at the hospital I

One of my colleagues hurt himself at work last week when he was digging in the fields. As he wanted to remove a small bush/tree that he had chopped, a thorn stung him in his small finger. Even though it was painful, he continued work. In the evening the finger started to swell. When he showed me his finger the day after, I told him to go see a doctor but he refused. So I checked the finger every day but he still refused to go. After two or three days the swelling didn’t go back and he lost sensation on top of his finger. I insisted on him seeing a doctor but he still refused. After the weekend it wasn’t any better and when Claudia arrived, she also advised him to see a med. She then gave him a lift to Kyriandongo on Saturday as she was going to Masindi anyway. When he came back he told me that the doctor only told him to go to the hospital next week but he didn’t want to go because he had no money. Monday morning I told him that I would accompany him to the hospital in Kyriandongo and would pay for the treatment. So we went to the village from where we headed towards Bweyle with a Boda Boda. There we had to change the transport and when we had found some other Boda Boda driver went to the hospital in Kyriandongo.

The first impression was not so good. There were some old, scrapped vehicles parked in front of the entrance. Nice. When we entered we faced a overwhelming amount of people waiting for treatment. My workmate went to the teller, handed out his exercise book (the doctors write the patient’s medical history into exercise books that people have to carry with them) and was told to wait there. After half an hour or so some guy came and collected the exercise books of random people. When he saw me, he came along and greeted me and was a bit disappointed when he heard that I was ok, but not my colleague. Anyways he collected his book as well and then – after a couple of minutes – he checked Charles’ finger for a moment. He wrote something in the exercise book and then sent Charles to the orthopaedic. So we walked to his office and waited with some other guys who had already been there for a while. As no one seemed to be there, we asked the staff who told us to get his phone number from the teller as the doctor had left the hospital in the morning. At the teller they refused to give us his number so we went back and waited. After an hour or some guys came who told us that the doctor had an alcohol problem and was therefore suspended from duty… Very nice… We asked the staff again and were again asked to wait in front of his office. After another half hour we decided to leave the hospital.

What to do? The next hospital was in Masindi, but it was already too late to go there and so we decided to go back home. We spent 20’000 Shillings (~ 7 CHF, ~8 US$) only for the Boda Bodas, which is about the workmates salary for half the week and didn’t get any treatment by now…

I will ask Claudia whether I can lend her car tomorrow to drive to Masindi with him.

I hope his finger will be fine…

 

not exactly inspiring confidence; a scrapped ambulance car in front of the hospital…

waiting at the orthopaedic’s office… in vain…

do the monkey, Charles

Not so long ago Charles and I had to put new tarpaulins on the greenhouses as the old ones were totally ripped after a rainstorm. After we had finished that work I thought to myself that this will hopefully do during my stay in Uganda. But I was wrong; the merciless sun, the wind, the rain and the constantly working woods have already gnawed at the weak tarpaulins, eventually ripping them again at some spots.

When Claudia returned from Switzerland, she brought a roll of strong tape, so I thought that we could stick it at least on these delicate spots. We had to climb the greenhouses again. As Charles is kind of a lightweight, we usually asked him to climb up the roof. I also did it once but I turned out to be a bit too heavy for this roof construction. Anyways, it was time Charles did the “monkey” (that’s how we call it over here) again. As the tarpaulins are usually wet from condensation in the morning we waited for the afternoon to do it. It was pretty hot and the white tarpaulin, reflecting the sunlight disturbs the eyes heavily, but what to do… Charles took off his gumboots and did the monkey. We realised soon that one roll would not be enough so we stopped. That tape is better used next time to strengthen the new tarpaulins before they get weak.

