Lovin life

I love Uganda so much. I have gotten used to rarely having running water and electricity. I have been placed as the head of public health. This is such an overwhelming job, but I am learning to delegate. I have been so busy that I haven't had the opportunity to check my e-mail for about 2 weeks. Family, I see that you all have e-mailed me several times. The internet here is so slow that I can't even get into my gmail account all the way to read the emails. The best that I can do is a blog post. Hopefully, this helps. It is official; I do not have an address. I live in a little village called Nakazadde which is right outside of Lugazi. We pretty much walk everywhere. I am becoming a pro clothes washer. I never realized how difficult it was to wash clothes by hand. I still have a problem with my whites. It is impossible to get the red clay out of them. Becky, do not wear white clothes in Africa. We met a man named Emmanuel that is a great contact for us. I was able to set up a standing appointment with him every week on Tuesday to do HIV screening. It is such an awesome experience. Last week, we screened 49 people for both HIV 1 and 2. Thankfully, no one was positive which is rare. I was swabbing people's fingers and doing record keeping. I even pulled each person aside to give them their results. Emmanuel taught us to really make them sweat while they were in the hot seat even if their results were negative. Nearly all of them had legitimate reasons to worry. It surprised me how many were not being smart and putting themselves at risk. For the testing, we did not have the proper supplies such as gloves or a sharps container. This worried me and I am working on fixing that problem. Here the clinics are dirty and they do not have the resources. On saturday, we went into Kampala for Dominoes and a football game. We are all getting very tired of Ugandan food, but were slightly disappointed by the Ugandas attempt at pizza. It was certainly better than the usual matoka, beans, and rice though. AFterwards, we went to Mandela stadium and had front row seats to the football (soccer) game between Uganda and Kenya. It was absolutely amazing! Of course, Uganda won 1-0. I love this country very much. My only frustration is that Ugandans run on a totally different time schedule. They are at least an hour or two late to every meeting that is if they even show up. They make mormon standard time look good. We are trying really hard to get actual projects up and going, but it is difficult if we can't meet with the right people to help us. I am certainly learning patience. Mike and Debbie, I hope all is going well with the job search and moving. We should have a house warming party when I get back.