Okay, so it's been about two weeks since I last updated this and while in normal life not very much happens in two weeks, this past two weeks there has been quite a lot of very new stuff going on!
The rest of the "EDGE girls" (our nickname on the island) came on the night of Monday July 13th. Marissa, Kelsi and I had planned out a full day for them in Kampala on Tuesday. We split up into small groups and the three of us lead little tours around the city, then we ate traditional food for lunch, and then went to Kamokwya to visit Brandon - the artist that I met who I bought stuff from who also invited me to his workshop to learn how to make things. It was so exciting for everyone because his art is really cool and the girls were really excited to buy stuff, and it was SO exciting for him because his shop is in this horrible location in the slums of Kampala where tourists never go, so I don't think he gets very much buisness. Between the 11 of us we pretty much bought out his whole shop, and then put in an order for a bunch of stuff to take back to the US and sell there. It was also cool for everyone because usually when you go to craft markets everything is shipped from all different parts of East Africa so you don't really know where the stuff came from or who made it or where the profits go, but in this case everyone got to meet the artist, talk to him, and then directly support his work. It was really neat.
The next day we took a bus to Jinja and then a very crowded boat to Lingira Island. The island is really, really beautiful. There are areas that are forested, and there's this huge hill that you can walk up and get a view of the whole island and some of the other neighboring islands. It is divided into three main camps which are very condensed areas where people live in small huts made out of termite wood and thatched straw roofs. It's amazing to just sit in the camps and look around because there is so much going on around you. Little kids running around, goats and chickens wandering around looking for food, women cooking, men sitting around playing some sort of game, women roasting maize to sell, etc. We aren't staying in any of the camps but in a seperate area where Shepherad's Heart has built a small guesthouse, a very small and modest house for the American couple that started and runs the organization, a small area for the SHIM staff, a cooking area, an outdoor dish washing station, pit latrines, and enclosed spaces for bucket showers. There is also a secondary school on the island that Shepherad's Heart started and a government run primary school. A different organization called YWAM (Youth with a Mission) runs the only clinic on the island and they also have a small area for their staff and volunteers. I've heard different estimates, but I think the island has about 3,000 people.
We have several different projects going on right now and it would take a while to explain each of them, so I'll just focus on what I've been working on. The original plan was to focus on nutrition for women and children - specifically run an exclusive breastfeeding campaign because a lot of women stop breastfeeding too early, or feed their children other things like soda and posho at a very young age and there's a lot of malnutrition. On our second night on the island we hosted a little get together party for community leaders and I talked to some of the midwives about breastfeeding practices and started to realize that women may run out of milk early because they are not spacing their children and they get pregnant again too soon. Immediately after this conversation I talked to the headmaster of the secondary school and as soon as he heard that I was in nursing school he started talking about how badly the island needs family planning. This was reiterated by several other people.
The next day the whole group went to visit the YWAM clinic and meet Cornelius, the nurse that runs it, and Sarah, the midwife/social worker. To our surprise we saw that they have condoms and the depovera shot there! I talked to them about it and they said how desperately they needed more education about the methods and also about the importance of birth spacing and family planning in general, so I met with them the next day and we started to lay down a plan. We started by writing invitation leaders to community leaders - the midwives, the 2 government representatives, the headmaster, two teachers, the YWAM staff - inviting them to come to a community discussion on family planning. That meeting was on Saturday and I was so nervous about it I didn't know what to do with myself but it went SO WELL!!! Before hand we met with Cornelius, Sarah, and Tony (a Ugandan YWAM volunteer) to plan it but I still had no idea what to expect. It was awesome though because they really ran the whole meeting. The EDGE girls there were me, Michelle, and Isha, and each of us had a small role but most of the meeting was really a community discussion. The most exciting part was how it ended - there is now a family planning committee on the island!! I can't believe it, it's so exciting.
The whole comittee is meeting again on Thursday for a training on the different methods and to then discuss next steps. Before that I have to meet with Cornelius and Sarah again to make sure that they feel comfortable teaching that training. The problem is that there is no one around to make sure that I feel comfortable teaching them!! haha. I went to Jinja last week to make a bunch of photocopies and print outs of family planning material and put it together in a booklet, so I have the information, it's just that I've never done anything like this before and I'm really just pretending that I know what I'm doing. So far it's working out but it is still pretty nerve racking.
Another highlight from my time on the island was going with the YWAM staff and two American midwives who are here volunteering for one month to do village health visits. Three times a week they take a boat to different island villages around Lingira because they are the only clinic in the area. They go to about 15 different villages and are able to see each village about once a month. It was really interesting to see how it worked. We went to two different islands on the day that I went with them. When we got there we got some benches and set them up under a tree and then waited for people to come. Women came with their babies to get them weighed and to get polio vaccines for them, and then pregnant women came for prenatal checkups. Before starting anything, Sarah does a small educational teaching on a different topic each month. She had Isha and I help lead an exclusive breastfeeding teaching when we were there. Then everyone gets their shots, and the pregnant women take turns going into a little hut where they have their checkups. I was able to go with them and it was really cool to see. The American midwives were really great and they explained everything that they were doing.
I am in Jinja now to use the internet. We really can't use it on the island even though we bought a modem. It is just unbearably slow - it takes about 10 minutes just to load one page. Yesterday we went white water rafting which was so, so much fun!! It was a really good break for everyone.
So that's basically what's going on with me! We have another week on the island ahead of us and then we are going to the AGOA conference in Nairobi for about four days and then coming back to the island for one more week. I come home August 15th, so I'm starting to mentally prepare for that. I am excited to see everyone! I hope you are doing well :)
love, shelly
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