Day of Thanks

Yet again I am celebrating another American Holiday while living abroad. Before you start feeling sorry for me, let me inform you that my Ugandan American Thanksgiving was quite wonderful! The expats on campus got together to celebrate in the evening (after a normal Ugandan workday) with most of us contributing either food or money for the feast. My contributions were stuffing (60 servings worth) and dessert (3 pans of pumpkin gooey cake). Since stuffing and dessert happen to be two of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving meal, I was pretty excited to make them. I have to say, I kind of rocked the stuffing  J, we even found some celery to put in it (a surprisingly hard vegetable to find in Uganda). 

The dessert tasted fine, but for one reason or another each pan looked completely different from the others (see below). But, Uganda makes you flexible, so I just had to laugh it off and remember that my dessert was among a table full of others. 

Besides the food, the Thanksgiving meal brought together good company. It is always interesting to hear what everyone is doing in Uganda and what brought them here in the first place. Plus, it’s wonderful to be surrounded by a community of believers. The celebration also made me really thankful for my time in Uganda. I am amazed at all God has done in me and through me during my stay. Especially encouraging was seeing my students do so well during their practical physical assessment performance exams this past week. I could see that they had been practicing hard and that they really had been listening all semester long (which I was not always confident in)! Teaching these eager students has be a humbling job these past two semester. I find it difficult to believe that in two weeks this experience will all be over and I worry that when I get home it will feel like this reality was only a dream. Whatever time brings, though, I will always be thankful for the reality of living out a God-given dream: to teach and impact the lives of Ugandan nursing students.

                             Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving from Uganda!

Unspecified challenges in clinical

Clinical in Uganda has met me, and my students, with some challenges. Though I am the teacher, I am also a constant learner, particularly at the clinical site. Students, 22 in all, are split between 4 wards (as a comparison, in the US I would normally only have 8 students). I rotate between all these wards trying to understand the layers of culture and clinical practice clinging to every surface of this experience. In the midst of directing students, I find myself trying to understand the different levels of expectations and boundaries that reside with my presence on the ward (both for the students and the staff). Such complexities fluctuate my emotions throughout the day, impacting my perceived success. Grace, of course, is required in such tricky situations and I am very thankful that God's grace and love manage to overcome self-degradation!

The more I teach, and the more I see at the hospital, the more I understand how important it is to develop nurses who are willing to do something about the problems they see in practice. When they see other health care workers accepting bribes or not showing up to work or ignoring patients, I want my students to be the ones to break this cycle. I want them to be leaders in their work place, to be knowledgeable nurses who care for their patients with the grace and love of Christ.

My students after their first day of clinical.

Please be praying for my students as they finish this last half of the semester. Also be praying for me and my Ugandan colleagues, that we would be strong examples of what nurses and nursing care can be. 

First week of class

"First Day of School' Outfit

Since everyone on Facebook was posting their 'First day of school' pictures, I thought I'd post mine. This past week marked the first full week of classes for UCU. Though officially we started the week prior, the culture of many Ugandan institutions is that you don't really need to go to class the first week (however, UCU is trying to change this mind-set). For me, this meant that I showed up to class as scheduled with basically no one else there. Thankfully, at least half of my students came on the second day of class and, also thankfully, God has made me quite flexible. I had anticipated this 'no-show' to be a possibility, so I just laughed it off and revised my second lecture a bit to not get behind.

Students thus far seem attentive to my lectures, though I am not sure if this is due to my teaching skills or the fact that they find my accent difficult to understand :). I'm hoping for the former, of course. Thanks to my colleagues back home, I have some excellent class material to draw from. This way I'm not starting completely from scratch. 

Part of my class schedule will include taking students to the clinical site to do patient interviews and health assessments. They seem very excited for this and it will be a great opportunity to get them more hands-on experiences right in the beginning of their program (a luxury we often do not have in the US due to various restrictions). Besides clinical, they also come for 4 hours of lecture and 1 hour of lab practice each week. Having never taught a class completely on my own before (at Bethel we do a lot of team-teaching of courses), it has been a little bit daunting. I find myself obsessing too much over a lecture and worrying that I'm missing important content. Hopefully these feelings will abate as I settle into my work.

