Africa Adventure: Soccer games, overcrowded taxis, and physical therapy!!

Oliotiya friends and family!
This passed week has been awesome. On Saturday we went to a soccer game at the Nelson Mendela stadium and watched Uganda play Kenya in a tournament qualifying game. It was so awesome. I've been working a lot at the hospital shadowing the physical therapist that works there. On Friday she let us get our hands dirty and massage some patients and do exercises with them. I worked on a 6 year old boy who had a dropped foot because of and injection of malaria treatment into his sciatic nerve. I've found that this is a common problem here. The people giving the injections don't have any clue about human anatomy in order for them to inject into the muscles safely. I also got to watch a nurse put a shoulder back into its socket. An 18 year old boy dislocated his shoulder by getting kicked by a cow. I had to squeeze his arm and act like a tourniquet while the nurse injected numbing medication. As she was forcefully trying to push it back in, I almost fainted for some reason. haha. Totally not like me, but I think watching his pain made me queezy or something. She couldn't get it in so we he had to wait till the next day for the general anestesiologist to come. We showed up the next day and the doctor knocked him out. Totally wasn't expecting that. When I saw his eyes roll back behind his head I thought he was dead. They got it back in just fine! Yesterday was absolutely amazing. I went out to a rural village with a trusted business partner and a friend in my team, to do physical therapy at a clinic. The doctors had planned our visit and had made 5 apointments for people with back pain to come in. However, those 5 patients grew to about 15 in a short amount of time. In 5 hours we treated 12 patients. We started with massage and then showed them about 3 exercises, then we showed them how to properly sit up and how to sleep properly with back problems. Oh did I mention that none of these women spoke english? Let me just say that charades is much harder when you're trying to tell these people to contract their stomach muscles... It worked out great though. Every patient left happy and feeling relieved of most of their pain by the end of their treatment. We've sheduled everyone to come back on Fridays. The doctors said that there will be almost twice as many patients the next time, because they'll tell all their friends and family. We'll see how that goes!! I forgot to mention the ride to the village. I'll make it brief, but I would like to add that these taxi's have a 14 person limit to them and we were crammed with 22 people and a chicken. Oh Africa.... Today I'm am going with a few of our volunteers to the University to conduct AIDS testing. Don't worry, we aren't allowed to use any needles. We just inform them how to prevent the disease an we also deliver their test results. We'll see how that goes. It's such a blessing to finally feel like I'm serving the people of Uganda.

A few questions for those in the states:
Heidi. Ummm are you joking? please say yes. I need to know. I kinda feel sick to my stomach. But if your happy I'm happy. I guess.... email me.
Emily. I'm just confused by that whole thing... by the way is collin a dating nancy yet?
MSers. Ana Thank you for the skirts!! They have been great. I miss you all! Hey April, would you please give me Jeremy's email?

Africa Adventure: Second Week in Uganda

Oliotya!
This country is more beautiful than I ever thought. I've gotten to see more of the city we live in and all of the greenery that exists around it. I wish I could upload some pictures, but maybe next time. Last saturday was our first day off, so we took a trip to a nearby city called Jinja. We went souvenir shopping most of the day and ate some lunch. Most of us got the cheese burger and it was to die for!! I did not think i would be missing american food this much! i think it's because we eat the same thing every day; matoke, rice and beans, egg plant, and cabage. By the way, peanut butter is so expensive outside pf the states. For a small jar it costs 8,500 shillings which converts to $4.50. Anyway, we went swimming on saturday and had a blast. It was so refreshing. On sunday I gave a lesson in young women's about righteous traditions. it was really interesting to learn that they have a lot of the same traditions as us; such as eating together as a family and really valuing family time. however, i learned that we have so many more traditions compared to them, mostly because their lives are so much more simple than ours. This week I've been meeting with business partners to try to get my physical therapy started. I met with a physical therapist in the hospital, so there's hope i can just work with her and help her out in her clinic. Yesterday me and 4 other volunteers traveled with the chairman of the district we live in, and visited some health centers that they just built within a few villages. he said i can go out to them and train the nurses in rehabilitation. Everything in Uganda runs so slow. Being here has been really trying my patience and my faith that i will be able to implent my physical therapy camps. hopefully by next week, i will start to feel more productive. oh another thing to add to my shamble of a house. Yesterday morning we woke up to our house flooded. Like i said before, the water shuts off quite frequently. Apparently someone had left the faucet in the kitchen turned on when they tried to use it. So in the middle of the night when the water turned back on, the sink overflowed onto the floor for a couple of hours. Just a regular speed bump to our living conditions. By the way, handwashing your clothes takes so very long. But I feel very accomplished ever time i finish a load. Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for keeping updated on my blog and i can't wait to hear what you guys have to say. Let me know what's going on in the states!

