Juancho in Uganda

This post was supposed to be uploaded last week. Lack of power and the internet down prevented it... SORRY

This week started very sadly with the sound of drums around the village. Wilbur (the son of the chairman that leaves just across from our house) went around the village communicating the bad news of the death of a 14 year old boy that had sickle cell anemia. Since he was Muslim the burial had to be the same day and Juliet and I attended. It was very sad to see the parents and his friends from school in such a shock. I even had to do a small speech and even though I heard from somebody afterwards that it was nice, I don’t think that there is anything that you can really mention that is comforting enough. The rest of the week was handled between sanitation pushes on a house to house basis where we checked to see if the villagers had latrines (toi), plate stands, and tippy taps. If they didn’t we informed them about the benefits of having one and how to build them. There was also a visit to the Christian school for sanitation on Wednesday and an election for the Village Health Team (VHT). This team will assume the responsibilities of our group and hopefully be fully independent of the organization after 3 years and work directly with the government. During this election we were introduced to Fred. Fred is a kid that is turning 8 soon but looks like he is 4. He also has sickle cell anemia and is extremely malnourished. His arms are extremely thin and even Kristen from our team said that she could see his heart through the visible rib cage. We are hopeful that we can send him to Ibulanku hospital where there is a nutrition program that lasts about 2 months and teaches families how to help these kids. We know that his sickle cell condition cannot be cured (even in the US), but at least he could manage it better. In the same note, we have a person in the community that has always been the first to buy our preventive solutions (e.g. he bought 3 mosquito nets during the first week). He had complained of problems that he assumed were malaria, but on Thursday we found out that it is really Parkinson’s disease. There is nothing to cure it, but I don’t know how his large family will manage his sickness once more dramatic stages arrive and his labor cannot be counted.