Clinicals will most likely start this week. The facility we are going to be at is new to me, which will make this experience some-what more stressful. So, I will be thankful for any prayers you send my way :) 

Hard to believe September is already half gone. Without the cool Fall weather to mark the changing season, I mostly just feel like I am in a perpetual summer. What a shock it will be to return home in December having to face the cold and snow of winter without the pleasant Fall transition. For those of you in the upper Midwest, drink some apple cider for me :)

Two weeks with Karna

My friend, Karna, came for an extended visit, leaving just last Saturday. Upon her initial arrival, I felt like I was just walking around in the states with my friend rather than that my friend was walking around in Uganda with me! It was just such an odd experience, seeing her in this context.

Having Karna around was quite wonderful because, frankly, Karna is such a wonderful friend. She’s laid back, introspective, knows how to laugh, and is just plain fun to be around. While she was here, we split our time between Jinja, Mukono, and Murchison Falls National Park, so that’s how I split up my descriptions below.

Jinja:

Karna & I at the source of the Nile, apparently there is an underground spring right by where we are standing.

Besides taking the obligatory visit to the source of the Nile and walking around the small downtown of Jinja, we also volunteered at Amani Baby Cottage (http://amanibabycottage.org/). Amani an orphanage that takes care of roughly 60 children ages 0-5. Often they try and reunite the kids back with someone from their extended families, but they will also help to facilitate adoptions. Being in the orphanage was very interesting, but also exhausting. They have quite the system down for the kids making everything go rather smoothly considering the numbers and ages of the kids they have to corral. And though they certainly don't get all the individual attention they need (it’s hard to recreate a real home), overall they certainly are at a good place, are well-cared for, and, most importantly, are loved. We were only there for a few days, but serving their ministry was enjoyable.

Karna, hanging out with one of the little ones at the bonfire (a special activity that the kids talked about all day)

Mukono:

In between Jinja and Murchison we spent time at UCU, mostly cooking, relaxing, and watching some TV episodes (Call the Midwife, mostly). Karna tried chapatti, jackfruit, passion fruit, Ugandan pineapple (which is sweeter then back home), fried chicken (the equivalent of the hamburger here—in my opinion), cooked cabbage, Stoney (ginger-flavored soda), Krest (bitter-lemon flavored soda), African tea, Irish potatoes, and the Pioneer Women’s cinnamon rolls (not Ugandan, but we made them for the first time in Uganda so it makes the list). We also visited Vision for Africa (http://www.visionforafrica-intl.org/en/aboutvfa/index.html where they have vocational schools and then you can buy their work--pottery, ect) and Bajo Glass (this great place that collects recycled glass then blows it into glassware).

Karna & I at Bajo Glass--The floors & walls are all decorated with melted, recycled glass.

Murchison:

Murchison Falls National Park is a beautiful park in Northwestern Uganda with a good amount of game (animals) and, of course, an amazing water-fall. Getting to the park is always a bit of a challenge as roads are not well kept here, and dirt roads less so. As a result it takes about 2 hours to go the 30 miles from the town of Masindi (located just outside the park) to the Nile river running halfway through the park. For a particularly bad stretch it took about 15 minutes to go a little over a mile. Despite these trials, we had a nice time. Groups of giraffes and elephants and tiny deer (can't remember their official name) dotted the savanna and wandered near the roadside. At times they posed quite perfectly, allowing Karna and I to snap their portraits. My favorite part was getting to see the lion! At the park they usually only see 1 or 2 lions a week, so we were quite lucky. Plus, we were able to drive up really close to it and were probably around 5 feet away from the young male lion when Karna and I popped up through the open sun roof to take pictures. The lion just looked at us then laid back down for a nap, but it got my heart racing a bit :). 

The other major activity of our park excursion was a hike up to the top of Murchison Falls. It only took about an hour, but it was beautiful. The rock on the path is formica, so it glistened in the sunshine and covered my chacos with some nice little sparkles. Eventually the path took us so close to the waterfall that we could feel the cool spray of water issuing off it. This also provided the perfect circumstances for lovely and complete double rainbows! Though there was no gold at the end of it...just formica.

