September 12 - Our new home

In October, we will be living in a compound in a concrete duplex with the kitchen walls shared. It has 3 10X10 bedrooms so we have room for company but you may have to bring your own mattress for the floor. It is being painted a light yellow throughout and I hope to decorate when I get there in October. Before that there will be improvements like new window with bars and screens. Perhaps a study area built in too. The kitchen has running water but the hot water heater is older then me and was broken during the war. Not sure which war since there have been a few in this area. The nursing school handy man is doing the work for us and seems very helpful. In Uganda people are very polite and seem very accommodating but there is a statement “Keep time” which means they keep there own time and it is not European or American. So, they do what they want, when they want, and may not do it at all. The average meeting is scheduled for 10 and people may not come until 2 and it is expected. But if you are serving snacks Ugandans tend to keep US time. So, I am sitting in the Principals office for my orientation with the accountant @ 8, and it is 9 and he has not come. I am to meet the director of the hospital this AM and he leaves at 10, I am told, so I may not see him today. I have to remind myself that I am in Africa and it is different.

Sanitation has a whole new meaning. The hospital works by the standard of, if you are sick, someone helps you to the hospital and brings blankets, buckets, dishes, as they are the primary care giver and the nurses that work do just patient medical care. IV, blood, meds. The care giver does the activities of daily living and some of those activities are sketchy. If you have dysentery and only one blanket and it has to be washed your care giver has to find something else for you to cover with while she goes out to do the laundry and hang it on the fence to dry. Guess how long it takes a blanket to dry in the rainy season. That anyone gets better is amazing to me. There is a outdoor kitchen area which means caregivers share the charcoal fires to cook the food for themselves and for the sick. The dishes have to be washed in cold water and dry in the sun. But you have to be careful where you put them so someone else doesn't steal them. The Africa system is taking a little to get use to. I won't start my job for another month and ½. So I will have time to get use to it maybe another term is “somehow somehow” meaning it probably won't happen. We are going to buy a modem today and should be able to communicate better once this is in hand. I am reading all of your emails and thank you but cannot respond until I get a modem. So I will try skype as soon as I figure out what plan is the best for data... Help John! 9:16 and the interview committee for nurses has convened so I close to write more later.