But still, I wonder if it works and for how long…

 

only after two or three months the tarpaulins are already weakened from the weather

Charles doing the “monkey” again to reinforce the weakened spots with tape

a reinforced edge

Cucumbergate

Today I had to buy food at the Eco-Farm store as almost every Thursday. Claudia informed me about some guys that had been given seeds by John, our vet, and would now bring some cucumbers. She had already agreed with a motel in a city nearby to bring 20 pieces of cucumber. In the morning Claudia went to town with Charles for some reason and when she returned informed me that there were already sacks filled with cucumber standing in front of the store. A full sack, depending on its content, weighs between 70 up to 120 kg, far more than 20 pieces of cucumber. I knew that this was going to mean trouble… When I set off with Charles I joked that these guys would speer us if we refuse to buying their cucumbers… In front of the store there were already two sacks of cucumbers, not full but, uhm, I would assume 60-70 kg each. Trouble was in the air…

We opened the store, cleaned a bit and prepared for buying what Claudia had told us. The first guys to come were the farmers who grew cucumber. I immediately told them that we need only 20 big cucumbers as they were told. They then started to complain and moan about us not buying that stuff. Cucumber is not really a local food that they can sell at the local market. The locals actually don’t even know it. What to do? We could only buy those 20 and there were two farmers who had spent a couple of months growing these cucumbers. And as they were told to spray it, they did and thus even had extra expenses… They told me they had each a quarter, respectively two quarters (quarter of an acre) of cucumbers. The harvest of half an acre might probably result in 7 sacks of cucumbers, at least half a ton, which means that it was going to be impossible for us to buy all their harvest and there’s no local market to sell it; they might try selling it in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, but only the transport of the cucumbers would cost a fortune. I was so sorry for them and actually got also a bit angry with John and Claudia. There was no way, I couldn’t buy more than that. So one farmer just left all the cucumbers at the store. He didn’t want to carry them back, knowing he would not be able to sell them anyway. The other was so frustrated that she said she would go home and harvest all the cucumbers to throw them away to - at least – be able to plant other vegetables on the field. In the end they both left, without their cucumbers. Oh dear, what to do with this poor guys and what to do with all the cucumbers? We just didn’t have enough customers to sell them and couldn’t eat them ourselves. I then decided to give them to some local people so they would not just rot in our store.

I was annoyed when I got back home and told to Claudia what had happened. I also told her that this seeding program was badly thought-out. Giving seeds to farmers to make them grow other kinds of vegetables that they would be able to sell for a lot better price than they would get for the local stuff that, firstly, everybody grows and, secondly, usually is on the market in sufficient quantities, if not in overcapacity, sounds pretty good at first. But there’s no market for cucumbers around here as the locals cannot afford to buying expensive things that don’t even satisfy their hunger and the farmers have no idea how to develop a market for these products, so they expected us to buy all their harvest. Of course, they were told that we would not buy all their harvest, but as far as I am concerned, it was predictable to be ending up in trouble. Anyways, this problem needs to be solved.

This was the last time I purchased at the Eco-Farm store, for sure.

rearing pigs is not easy

We have already lost two pigs since I arrived at the Eco-Farm and last weekend a third pig was on the verge of dying, others are coughing or suffering from pain. There’s just too many parasites like lice, worms, ticks or bacteria and viruses that weaken the immune system of the pigs. In combination with the climate this causes a lot of stress to the animals which can lead to death after only a few days.

Pauley, one of the older piglets, suffered heavily from a type of louse that goes underneath the skin and obviously cause a lot of pain. Several times a day he went berserk, squealing loudly, running around and scratching himself on the ear with his legs or on whatever was around, even on his brothers and sisters. After a while he usually jumped in the water and tried to cover his ears with mud, which seemed to soothe him a bit. It was really terrible to see him like that. We tried to medicate him a couple of times but it didn’t work for a couple of weeks. So I told Claudia it was better if we redeemed him from that suffering. We gave it another try and had our vet inject him some medicine. Luckily it worked this time. He is still very small, maybe half the size of his brothers and sisters, and his skin looks a bit different. Maybe it’s because of the genes but we don’t know for sure. A couple of days ago one of the young piglets started to behave in the same way, so we try to treat it as well.