The bottom of Murchison Falls

A little worse for the wear, but here's us at the top of the falls and at the end of the rainbow :)

Now Karna is safe back home and I have begun preparing for classes which start next week. Since I just received the syllabus a few days back, there is a lot of work for me to do -- so vacation officially over.

Reflections on Teaching (written last week, but posted today :)

As I sit in my little office and grade one of the many final exams for my students, occasionally I sit back to think about this past semester. My overall goals for my ministry are Help, Educate, Activate, and Lead, but I wonder—have I even come close to meeting them?

Certainly I have been able to help the faculty as they teach their courses. Primarily, I worked with 2 different Ugandan professors helping them in a total of 4 classes and 1 clinical day. By the end of the semester, I was doing most of the lectures for 2 of the courses. This freed up the faculty members to get other things done from their long “To Do” list, which included organizing and labeling the new equipment acquired for the nursing lab.

Another aspect of helping (and educating) for which I was aiming was to share my knowledge. Certainly for the informatics* course I did a lot of knowledge sharing both with students and faculty. Some students had very little computer experience, so even teaching them how to copy and paste or click and drag was new. We reviewed excel, demonstrated electronic health record systems, and created databases---all helpful skills for this group of students, many of whom are already in leadership positions at their places of employment. Surprisingly, there has been more of a push lately at some facilities to move towards computerized charting. So classroom discussion centered on the positive and negative aspects of such changes, including cost effectiveness for facilities already lacking in resources.

Teaching in my informatics class, where I most consistently have a portable projector (praise God!).
*Informatics is the study and meaningful use of technology in ones practice---so how appropriate to have projector to demonstrate technology with :)

Working with the degree completion students in their informatics course.
These adult students will either share a laptop or bring their own.

In general, the use of technology in Uganda is limited, particularly in classroom education (though you are starting to see this change). Being from the US, I have grown accustomed to easily integrating technology into my teaching plans. Here, those pieces of my former teaching style are not easily accessed. Though I find this frustrating and confining, it also forces me to be extra creative and frequently pray to God that any new idea can manifest itself into what I hope. Such circumstances, overall, have made educating the students challenging and demanding, but ultimately rewarding –especially when you catch a glimpse of enhanced knowledge pass across their eyes. 

As they continue to learn and grow, hopefully they recognize the importance of the material I attempt to emphasize. Things like choosing priority assessments, anticipating nursing care, developing good follow-up questions, gathering pieces of critical data to inform their decisions, and working as a team to improve patient care. All are important for creating good nurses to give quality care and to be leaders within their facilities.

Considering all the above, I guess my overall goals, in many ways, are being met though far from being fully attained. Making such progress will hopefully help to sustain me as I progress into the next semester. Now, I really should get back to grading…

I look super serious here, but I promise I wasn't yelling :)

Patterns

I have found the importance of instituting patterns to ones daily life. For example, after a Saturday morning run, I like to make and eat some well deserved banana pancakes with lemon zest for breakfast. Although I had previously held patterns as something to be averted, since they easily institute feelings of boredom, currently such patterns give me something to look forward to. They help me hold onto the familiar when so much around me is anything but familiar. I have been in Uganda for just over two months now, and though I have certainly developed a level of comfort with my surroundings, I have not developed the level of community here that I naturally have at home. However, every part of life has a season, and I’d like to think I am on the verge of spring, the part right before the new grass bursts forth, when the dry winter air recedes, allowing you to glimpse the hope which glides in upon the pattern of changing seasons.

Recipe for Banana Pancakes:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/banana-sour-cream-pancakes-recipe/index.html
(p.s. Because I don't have sour cream here, I just use plain yogurt :)

New Encounters

Being in another country allows for many surprising encounters and, subsequently, new best friends. This past month I have had several surprise encounters with real and imagined bugs. The imagined bugs were causing a mysterious sound in my ear, which after awhile I attributed to clogged sinuses and pressure changes. The real bugs, however, were quite overwhelming. It goes to follow then that “Doom” has become my new best friend.

