Uganda 2022 Day 11

We walked down to the clinic to start setting up around 8am. The church and the waiting area for the church were already full. There were also a few hundred people waiting at the gate to come in. It made me so sad because I knew none of them would be able to as we had to be finished, supplies inventoried, and packed up by 1p preferably or 1:30p at the latest. While working, I prayed that the people at the gate would hear the messages and testimonies given at the church so they could meet with the great physician and who know, maybe even be healed. I also prayed for the medications to multiply as we were running low on many items. Today I helped the pharmacy again by collecting prescription slips and giving the slips to them. We changed our set up and I thinning it was better. Because we had no more malaria tests and the lab was closed, we were able to put the chairs for people to sit and wait for their prescription in between the pharmacy building and the building next to it. This also gave us the ability to put out more chairs to wait in. Elena positioned her self where she could get the slips, direct them to sit, and then bring the slip to me. Then I would put the slip on the pharmacy desk. That was sometimes a challenge as I would have to sneak in between the pharmacists. The pharmacy was so busy today. There were many families of 5 that were needing medication. The slips stacked up fast! Not long into clinic, Jen asked me to pull Susanna from her table where she was seeing patients so she could help the three of them in the pharmacy catch up. You would think one less person seeing patients and one more helping in pharmacy would speed things up, but there were so many people that the stack of slips stayed there same size. We ended up pulling Alma from her table as well. It took time, but they finally caught up. I had to guard the doorway because they would call people to the window, but they would pass the window and walk inside. Maybe 30 minutes after we lest Susanna and Alma go back to their table to see patient we had to bring them to the pharmacy again. They ended up helping in there for the rest of clinic. Chloe even came to help for a little while. Doctor David had to pull her back outside to help work on wounds. They had to work on one ladies’ leg. Doctor David fit into her leg and pulled out a giant thorn. Then he worked on a child who screamed the whole time. Even before he touched her. I did not ask about her, but she either had a burn on her legs or some kind of skin infection. The last one he worked on had a cut or something in her leg. She hardly made a noises while he worked on her before he numbed the area. He did use a scalpel to cut off some dead skin before he bandages her leg. I helped block her eyes as we did not want her to look while he was doing all the work on her. Ross was trying to block her view and record at the same time, so I went to help him. While the little girl was being worked on, I had a lady kneel in front of me as say something. I asked one of the Ugandans what she was saying, but he did not know. She stayed there for a long time after I told her I could not help her. An interpreter was finally nearby and I asked what she said. She wanted to see a doctor, but we could not see her. It was to late and most of the pharmacy was packed up. We had already turned away 200 people inside gated facility and it was probably 300 minimum who were never let in the gates. Sadly many people walked a long way to be seen. I heard that some may have even walked from the mountain area near Karamoja. We filled up so fast that the gates closed at 8a. Which is when we started. Today we saw 501 people. The total for the whole trip was 2540 people. That was in 6 days, but four of those days were really half days.

After lunch 6 of our team members left. Doctor David, Alma, Ross, Chloe, Spencer, and Hector flew back to the mission house and then took the 3am flight heading home. It was so hard to say goodbye to them! I really wanted to get to know the 4 I met this trip better and spend more time with the other two. Once they had pulled away, I talked to Ema. After we talked for some time, he asked if he could fine me a Ugandian name. He named me Kwagala which means love. Ema said it is because of my love for Uganda. He told me that not only does he drive for Ssepuuya’s safari company, but he also has a farm where he grows beans, corn, and other veggies. His wife also raises chickens for meat.

The rest of the time we spent time working on our suitcases and hanging out. Our big bag was being driven back to the first house and we would take our carry on with us to safari. Tony really wanted someone to play cribbage with. I told him I would play, but he would h we to teach me. He said it is a hard game for people to understand, but he taught me. I won the first two games and he one the last three. In the end, he told me it did really well and most people don’t pick it up as fast as me. I did not feel that way. If it was not for his help and truthfulness in counting my points. I would not have done well. While we were playing cribbage it was raining super hard. Benjamin went out the front door in his shorts and showered in the rain. Later I heard one of the girls did too.