Vicky, who gave birth to 6 strong piglets only 2 months ago was getting weaker and weaker during the last couple of weeks. She became thinner and thinner every day and didn’t eat properly. We thought it was just because of the six piglets that suckled too much. She was already very weak when Claudia had left 3 weeks ago, so I decided to not let the pigs suckle throughout the day and as she didn’t get better I even separated the piglets from her mother completely as they were already strong enough and ate any food. The vet checked on her again and injected vitamins and antibiotics. She still got worse and we tried everything to make her eat. We even tried to feed her manually. One day she couldn’t even stand up anymore and didn’t respond as she used to do. As the sun was shining on her, we decided to carry her inside. I really thought that this was the last time I saw her alive so I informed Claudia in Switzerland. It seemed to end like when I went for Safari and Peter and Lisa (also adult pigs) died in the same way. I again called the vet, who was also supposed to take some blood samples as we wanted badly to find out the cause for her problems, even if it might not help her anymore. For whatever reason Vicky managed to get up and eat a bit again and we were all very happy to see her leaving the pigsty. The vet didn’t come that day, not even the day after. Luckily Vicky was getting a lot better and her appetite seemed to come back. On the third day, after Claudia arrived at the Eco-Farm, the vet also showed up and took the blood samples that we need to bring to a laboratory in Kampala. I hope they’ll find out what the problem was.

Anyways, it’s difficult to rear pigs around here. Even though one provides proper food, tries to keep the pigsty clean, vaccinates, sprays and treats the pigs one can’t be sure that they survive in the end.

How will local people, who usually cannot afford treatment for their pigs, manage to rearing pigs if even we do not seem to succeed in spite of our above average prerequisites and collaboration with a vet?

 

This guy suffers from parasites that are located underneath its skin and cause pain. The piglet tries to ease the pain by scratching on whatever is around, even on things with sharp edges like the fence which caused the wound behind the ear.

Pauley, the piglet next to the gate, suffered from the same parasites. He’s significantly smaller than his brothers and sisters who are at the exact same age

the booze is everywhere

Whenever I walked to the village or went to town I found the streets and places littered with transparent plastic sacks of about size of A6. One day I picked one to find to find out what was in it. It’s content once was 1 dl of high-proof alcohol, Gin to be exactly. I was a bit astonished as they would sell it in sacks but this is Africa. I then tried to find out what this alcohol was made of but I’m still not sure. It’s either made of cassava, a root that they cultivate around here or a type of banana. They sell these sacks at 500 UGS (~0.17 CHF or ~ 0.20 US$), which is incredibly cheap. I’ve asked my workmates about this stuff and they told me that it’s very bad and can make one go blind (but still they would drink it themselves at times). I’ve once seen the effect when a workmate arrived under the influence of - as he said - only two sacks of this hooch.

I don’t want to be a moralist, but it makes me somehow angry and sad that there’s companies who sell that kind of stuff at such a low price and also that the government allows them to doing so. I know that excessive consumption of alcohol is a worldwide problem, even in Switzerland, but at least we may booze our brains away with certified hooch. But what makes me even more sad is the fact, that people spend so much money on alcohol and cigarettes (no matter where they live, no matter how poor they are, no matter how educated they are) while at home their kids have to starve or eventually even die from Malaria and other sicknesses.

Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark…

 

cheap booze in sacks (how pathetic to have a proud chief on the label…)

it’s a hard life

Life in Uganda is not so easy. Most people are very poor and have to work hard for their living. Here’s some examples of their daily activities…

pygmy making fire

fishermen setting off again in the late afternoon

pumping water

people walking to town as there’s no public transport (which they couldn’t afford anyway)

carrying a load of tea

a woman carrying firewood

a teenage girl carrying maize or beans

a young lady harvested some potatoes to sell them at the local market

speer grass for covering roofs…

boda boda transporting… whatever it may be…

some guys loading up goods and themselves for transport…

woodcarvers at work

farm work in the early morning with her kid on the back

no tractor affordable… so there’s hard manual work to do day in, day out

traffic, roads and potholes

The local roads are really terrible. There’s spots and even whole routes that are washed out on both sides so that not even one car fits anymore or some are full of potholes. So whenever one drives here it’s very common to see a car advancing on the wrong side of the road, simply because there’s too many potholes on the correct side.