Several times this last month or two I have come home to find a busy trail of ants running amuck around my living room and in my kitchen. Swarming in one area, they carry some mysteriously delicious item back to their home before leading siblings back to the location of their initial enjoyment. Sometimes they amass to such a size--almost covering my kitchen floor! There is no way to stave them off at such numbers except by spraying Doom over the source of their revelry and sweeping them away during the subsequent mass exodus. I have also found that they are not afraid of heights, as one night they were partaking of some goods hidden behind the sconce on my wall. Another bug in my home, as of yet unidentified, seems unfortunately immune to Doom, the little guy leaves tiny white something’s all around one leg of my kitchen table. Since he has not migrated to any other location, I have not yet taken extraordinary measures of extermination. But, I am not fond of sweeping up his mess 3 times a day so I imagine those actions will soon be deemed necessary.

This is another new friend. Since he eats bugs,
I let him live behind my livingroom's window'curtain

A Hug From Home

As much as I enjoy my life and purpose here in Uganda, the other day I found myself wishing for the comforting hug of someone from home. Though I talk to my family and friends regularly on Skype, it simply cannot connect me to the physical comfort of their presence. God must have heard my prayer, because he answered it in such a timely way, from an unexpected direction.

Today, I got a call from a worker on campus saying someone wanted to talk to me. Then I heard the familiar voice of one of my coworkers from the hospital I worked at in the US! She had come to visit her sister in Uganda and remembered that I was going to be here at UCU. So, her niece guided her to the campus and she asked around until she found someone with my phone number! I quickly went to meet her and be embraced by a comforting hug from home. We talked for a little bit, discussing the familiar things from my US life as well as my life here in Uganda. Her visit was short, but her hug went beyond her and her visit. Truly, I felt the embrace of God -- a God who heard my little cry and answered it in an unforeseen way. That kind of loving care is quite humbling.

Later, as I contemplated this experience, the song, “Home”, by Philip Philips came on. I could not help but think of how applicable these words are to my life and relationship with God right now. While I would prefer to hold onto the comforts of home, God keeps reminding me to hold on to him, to not be distracted by sadness or discomfort, and, most importantly, he reminds me that I am not alone. He hears my whispered longings and is ready to embrace me in his everlasting love the moment I find my home in him.

Ebola and other devastations....

Over the past several days I have been putting together a lecture on Ebola. Not to scare anyone, but last August there was a small outbreak in Uganda. This made me happy, though only because it made for good teaching material. Having a relatively recent outbreak engaged the students in the topic and meant that there were many videos on You-Tube to choose from. So, if you want to know anything about Ebola, I am well versed on the subject.

Developing and delivering the lecture presented some challenges. Since Ebola is so specific to Africa, none of my textbooks cover the subject. Finding material online was not difficult, especially in light of the recent outbreak, but having internet issues made for a languishing search at times. Eventually, I gathered enough material to sift through, but I constantly found myself referring to Iggy, my old pathophysiology book, for reminders on different metabolic processes. For those of my readers not proficient in medical speech, I am sure the last few sentences have been the equivalent of "yada yada yada". Quite honestly, that's fine as this is not essential to my story :). The following, however, is, so perk up!

Now, not to sound too bookish, but I was really excited about my lecture. I developed this great PowerPoint (in my opinion), found a good video that introduced the topic and showed students the site of the recent outbreak, and then I created supplementary activities to help engage them in the material. All of my planning and late-night research left me feeling as excited as I was nervous that this would completely bomb. As the lecture hour drew near, I could feel my face becoming hot with anxious anticipation. When I walked into the room, my first major problem assaulted me. I felt, quite literally, like a dear getting smacked by on on-coming light and wondering, "Where did that come from?"

Allow me to explain. In order to do power point presentations, I need a projector and in order to do a lecture I need (at minimum) a white board marker. I had neither. Both white board markers and portable projectors are high commodities and happen to be kept together in a bag that the class rep is responsible for carrying from class to class. For some reason or other, the bag did not get to my classroom. After a temporary fright, my coworker, Grace, remembered that there was another projector locked up in the nursing lab. So, we trekked across campus to get it. What I find funny, is that in the US this situation would be a state of emergency, but in Uganda this was all taken in stride. As such, stopping to talk to people on the way to retrieving the projector was, naturally, undertaken without regard to class time.

