Health
The air is thick with the ash of trash fires and old engine emissions. It is like breathing gravy and my lungs stretch themselves to capacity to keep me conscious. Walking up the hill to mulago hospital’s other entrance, because the guard wouldn’t let me through the gate, my backpack pulling each step back a […]
It is extortion. Beyond amoral, it is cruel. It is inhuman…not inhumane but actually absent of all humanity. The hospital TeaQueen took our friend to on Monday was holding him hostage with an ever rising ransom disguised as a hospital bill. IHK is known as the best hospital in Uganda. When Shoes and T were […]
Two years living in rural South Africa, where the lucky pulled their water from a bore hole and the unlucky walked miles away to gather theirs from a questionable open source, I began to realize the luxury of potable water. And as my eyes and my habits adjusted to village life, I began to understand […]
Iganga Town, Uganda October 27, 2010 Mickey was cute…at first. Funny in his lack of fear and disregard of anyone sitting and watching him meander across the concrete floor, climb the book shelf, and nestle there like we were all pals. He was Ralph S. Mouse minus the motorcycle. Ralph S. Mouse with the added […]
Kamuli Mission Hospital, Uganda The morning was cool. clouds coated the sky in patches, the sun still shining through as the women emerged a few at a time from inside the health center. Some smiled shyly, extending a hand, sometimes two to clasp mine in greeting. Others extended hands without the smile. Eyes shadowed – […]
She lay there. Still. Mechanical breath raising and lowering her chest with a slight pause – a stutter in the system. The monitors flashed green and red, moaned indecipherably, whirs and screeches that – unmet by rushing attendants – were usual sounds. T’s head bandaged tightly at the crown, odd pinkish coloring against her soft […]
by 11am i had been taken advantage of…twice…and was starving and tired. the ride into kampala, which in waiting terms began before 8am, was relatively quick. of course it would have helped if i had printed the conference information. instead i managed a tour of parts of the city i’d never seen, walked through makerere […]
The smoke plumes black and acrid, catching in the branches of the banana tree peering leisurely over my glass tipped fence. The plastic and coated paper smolder below, blue and orange flames peak and then disappear into the charred ooze that is this week’s garbage. My compost festers in a hole at the back corner […]
September 1, 2010 Iganga Town, Uganda The issue with long distance sick-ing is two-fold. There is the long distance part. The idea that folks who care about you are worried and can’t do anything. They can’t bring you soup or see you to make sure you aren’t worse than you say (which when far away […]
not right but better…
It wasn’t a happy conversation. My family gathered in the kitchen – a rare occurrence now that my sister and I are grown and gone from the house, her married with a family of her own. But there we were, my parents and sister seated casually around the glass dining table cluttered with the day’s […]
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