This morning I drove to kiwoko to meet a friend whom I mentor, but before I even left the front gate I picked up a passenger. (Not unusual) One of the aunties who works in the childcare department needed to go to Kiwoko to check on some of our children, so instead of her waiting for a motorbike ride we went together. On arrival she announced that she was visiting someone who lived directly next to where I needed to stop.
Shortly after greeting my friend at her place of business, a former staff member of New Hope Uganda arrived and we were all blessed to catch up on the news of his family.
I was unable to meet with my friend because she was very busy working alone due to a sick coworker. When she described how sick he was I got worried. We had recently lost someone in our community due to a sickness that sounded very similar to what she was describing. Just then a young man came to help her in the shop, but I asked if he could go with me to check on the coworker, whom she said was not wanting to go get medical care.
We arrived at the sick coworker's house, after making only one wrong turn and found his children playing outside and his wife cooking. When we asked about him she went inside to get him. As I waited, I didn’t know what to expect, but thankfully he looked better than had been described. He agreed to let us take him to our clinic where he received care very quickly and was soon ready to go back home.
I am soooo thankful we checked on him! We have lost too many people in our community over the years due to failure to receive medical care—for many reasons. Here is a smattering of scenarios—they don’t want to spend the money (often they don't have enough), they try the witch doctor first and never follow-up at a clinic, they fear hospitals, they lack money for transport, or the family tries to treat with local herbs.
Once he finished at the clinic I accompanied him back to his home with Sam driving. It has been awhile since Sam had a crack at driving, so I figured this to be a perfect opportunity. I am glad he practiced driving today because once back at our house he heard from his future employer that they need him to report to work this coming Monday!
Sam will be teaching primary school for the next few months until his laboratory technician course commences around late July or August. At lunch we all realized that with us leaving for the U.S. in June we will not have Sam in our house anymore starting Monday except for the occasional visit! I am excited for him, but the changes produce deep emotions for all of us!
This afternoon he played a local game with our neighbor, Mercy. 
I will miss the days when they are all around the house!
1 comment:
Good morning, how are you?
My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago, I started a collection of Postcards addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 postcard from each country and territory in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a postcard by traditional mail from Uganda? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a postcard from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Uganda in order to complete my collection. a postcard for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that country with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of mail from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
I invite you to visit my blog www.postalesenmibuzon.blogspot.com, there you can see the pictures of all the postcards that I have received from all the corners of our planet.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez
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