Eventually, I set up the projector, managed to get online, showed the video-clip and began my lecture (it went fabulous by the way). There is nothing like planning something and having it turn out just as well as you hoped! I was on cloud-9 (excuse the idiom) all the way home...that is until a black cat literally crossed my path and temporarily soured my moment. Now, I am trying to convince myself that black cat situations hold a different meaning in Uganda, much like lack of classroom projectors do.

Ebola Video Link, for those who are interested.

Fourth of July in Uganda

Ironically, part of my Fourth of July was celebrated with a bunch of Brits! The university is celebrating its 100 years of being a school, so a delegation from the U.K. with various connections to the school’s history came for part of the week’s activities and the centennial graduation (which was today). We had dinner together at the guest house and then some of us went to the cultural celebration being held that night on campus. Uganda has around 50 tribes, each with their own language, tribal dance and culture. The cultural night celebrates the different tribes of the students by having students gather together with others of their tribe and present their tribal dance in front of the UCU (Uganda Christian University) community. I think they also have judges that announce a winner at the end of the night. Every tribe has a different style of dance and different outfits related to their tribal dance.

What I love about Uganda is that people are very expressive, and often do so through dance, no matter their age. They also appreciate bold bottoms and curvy hips (as evidenced by their tribal outfits). As an American woman who comes from a culture with different feelings about those features, I appreciate their positive viewpoint. I have uploaded a couple clips from the dances that they performed for your viewing pleasure (though to be honest it is not the greatest quality video). I might also suggest that we bring this tradition to the forefront of American culture by having each state come up with their own state dance with unique outfits…Minnesota for instance could have more of a lyrical style dance with flowing, blue outfits to represent our 10,000 lakes. As I am out of the country, I will leave it to you all to initiate this bill in congress. That way, by the time I get back to the US, this event of statehood cultural dance-offs will be organized so I can send video clips of it to the Ugandans. I am sure such an event would be just as big as the Super Bowl.

In the mean time, I will enjoy the spirit and energy of Ugandan tribal dances. Each dance they presented yesterday lasted around 10 minutes. The event started near 8:30 pm and they were still going strong at 10 pm at which time I left. Although my Fourth of July did not include any fireworks (or many Americans for that matter) it did include an excellent star-filled walk home to sounds of the tribal drums beating in the distance.

There are 3 different tribal dances I have pieced together. The first is my favorite, look for the guy who pops in at minutes 1 and 2 :)

Suffering for the Lord in Jinja...well, maybe not suffering.

I have been absent from my blog due to a "working" vacation in Jinja. The other American professors and I decided to find a new spot to grade papers. An hour and a half later we found ourselves in Jinja, a slightly smaller town off Lake Victoria and the Nile river. There is a rather economical resort just outside of town that we stayed at. The first of our three day vacation was perhaps the most productive for me (the others did a much better job at working under those conditions). After lunch, we sat under the canopies and graded our respective assignments with occasional glances upon the serene beauty of Lake Victoria that stretched before us.

Lake Victoria's serenity (with the little boat we took a ride in in the background)

Eventually, we gave up and spent time talking over afternoon tea. As the sun was setting we partook of a dinner meal. I was ecstatic to get coconut chicken curry! At the moment, coconut is perhaps my favorite flavor and I was not thinking I would get much of a chance to have any here in Uganda. Getting to bed that night in our little hut was made difficult by some very loud neighbors -- two frogs that insisted on sharing their conversation with us.

Our hut/room is just ahead, slightly to the left.

On Saturday, we went into Jinja to do a little shopping. Michelle, one of the other teaching professors here, scoped out the town for coffee, artwork, ect, so she lead us around the main strip to share her discoveries. One of these discoveries included a really cool coffee shop, The Source. It is a Ugandan run Christian store with a gift shop, internet cafe, and training center. They use their profits to support other work they do in the community. At the shop we experienced the miracle of an amazing peanut butter cookie and some excellent coffee! Ugandans are not known for their baking prowess, but even by US standards this cookie would have been delicious. Diane was bold and asked for the recipe, then gave it to me for use while I'm here :).