It’s very much recommended to having a 4WD around here as it’s very likely to having to evade suddenly when busses, lorries or other heavy vehicles cross. For some reason the drivers of the stronger vehicles don’t give a damned about the weaker road users; Darwin’s law rules. So you may find yourself escaping in the ditch once in a while. Bad luck if it’s flooded and you get stuck in there…

Another problem is the risky overtaking manoeuvres who are the order of the day. In combination with the bad state of the vehicles (worn out tyres, ineffective brakes, heavy overload, etc.) this may easily lead to accidents. I had a near death experience during the first few days in Uganda when a lorry at excessive speed overtook another bus and thus was on collision course with the vehicle I was sitting in. When the lorry driver tried to steer back to his side of the rode, his trailer got into skid. I already saw the trailer smashing our car, which luckily did not happen, but it was close…

broke down lorries are very common…

risky overtaking manoeuvre…

the roads are full of potholes

and the rain washes away the ground so that the roads break away. Btw, it’s pretty
dangerous to walk alongside the road and one has to be ready to jump into the bushes
at any time as the cars don’t stop for pedestrians or cyclists…

the sandy roads are even better but very slippery when it rains… but still full of surprises…

cause of the many accidents are driving culture, bad roads and the desolate state of the vehicles

How much is a human being worth?

Last Monday I got a call from a worker who informed me he would not come to work as his neighbour past away. He told me that he died from Malaria. I’ve been living in Uganda for 4 months and heard of a couple of deaths caused by Malaria. Recently a neighbours kid also died from Malaria. I really don’t understand why people still have to die from that disease as the treatment costs only 10’000 Ugandan Shillings, which is about 4 US$ or 3.45 CHF which is about the equivalent to the daily income of one of our workers on the farm. It’s expensive, for sure, but isn’t the life of a child worth that amount?

Fact is, that there’s no vaccination for Malaria and there’s no way to prevent oneself from getting Malaria, even after all those years of research. Even if one uses repellent, mosquito nets, appropriate clothing and takes medicine preventively (which will not protect you from getting Malaria, instead it only softens the symptoms of the disease. In fact it’ll even blur or distort the results from your blood samples that a serious doctor will take before choosing the appropriate treatment), one can still be infected with Malaria which is - without treatment - still a fatal disease. Let alone most Ugandans cannot afford any of these measures anyway.

There’s plants that can be prepared as tea or dried and consumed in capsules that seem to cure the disease but it seems to be too expensive to get the approval to sell it as medicine as the necessary studies are pretty expensive. It also seems like the pharmaceutical industry shows no interest in doing the necessary work as they’re more interested in selling specific active substances they can extract and then have it patented. So why wasting resources on researching a ready-made medicine from mother nature which may not be patented later on anyway?

There’s been promising field tests in other African countries with Artemisia annua, a plant that can even be cultivated in the affected areas, which seems to be very effective in Malaria treatment. So, who knows, maybe one day no more people will have to die from Malaria as they will just grow their own cure?

Well, how much is a human being worth? – Not even 4 US$, obviously…

building techniques

Local builders use wood instead of steel poles to support the structures to be built. It looks kind of adventurous and the buildings don’t ever seem to be level  in the end but it appears sufficient anyway… Anyways, some of the temporary support constructions almost resemble works of art that we build up mostly temporarily for prestigious events like the Expo and others of the same kind which usually cost millions of US$… Maybe next time we’ll just hire some Ugandan labourers…

 

I wonder if there was a structural engineer involved in this construction…

wasn’t there a similar construction at the Swiss Expo?

