Uganda 2026 Day 9

Uganda 2026 Day 9

It is the second Rupa clinic day. I worked with kids today. We started clinic so early that the kids were not there for about an hour or so. I started by helping with giving out team shirts for the people helping at this clinic. I forgot to wear my team shirt today, but most of the team did too. When I was done helping with this, I went into Dr Bill’s room. He had a room to himself and he is Bethany’s dad. He has a clinic that was a family practice, but now he mainly sees people with autism. For the clinic he had a room by himself because he was doing ultrasounds with a machine that was donated to us. Maybe forever or maybe to borrow. I stayed with him for his first two patients. The first patient was not far along enough to see the baby, songs just treated her. The Second Lady was 8-9 months along. When he measured her belly, the baby was kicking him. He did the ultrasound, but with baby being so big, he couldn’t show all the features. She did get to see the heartbeat, spine, ribs, and leg bone. It is so cool that they can see their babies. I then saw the children’s team heading out, so I followed. The kids are so great! They were also stubborn. They did not want to listen to us about backing up. We totally understood though. We did messages and songs with dances the children. We also brought out the parachutes. They are so popular with the kids. They also really like the song che che kule. Algena turned it on and walked around the parachutes so they could hear it. After a few minutes she had a group if children surrounding her while they moved around, sang, and danced. It was a great time! The other fun thing we did was pulling out our bubble machines and they loved the bubbles. It was hard to keep them from touching the machine. It cracked me up because many of the kids tried to eat the bubbles.  If I could have left the machine in the air the whole time it would have been better, but I wanted the smaller kids to play with them too. It is so fun to see the joy on their faces with things that can make someone bored so easy. We were with the kids for 5 hours before sending them to lunch and home. Some of that was in full sun. Even though I sunscreened twice, I still burned. My face hurt the worst because my arms already had a good tan layer. I went back to Dr Bills room to watch more and be in the shade. We had some good conversations when we waited for the lunch line to go down and while we ate. 

After lunch I was with Dr Bill for two patients who were, I think 5 months and 6 months pregnant. We had good views of the babies. One was a boy and one was a girl. How exciting for them to know the gender before the baby is born. Well, just seeing it made them happy. One baby was curled and had its hands by its mouth. I left after this to see if they needed help elsewhere and take time to drink water not in front of the people. I ended up helping fold the parachutes. Anna and I spent time together in the pharmacy most of the time. At one point they took out soccer balls and we went to go take photos of them. Then we were asked to pass out the last of some 1mo baby shirts. To do this, we walked down to the church area and found pregnant women or women with little babies. Thankfully, we found the exact amount that we had shirts for. 

Some of our team worked on sorting and cleaning up pharmacy supplies while the rest of us helped with the food distribution. We decided to do it a better way here. We moved the beans and cassava flour to either side of the door and had lines of 4 people outside to assembly line them down to the people. I was the second person from the top and JoAnne kept radioing Hector and David to hurry. It is a long walk and the people walk chill.. including David who was escorting them. I told JoAnne we should have two people do that so when one was dropping off a group, the other one could be bringing the next group. She sent me so I did not have to explain. When I had a group of 30 people being me, right before I was able to see the food station, I heard Abigail say pause. Then she looks over and sees me. They all started cheering because of my idea and chanting my name. It was so silly. The last 23 people only received one bag because we were not given as many as we ordered. It was sad, but I am still happy they had something. JoAnne talked to the people and then our group did photos before we left. 

On the way to clinic I talked to Jennifer about her group of interpreters so see if they were going all the way to the hotel with us after clinic or if we would drop them off where we pick them up. She said they would go to the hotel because I mentioned I had gifts for them. When we arrived at the hotel, JoAnne said we were having a meeting. I felt bad and asked Jennifer if they could stay. Thankfully, they did. When I got back out to them, I brought the gifts out with me. The only two things I did not give them that the girls received were the sour candy and cotton candy. There was not space for more cotton candy. They were all so happy and excited for each item. Most of them enjoyed the pop rocks. One did ask if he could put it in water first because he did not like the popping. I told him I am sure it would be fine and his water would have the flavor and sweetness of them. Before they left, we took a photo together. Then Jennifer and Olive said they would be back in 45 minutes with something for me. I told them I would be in the dining room (just inside the door) or lobby. I took this time to go shower before dinner. When you are in church you don’t get as dusty when the wind blows as you do when you are out in the open, so I needed to shower before dinner. Anna and I were about 5 minute late to dinner because of taking time to scrub. I then waited in the lobby for Jennifer and Olive. David found me in the lobby per my request. He is good at sneaking away to bed without me knowing, but I wanted to give him his gifts. This is when I learned it would be the last time I see him this trip. We gave each other big and long hugs. I may have also cried a little and felt very silly about that because there were others around. It was getting close to time to have our suitcases ready, so Katie said she would message me if they came while I was grabbing what I needed and leaving everything else in my suitcase. The truck was leaving at midnight with all our stuff, so they wanted it out by 9p. When I finished I let Katie know and then went in the dining room with Peace and another friend. The John Boscos came in for a short time too. It was getting late and Jennifer and Olive had not arrived. I asked John Bosco to reach out to Jennifer and she was just heading back. I felt bad, but knew I needed to get sleep. When they arrived, both had bought be a bracelet and Olive also gave me an anklet. Jennifer also went to Bethany’s room and gave her a gift. These women are so kind. The rest of the interpreters are also. It was sad to say goodbye. When I walked into my room, I found Anna laying on the floor sleep with her hand leaning against the wall with her phone in her hand. I said her name a couple times to wake her up, but it did lot work, so I shook her leg a little. She stretched and said, “did I really fall asleep on the floor?” She moved to the bed and went back to sleep. It was a night that was hard to sleep well.