Greetings from Soroti!

Well, now that we have no visitors things have been a bit different. We are free to camp in the bush without feeling bad about not taking proper care of visitors (I don’t count anymore :-P), so we spent another night there. We went in the early afternoon and started at the dam. From there we walked to the village and to the army barracks. We discovered that a good amount of people are moving around back there during the day… either gathering firewood or grass for roof-thatching or making charcoal. There are some “paths” that go from near the dam to the village that Punzel must be using to move around. It seems like she’s staying in that area but there’s still no sight of her. The land looks so vast when you’re wandering through the bush… grass up to your shoulders, thorny trees as far as you can see and mountains in the background. Seems like she should be right there on one hand but it seems like she could be anywhere on the other. So we search and search, calling out into the sorghum fields and across the plains. This time we brought her son, Tutu. When we first got there and Val called out for Punzel, his ears perked up and he looked around as alert as I’ve ever seen him. He even stood up from the spot he had found in the shade of a tree… which was quite an accomplishment considering the effort it took us to get him going in the heat of the day. We literally chucked him into the pond to get him all wet where he proceeded to just lay and drink water in that position until we almost dragged him out. Once we got going, though, he was alright and he followed along in the “paths” we created through the grass. After searching around there we proceeded to the Army barracks and wandered for a while to leave Tutu’s smell for Punzel to recognize. We saw a bunch of footprints in the area, but probably the same ones as from last week. As we followed them, they led us in circles and under trees and into piles of rocks or sticks and we concluded that Punzel was getting some hunting in. They had recently burned the grass, which should have released lots of little game (mice, lizards, etc), providing Punzel with, hopefully, some good meals. Tutu would stick his nose right into the center of the footprints and take in the scent of his mother. Unfortunately, he’s not exactly a tracking dog and that’s pretty much where he left it. We’re gonna need someone with some more experience (I hear Val’s sister, Holly, may have a candidate?! Can’t wait to meet you soon! :-P) to help us out in the search…
That night we stayed in our mosquito coffins again. Luckily Limlim decided to keep the rain away :-) and we only got a few drips before we went to bed. We spent some time in the vehicle… on our computers and listening to music. I played a song for Val - Nielly, that’s why I asked about the name of our song… Worth it All by Rita Springer. It was very fitting for the occasion as frustration set in at our lack of success. We don’t always understand why things happen, but God does have a plan and I think He knows a bit more than me anyway :-P Funny background fact for the rest of you… Danielle and I always listened to this song while studying for orgo tests at about 3am the night before. There’s NO way you’re going to know it all and you don’t want to care, but we figured if God wanted us in med/vet school then He was going to take care of it. We didn’t need to overstress about it – just put forth the effort we had and it would be worth it! “I don’t understand your ways… but I will give you my heart, give you all of my praise” So that’s what Val and I did. We know that God knows best – that He will take care of Punzel and He can bring her to us if that’s His plan. But we just need to trust Him and thank Him for what He’s doing and know that… It’ll be worth it! (I would copy the lyrics for you but I have no internet, so feel free to google/youtube it with your super fast connection that I’m jealous of :-P) Anyway… the next morning we couldn’t stick around too long but we did one last loop and then dropped the Army men off because they wanted to help. We dropped them at the dam and they walked back to the barracks from there. Can you picture six armed guys in camo walking in formation through the bush calling “Punzel, Punzel…”?! I think it’d be a funny picture.
Oh, two more interesting facts from that trip. So Val and I have this thing… we need some more research done. During the time we were out, Val got about 28 ticks on her and no mosquito bites. I, on the other hand, found ZERO ticks on myself and got about a thousand mosquito bites. This has been consistent over the whole time I’ve been here. I have a total of one thousand bites on each of my feet (yes, I totally counted :-P) and Val hardly has any. I’ve never once in my life found a tick on me (I will now that I wrote this, but I’m risking it) and Val finds them literally all the time. It’s quite strange. I think someone should do some research on this. And fact two… while we were sitting near the dam letting Tutu get some rest in the shade I decided to play with this little weed that was growing nearby. I broke it off and some white stuff came out (like a dandelion). So of course the (logical?) thing to do would be to smell the white stuff. Okay, so no idea what made me do that, but it’s a good thing I did because otherwise I would have missed out. The second I lifted it to my nose I was transported back to my childhood. I felt like I was sitting at the kitchen table, just getting over a cold, with a bowl of chicken noodle soup sitting in front of me. The weed smelled JUST like Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. I’m not even kidding. (Though I may be about my childhood, cause I don’t really remember getting Campbell’s so often… I think Progresso is much better. But it didn’t smell like Progresso. It smelled like Campbell’s) I looked confusedly down at the weed, broke off another piece and handed it to Val. I could see the facial expression as soon as she lifted it to her nose. Guess what she thought it smelled like?! CAMPBELL’S! I think it’s there secret ingredient. Though since we had that thought, we decided to take a taste. So that was not the smartest idea, because it totally didn’t taste like chicken noodle soup – it was SO bitter and it actually made Val’s tongue hurt for the next couple days. But anyway… it was ridiculous how much they smelled the same. SO random.