slashing, weeding, trimming

Whenever I walked on the paths at the Eco-Farm lately I found myself ducking and getting out of the way because the bushes and trees grew rampant during the last few weeks. Even the paths around the beds and patches could hardly be distinguished from the planted areas. I could already imagine Claudia rant “These people…!” and thought that this place needed some serious slashing, weeding and trimming. So I got me a slash, sharpened it and took off to my personal crusade, determined to fight the weeds to the death. I chopped and slashed like a manic, pushing myself forward towards and through the brave bushes. One could see twigs flying through the air and heavily bleeding bushes giving way; it was a massacre. But then the bushes surrendered after a hard fight and so I put my slash down in exhaustion. I panted and - when I got back to my senses - looked around and realised what trail of devastation I had left. Twigs were spread all over the paths and beds. So I exchanged the slash for a rake and tried to clean a bit. Later I also picked the hoe and cleaned the paths and some beds from the weed. When I was totally soaked, I gave in and put the tools in the shed and quenched my thirst with some boiled water, then took a “shower” and prepared supper, took the pigs in their sty and went to my hut to read a  bit. I slept well that night.

 

As the paths were blocked with bushes that grew rampant, I thought it was time for slashing

even the lemon grass needed to be chopped… what a nice smell in the air…

a lawn mower would have been nice or at least a scythe… but a slash did the job as well…

one man, one slash

I also needed to trim some trees

then I cleaned some paths with the hoe until I was soaked

BBQ

I had just sent in my proposal for establishing a new charity in Uganda and my fellow workers worked hard recently and supported me very much since Claudia travelled to Switzerland, so I thought it was time I offered a BBQ. I asked Dennis to go and buy some meat, ginger, spices, sticks, capatis and sodas. When he left I started doing some weeding at the farms entrance as it was getting bushier every day. I don’t know why but it took Dennis 5 hours to return; This is Africa. Anyways, we had to prepare quickly now. Alfred prepared a grill, filled it up with charcoal, poured some paraffin over and lit it… I knew immediately that this was not going to work as I had become a semi-professional fire maker since I travelled to Uganda. I knew that the paraffin would just burn and disappear while the charcoal would remain cold. So I waited a minute for the fire to extinguish, then started again and produced nice glowing coal only after 15 minutes.

In the meantime Charles and Dennis prepared some potatoes and the meet. They washed it, cut it, prepared a marinade of garlic, ginger, salt, oil and lemon, rubbed the meat with it and put it on giant sticks. Dennis had brought 4.5 kg of pork so every stick had speered about 600 g of meat… Phew, the sticks I was used to are nothing compared to those! But Dennis is always hungry and he was grinning all the time while preparing the food. Moritz, our dog, couldn’t resist sneaking in the kitchen, trying to snap his share before time so we had to put him on the lead. He didn’t like that at all and demonstrated this by howling heart-rendingly.

As the grill was ready and so the meat on sticks we let it roast. Soon the place was filled with a nice and familiar smell. This seemed to have attracted other people as well as – all of a sudden – our vet John and Norman, some other guy from town showed up. As these guys tried to get closer and closer to the grill, so I started joking and drew a line in the soil and named it the “no Norman beyond this point”-line.

Soon the meat was ready, as well as the potatoes and the capatis, so we could let the fest begin. We enjoyed the meal very much as well as the refreshingly cool soda out of our new fridge, that I christened for this event. So everybody was happy and full. Then all the guys disappeared as most of them wanted to watch the football games of that night. So I cleaned a bit, checked on the animals and prepared myself to going to bed.

 

while waiting for Dennis to return from shopping, I did some weeding in the entrance
of Eco-Farm for it was getting very bushy

heating up the grill

Dennis preparing the meat and grinning; that’s how a happy man looks like

as he tried to get his share before time, we had to put Moritz on the lead

marinated meat on sticks, also called Muchomo, African style and size…

sizzling… what a nice smell…

Norman was getting closer and closer to the grill…

… so I drew the “no Norman beyond this point”-line in the soil around the grill…

… which seemed to make him a bit unhappy…

Charles and Alfred guarding the meat

last preparations…

finally the food was ready to be eaten… who’s first?

even Norman got his share and would not let the plate getting out of his hands…

a happy vet

bon appetit!