Here I am with my roommate, Bernie :)

After the coffee stop, we walked down to an art studio that Michelle found. I ended up buying two small canvas paintings depicting, in my view, a place of serenity -- the river with the sun setting behind the shoreline's trees. Several other shop stops along the way left our vehicle full of our purchases. I mostly got a few items to decorate my home with. When we could spend no more, we returned to our resort for a swim. The sun was quite warm in the afternoon, so swimming in the pool felt lovely.

On Sunday, we went for a short boat ride on Lake Victoria. Our tiny boat mostly cruised the shoreline for us to take in the amazing, bright-colored Ugandan birds. Unfortunately, they move rather quickly, so our pictures cannot accurately capture their features (still, these pictures deserve a separate post, so you will see them at a later time). Following the boat ride we went into Jinja for our final coffee, some good bread, and a late lunch at Bansari Restaurant. Bansari is a REALLY good Indian restaurant which left us quite full of the happiness that comes with excellent garlic naan, paneer korma, and chicken tikka masala, among others. Following our meal we headed back to Mukono, immediately understanding our vacation was over and it was time to get back to work :)

Kind of a dark picture, but the moonlight was beautiful while we were in Jinja!

Ugandan Clinical (a work in process...)

Today, I went to clinical with the 2nd year nursing students. Getting all 33 into the bus was a bit of a process, but eventually, after several stops & restarts they all made it on (though one had to chase us down via motorcycle taxi so he wouldn't miss the ride into clinical). Riding into Kampala at 7 am was a slow and methodical. With no traffic this trip would normally take 30-40 minutes. However, at 7 am you are in the thick of traffic, weaving through unmarked lanes --which meant a 1 hour and 45 minute bus ride to clinical!  Sometimes, I heard,  it can take well over two hours. Upon arrival, I broke off with a group of five students and followed them to their assigned ward. Along the way I talked with them some, trying to get to know them better. Since I have interact with this group the most consistently, I really want to learn more about each of them.

The students are divided into 4 different wards (nursing units): male and female medicine/ICU, male and female surgical. Around eight students are in each ward, rotating wards every three weeks. The hospital is a private, catholic hospital with around 25 beds per ward and I think about 2 nurses per ward (one more for the ICU). Before my fellow nurses from the states start to balk, let me say a couple things. First, much of the assistant-type nursing care is done by the family, who also are in charge of meeting many of the personal needs/nutritional needs of the patient. Second, the nurse to patient ratios at this facility are actually pretty good, especially when you take into consideration the couple other ancillary staff that I would see around. Because this was my first time, I still do not have a full grasp of everyone's role. I am sure this will change as the summer progresses and I will be able to fill in more details.

My day was mostly spent learning the role of the clinical instructor in this setting. Grace, the UCU clinical instructor I am following, does such a nice job with the students. She really works at getting them to touch the patients and practice their skills as well as getting them used to reporting off on patients. As the day progressed, I was able to observe how Grace created rapport with the nurses and patients on the unit.

Typically, the day on the ward starts with ward rounds, were doctors round in a group on each patient on the ward. The nurses will follow and help write down the plan of care and usually anyone else on the care team listens in as well. In many ways, this is a great assets because it can ensure that orders can be immediately clarified, nursing questions can be answered, and everyone is in on the plan of care. As in all hospitals, though, this is the ideal and various issues come about preventing this from perfectly occurring. While going around, one thing I really tried to emphasize with the students is the importance of patient education. Often ward rounds focus on talking about the patient, but forgetting to educate the patient. This is an issue in the states as well. Having the students there, however, created a great opportunity for the patient to have a lot of available teachers and for the students to get in a lot of practice with teaching.

Even though on the surface it is easy to identify the differences between health care in the states and in Uganda, the more you analyze some of the issues, the more you identify similar care problems (though perhaps on a different scale at times). There is so much more I could write about this experience, which left me feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, but I feel I am still processing much of it. Since I want to do justice to the experience, I will write more at a later date. In the meantime, please be praying for me and the students as we care for the patients each Thursday this summer. May we work with the grace of God and touch others with the love of Christ.