Africa Adventure: First week in Africa

Oliotiya friends and Family!

Holy cow! I’ve been in Africa for 6 days now and I can’t believe how much has happened thus far. First off, it was quite an adventure actually getting to Africa. I was supposed to arrive in country on Friday, but I ended up getting there on Saturday. To make a long story short I waited a long long time in the London airport just for them to tell me one of the engines on my plane wasn’t working. So by 4:00 in the morning (my flight was supposed to leave at 9 that night) they fed us and put us up in a hotel nearby. When I finally got to Africa, it was like a dream. I had to keep reminding myself that I was really in Africa!! Uganda is very green, humid, and hot. There aren’t any animals roaming around other than chickens and cows. Unfortunately the people don’t shower very often so you can figure what it smells like here. There are little African children everywhere and they absolutely love us. Everyone here call us Mzungus, which means white person. When we walk down the street, the children will yell and point “Mzungu Mzungu!” and run over and latch onto our arms. The first week has been quite difficult in the sense that our living conditions have not been very ideal. Our house wasn’t even close to being finished when we arrived. It wasn’t furnished and none of the appliances worked. Slowly but surely, we got a table, chairs for all 15 of us, running water, and lights to see at night. Every month apparently, the water shuts off for 3 days here. Yep, it was definitely this week. We weren’t able to flush the toilets for a couple of days and if we were lucky we could take a bucket shower. We just got a refrigerator last night, so I’m really excited about that! No more flies! Our cook is really good. The staples are rice, beans, and matoke, Matoke consists of mashed plantains. I’ve enjoyed all the food that has been prepared thus far. I will admit that I’m not a fan of the grasshoppers though…. Church on Sunday was such a blessing. It’s definitely something \i need to have consistency in my life. The church is run exactly the same everytwhere you go; even in Africa. I went to the young women’s class and participated in their lesson about family history. I’m giving a lesson about traditions this coming Sunday. We’ve gone out to neighboring villages to build two adobe stoves so far. The stoves are such a blessing to these people. They go from cooking beans in 3 hours to cooking beans in 30 minutes! Yesterday we visited the hospital. I was surprised to find that they’re pretty organized, but it was extremely dirty. Next week I’m going to start shadowing some surgeries and help during labor and delivery in the maternity ward. My physical therapy project is still in the planning process, but I hope to start that next week as well. I don’t know how often I can add pictures due to viruses on the computers, but I will try! Please comment on my posts if you want me to answer questions!

To my MSers I miss you and I love you and I hope everyone is doing well!!

Until next time my murungos.

Pre-Africa Adventure: Just a regular day in pardise. aka Huntington Beach, CA

My best friend Heidi and I were reunited once again after 4 long months. She was in New Zealand studying abroad and I was stuck in Utah freezing my behind off. The beach was absolutely wonderful. I have the best of both worlds at my finger tips. In Utah, I have the beautiful mountains in my backyard, and in Huntington I have the most beautiful beaches right next door.
I've been home in California for the past 11 days now, but I must say I am very excited to be leaving for Uganda tomorrow. I think I got a little bored waiting in this limbo before I take off for Africa. A few days ago I was getting quite nervous about my trip, but as of now, I have this feeling of excitement running through my body. I just can't wait to get back into a work schedule with things to do and plan. Well I'm off to Africa. Be back in August...