol and bandage them to keep them
clean. Some of the cuts were NASTY and I had to use a lot of alcohol to clean
them; even though I knew it would be extremely painful, not a single kid cried.
I’m going back to the same school 3 more times (weekly) to
teach as much first aid as I can. There’s no reason any child should have such
serious infections. Some of the current treatments were Black Jack (a weed), gun cleaning oil (commonly used during circumcision rituals), or urine (for burns I think... but really I don't even know...). Hopefully I can teach them better/cleaner ways to help in emergency situations.
That's not the only teaching I did this week. My friend Matt James had the idea to introduce wash boards to the market here. (One lady insisted they were WashingWood not WashingBoards.) I think they're going to be a big hit! They've certainly made doing our laundry easier.
Check out this little Ugandan mzungu girl I found. She's one of a kind. (Usually Ugandans are quite dark)
All in all it's been a busy week, but things just keep getting better. I've made so many friends I'll never forget. Best of all are my primary children. Last week I asked them to draw pictures of what they were grateful for- several drew pictures of me. I'm grateful I'm here. I'm grateful for the amazing friends everywhere. And I'm grateful for angels God puts in my path. Right now I'm where I'm supposed to be.
Tomorrow I'm teaching the primary that with God's help they can do amazing things. And it's true- with God's help you can do anything. Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.
(Alma 26:12)
Portrait of me by Amos (age 4)
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