"This is the way we go to school"

Now that I am attending classes more regularly, I thought I'd share the way I go to school.

I go up these steps.

When I get to the top of the steps, I like to look back at Mukono.

Then I walk down this path.

Here's where I take a right.

Then I go past this building, being careful not to slip and fall down the hill.

The path continues on the other side of the building.

I hang a right and go up this stone path.

I keep following it along the side of the building until...

....I get to the classrooms. We meet in either the upper or lower ones.

The front of the building with the nursing classrooms.

Feeling cold in Uganda and increased walking speeds:

Uganda lent me another new experience today, I actually felt a little chill. The morning started out rather humid and warm, but slowly, dark clouds began to consume the sky. Eventually, the wind picked up, signalling me to pick up my pace as I rushed to Karen's house for a meeting. I kept praying the impending downpour would hold out until I found shelter under her roof. God must have taken my prayer quite literally, because the rain started the exact moment of my arrival into Karen's home! When the showers dissipated, cool air was left behind. You could observe students huddling together as they walked, covering bare arms with their scarves. Usually my fast walking pace is a bit of a burden here, but today it was an asset as it helped prevent me from experiencing any negative side effects of the cool breeze.

I have noted on several occasions that I walk too fast for Uganda. Perhaps my nurses walk has not yet left my frame-- I am so used to having to rush from patient room to patient room to maximize my time! In reality, such speediness is really a difficulty here. Any time you are in the sun, it is hot, and increased walking speeds simply add unnecessary body heat and, need I elaborate, sweat. The risks of walking fast highly out-weigh its current benefits under ordinary, Ugandan circumstances. Now, I have to remind myself to stop weaving around casual walkers. I should instead take in the sites and appreciate the advantages gained from slowing down. Hopefully, as I continue my stay here, I can learn to appreciate the positive aspects of slowing down in other, non-walking, facets of Ugandan life.

What's on my nightstand

Since I think that what is on your nightstand can say a lot about you, let me share my nightstand with you.

*Sign of Faith = The sign reads 'Faith is when you close your eyes and open your heart'. I had this sign up in my home in the US. Here, it reminds me of why I came -- because I have faith in God's promise to me,
"I will be with you and watch over you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised" (Genesis 28:15).

*Journal #1 = This particular journal not only helps me process what I am feeling and experiencing here in Uganda, it also is filled with reminders of God's promises and words of encouragement. The title of the journal is, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:13).

*Bible = This Bible, in particular, is lovely because it is just the right size for travel, the right size for reading, and is filled with great verses that I have underlined. What is perhaps not lovely, is that I believe I somehow stole it from my father, because I see his handwriting in it as well...sorry Dad.

*Journal #2 = My second journal is used to take notes during church. You know how you sometimes come home from church and think, "That was a great service", but then can't remember exactly all that was said? I do that, which is why I started taking notes. Also, it helps me study the topic further during my quite time or I just save it for future reference.

*Lotion = Smells nice and makes my hands as soft as my heart (aw-shucks...)

*Light = The candle provides light in the darkness, physical and otherwise. The Lantern provides light in the darkness when I can't light the match to light the candle....so really I usually just use the lantern.

*Glasses (in the case) = To see people with, and also, I hope, to see people as God sees them.

*Water = To feed my thirst for adventure, for service, and to alleviate night-time dry-mouth symptoms ;)

*Quarter = It fell out of my bag and onto the floor, so I just put it on the nightstand. If you want me to be dramatic: then it stands for the change I want to see in Uganda :)

What's on your nightstand? I'd be curious to see it. You could email it, Facebook it, or, if you are really bold, post a comment.

With faith, hope & love

Procrastination

Procrastination, it seems, has followed me to Uganda. Not to say I haven't been doing anything today, because I certainly have. Rather, the thing I should be working on, I am not working on. I'm avoiding it actually... In a couple weeks I will be lecturing on the basic use of Microsoft Excel in Faith's technology class. So, over the next few days I need to look over the program to remind myself of it's basic functions and create an assignment that will encompass them. However, I have yet to do this because I am procrastinating :). Instead I spent my day doing laundry and cooking meals, worthy tasks at least. Since you may find it interesting to see some of the things I am eating, let me show you.

