Since my last post, there has been nothing quite so harrowing to deal with and there has been a distinct lull in the number of babies being born. Although having said that, when I turned up at the clinic last Friday I walked into labour sweet and pretty much straight away delivered a baby. There was another woman in labour on the second labour bed and then someone else walked in, about to deliver. So she laid down her cloth on the floor and delivered her baby lying on the floor in the cleaners room. Almost simultaneously the other lady delivered her baby so we had a mad rush of babies with 3 in the space of half an hour. We then only had one more for the rest of the day which was an emergency c-section due to prolonged labour! She later had a pph (major bleeding) which we were left to deal with because there was a whole staff meeting so there was no one else about apart from us - T.I.A!
On Saturday morning Sofia and I visited the place where Olive (my Ugandan mum) works which is an education day care project for underprivileged children funded by the Christian charity 'compassion international', so it was great to see the work that big charities like that actually do in these countries. Spent the afternoon wandering around Hoima town taking in all the lovely sights and not so lovely smells buying assorted groceries and beautiful patterned fabric. Sat by the pool for a bit and then watched our dinner be cooked in front of us on the street - we had delicious goat kebabs and chips! The first bit of meat I have eaten in a long time because I trusted it being properly cooked to my liking ;)
Sunday was meant to be spent by the pool, basking in the sunshine...however as we arrived the heavens opened and then stayed open for 2 hours. When it subsided we wandered to the mustard seed orphanage to entertain and be entertained by the kids there. For some reason we still give them sweets when we arrive and then let them clamber all over us and play with our hair making us come away feeling disgustingly dirty and sticky but its always good fun - they are all very endearing!
Monday was a very strange day at the clinic as there were no babies delivered, which is very rare. I took advantage of the lack of patients to give the beds a good scrub (who knows when that last happened) and clean the floor which was covered in old food, resulting in millions of ants, copious amount of red dust and a dirty cannula needle!
Yesterday we went and ran another outreach antenatal clinic in rural Runga down by lake Albert. It is breathtakingly beautiful down there and also ridiculously hot. The kids were fascinated by us again and at one point I was sat down and they all surrounded me, I gave one girl a high five and they all followed her courage and my hands were overwhelmed with high fives from all directions! We saw 52 pregnant women in one day, some of whom were pregnant with their ninth child and only 30. The one that shocked me most was a girl the same age as me, 18, who was expecting her 3rd child!!? Imagine me with 2 children already... It doesn't really bare thinking about!!
Went out for dinner last night with Esau and olive to the curry house which was delicious. I am very proud of myself with my adventurousness with food out here and the amount of things I eat that I would never eat at home. I drink coffee with no sugar or no milk, I drink tea with no milk, I eat pumpkin (whilst you guys are cutting faces out of them, they are a regular food out here), and mushrooms and a hella lotta beans!
It is now coming to the end of the rainy season so it is getting hotter and hotter and there is even more dust around, even though I didn't think that was possible. It amazes me that the nurses manage to keep their white uniform white, everything I own has a slightly orange tinge now!
Sending lots of love home and hope everyone is enjoying half term xxxx
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