Becoming a Ugandan Legend

Someone asked me what has been the coolest thing to have happened to me thus far. I’m pretty sure I have some legitimate candidates.

1. Saturday night Cynthia (FSD’s international program coordinator) took us (FSD interns) to the Radio and Weasel concert downtown. (Youtube them.) The openers started around 9:00 but they were all pretty terrible. Closer to 1:00, we all got to meet Radio and Weasel while they were hanging out in their van before going on stage. Apparently they liked Chelsea and me enough to ask for us to come on stage. So during their second song we danced on stage with them in front of everybody. We didn’t realize this at the time, but we were the only ones who got to go up.

2. I had my first day of work on Monday. Timothy, our main supervisor at TASO, (The AIDS Support Organization) guided us through an extensive orientation. Somehow, I had even less of an idea of what I would be doing for the next 7 weeks after this orientation. Go figure. Anyways, the cool part happened after I asked if I could start out working in the lab. There are two lab techs, Richard and Barbara. In the morning I watched them do various tests: tuberculosis, Cryptococcus, HIV confirmation, etc. After lunch I got to do my own HIV confirmation tests. It’s difficult to describe how it made me feel. It’s rare to feel so humbled and so empowered simultaneously.

Tuesdays at TASO are outreach days, and I, along with a few other interns, was lucky enough to be able to go. 30+ TASO workers (doctors, counselors, pharmicists) were driven to a village (the name escapes me) about 40 miles away. The idea is to be able to give care to those who cannot afford to make the long trek to Masaka. It’s a pretty desolate community. I’ve described Uganda as dusty in previous posts, but I have never seen a dustier road in my life. The trees were literally brown from all the traffic swirling up dust. We arrived at the medical center (a kind term for the place) and began to set up. Chelsea and I were the only two white people so we garnered quite a bit of attention. I labeled and organized over 60 samples, ran some confirmation tests, and recorded the results from pregnancy tests. I never thought I would be allowed to get so involved. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to do this in the states. Because I was so busy with the HIV patients, I didn’t see the man who was brought into the hospital with severe injuries sustained in a road collision. We found out on the way home that he died. Pretty scary to think about: he was two rooms over from me. While in the clinic, I got to see every patient waiting to get their blood drawn. Some looked terrified, others hopeless, very few hopeful. It’s hard to understand the impact that HIV has here. In some communities, the rate of infection is over 60%. Everyone is touched by it. I really saw that when I walked around the village after we finished with the patients. There are SO many kids here; everywhere you look they are running around in dirty rags playing with tires and sticks. Many have lost their parents to HIV and several are HIV positive themselves. However, it seems that TASO is making a difference. One man introduced himself to me and said that he has been living with HIV for 22 years and proud of it. He really seemed to put life back into the community.