A very large sweet potato. It's white on the inside and not quite as creamy  as the ones at home.

Native mushrooms. I now have a mushroom seller who comes to my door with a bag of fresh mushrooms for me. I was a little leery at first, but another American gal here has been eating them for over a year, so I think I'm good. I cooked them up this morning with some onion and beautiful brown eggs --they were delicious!

These are mini bananas that fit into the palm of your hand. They are  a little sweeter then the traditional banana.

Ugandan life wouldn't be complete without beans. This is the native bean in Uganda which tastes similar to a kidney bean, but not quite as strong of a flavor. This was my first time soaking dehydrated beans and cooking them up. I  seasoned them with some garlic and red onion, they turned out okay. But, my recipe could use some tweaking.

Stoney is a ginger flavored pop/soda. It is not the same as ginger ale, more like  actual ginger flavor. I like that the ginger is so strong it makes my whole mouth tingle!

Things to pray for:

*That I would be able to focus and develop my lecture.

*That said lecture would go well 

*That God would continue to show me areas he wants me to work in.

With faith, hope, and love,

Joy

Another place to call home...

Now that I've settled into my apartment, I thought you all might be a little curious to see it. Please come in:

Enter

The dinning/living room ---it's an open concept home :)

Go past the comfy chairs to get to the kitchen.

Go strait to get to the kitchen.

The kitchen to the right of the door (already with dirty dishes).

The kitchen to the left of the door.

Now if you go out the back, you can see the laundry room ;)

My office/'Sparest of spare rooms' (for those Anne of Green Gables fans :)

My simple bedroom.

Although it was a little weird to not have Karen as my roommate anymore, there are always people around my apartment, so I won't get lonely :)

Attending Class

Monday marked the beginning of my work life in Uganda. I met Faith, Grace, and Elizabeth, the three full time Ugandan nursing instructors, on Monday morning to discuss my role this first semester. Mostly I will be working with Faith and Grace who both teach in their 'Direct Entry' program (which is the equivalent to the Bachelor's of Science in Nursing [BSN] program in the states).

This week I will shadow Faith as she teaches Pharmacology, Dimensional Analysis, Research, and Informatics/Technology. Already I have watched Faith teach a couple classes, and I have to say she is a very good instructor! I was so impressed at how she interacted and explained things to the students. Everything she taught she paired with a relevant example or explanation. Faith took her time explaining, stopping to ask if students understood the direction she was taking them. It was just wonderful to be able to learn from a seasoned instructor.

Attending classes, though, also made me realize the lack of resources available to students. In Faith's Dimensional Analysis course she combines two class groups, so she has about 60 students all together. Unlike in the US, students do not always have the access or ability to buy the books needed for class. Often there will be nursing textbooks available for checkout or review in the library. For these 60 some Dimensional Analysis students, however, only 6 textbooks are available to them. Which means that all their information about the class needs to come from the lecture. Then, to do the course work found in the book, they have to get together in groups and checkout the textbooks in the library. Since Dimensional Analysis deals with calculating correctly the IV medication drip rate and the amount of other medication patients are getting, this is rather an important class. Even more so because there are not usually IV pumps here to help calculate the correct rate. This situation just makes me appreciate how much of a privilege it is to be able to buy and own a textbook! You just do not think about how wonderful owning even one book can be. It also makes me appreciate Karen and her resources. Since her husband is coming tomorrow, they were able to get a few more books into his checked bags to help with this shortage. Though it won't fully meet their need, it will certainly help.

I will continue to attend classes with Faith this week, then next week go to Grace's classes. Grace teaches clinical as well, so I am sure I will have more to reflect on after that clinical shadowing experience.

You know you are in a different country when...

You know you are in a different country when the monkeys jumping on the roof wake you up at 5:30 in the morning. Here are pictures of these delinquents. Don't be fooled by their innocent appearance.