Last weekend there was an Ordination at church. CLIDE works with the Church of Uganda pretty often and that’s where Val and I go while in Kangole. So four men were being ordained that day – it was a HUGE celebration. One man was becoming a deacon and the others were lay readers. I don’t entirely know what those mean but they’re pastors or church leaders of some sort. Basically they were completely committing their lives to ministry, which is a big deal because from then on they will pretty much get no income and be very poor. The ceremony was about 6 hours… mostly of speeches and singing/dancing. Val and I brought our little 10ish year old friend, James. He’s the one who we have do random things around the house because he just wants to help out. He also feeds some of our random pets while we’re gone. We give him some food or something little once in a while, but it’s cool how he really just wants to help out – with nothing in return. He speaks very little English, so communication is limited with him, but he was around in the morning before Church started… standing there barefoot in his little ripped up tan shorts and t-shirt – just like always. So we decided to bring him along to the ceremony. He sat next to us in the district officials section. They always make us sit up front with the “important people” so it was cool for James to be able to join us. He is pretty unexpressive, but it was fun to be able to take him past all the other kids and bring him up front. I was thinking how if it was in the US… the kid would have thought you were punishing him for something. He sat there for five hours listening to people talk. I was on verge of falling asleep (then again, I also had no idea what they were saying :-P) but James just sat there listening. During some of the Bible reading, I handed him the Karamojong Bible I had acquired and Val led him through word by word as they spoke. James doesn’t go to school – I’m not sure if he has at all, but it’s very likely that he hasn’t – his family probably can’t afford school fees. It was so neat to see though… when they had finished the reading, James continued to look at the Bible and try to read the same passage. You could see his little brain hard at work trying to decipher the words he just heard.
After the ceremony there was a feast. Which, of course, brings up some interesting foods. They had everything and it was a gigantic buffet table kind of thing (which was good because I could choose a bit what I wanted to avoid). But then Val told me of something I just had to try. I knew this was bad news, but I couldn’t actually avoid it – then what stories would I tell you all?! So it’s called Emuna. It’s a traditional “food” of the Karamojong… they used to make it for their long nomadic journeys because it would stay for a year. (I say the reason it “stayed” was because it was already rotten, but you can be the judge of that). So… Emuna is made by first taking a slab of meat and removing all the fat and tendons from it (not so bad!), then hanging up the strips in the shade outside for three days so it can dry with flies all over it. Then they boil the meat to remove the rest of the fat (or it would go bad), then dry it and pound it into meat powder with a mortar and pestle. After drying it again, you end up with a nice fluffy mound of meat to which you add gee. If you don’t know what that is, it’s fermented butter. Niiiice and oily and… well… fermented tasting. Then you pound cucumber seeds, sesame seeds and/or ground nuts (aka peanuts) into powder and add it. When in season, termites are also pounded and added in for a delicious additional flavor (thank God, they were not in season). Then you add sugar to taste and stir it together for… ummm… a… taste SENSATION. Awesome. And there is your high energy travel food, ready to go on a long raid or nomadic journey!
A couple days later, the emuna may have been put to use when we heard gunshots in the center of town. What a surprise! Raiders had come to steal the hundreds of cows that they gather together in one unprotected area in the middle of town. In the safety of our foot-thick cement walled hut, we listened to the raid go on down a couple of blocks. You can almost see the whole story play out… first there are some real fast one-after-another gunshots from the army’s machine guns. Then a few single shots shot by warriors who have to conserve their bullets. They are not so accessible these days because there is a disarmament project where the Army takes away all the Karamojong’s guns (and then sometimes sells them back to make some money :-P). So they have to get them from Sudan and it is harder than it used to be. So you can tell who’s who pretty easily during the raid. The gunshots would stop for a while and then a few more and then they slowed down as the raiders ran into the bush and hid from the Army amongst the tall grasses. Then we heard an APC (armored personnel carrier) drive by, pursuing after the raiders and the animals they had managed to capture. I’m not sure how many they got in the end but luckily the army did find them before they took all the cows of Kangole. I don’t think anyone got killed, either, so that’s good. But it made for an interesting night, listening to what would be fireworks in the states under a nice protective grass-thatched roof. We did stay inside, though we don’t have any appealing animals in our compound, so there’s not much of a temptation to come in.

So now… a week or so later… we are down in Soroti. Val had some meetings here and then on the way, the vehicle decided to fall apart, so we stuck around a bit longer than expected! The stabilizer bar for the left rear tire just kinda fell off (the bracket broke). So that was when we were about 2 hours from Soroti. We couldn’t really stop there, so we tied it up with rope and prayed that it would hold the tire on! It was a bit of an interesting drive… going about 10mph and we couldn’t turn right or it would pull on the rope and break it. And then after a little, the bar moved forward more and was stuck so we really couldn’t turn right even if we wanted to. And the bearings were all worn out from this little issue, so basically our rear tire was barely held on. About 1.5 hours later we got to the next town (amazingly still with four tires!) where someone was going to rescue us. We parked the vehicle with the police and carried all our stuff to a restaurant where we waited for our ride. Eventually we made it to Soroti, where we’ve been since last Thursday or something. The vehicle finally got fixed… well… “fixed” and was brought back yesterday. It was a miracle they found the replacement part here in Soroti, but it still needs some work, so we’re going to go to Kampala this weekend and get it serviced. Hopefully we’ll make it without a problem! So Soroti has been relaxing… I’ve been running in my running skirt, bringing my Ipod so I can pretend I can’t hear all the hollering as I run by the guys. There are also lots of cute little kids who yell – which is… better… but still not entirely appreciated cause you can’t go ANYWHERE without feeling like a one-person parade! The word “bye” turns into a two syllable word around here. “by-yee, by-yee… mzungu by-yee” I hear over and over. Or “mzungu how are you? How are you?”. So I say “I am fine, how are you?!” and they get SO excited to use their four English words that they know. “Fine!” “goo-d by-yee!” The ladies are sweet because they get really excited/embarrassed if you talk to them. It can be fun… but tiring to do so much interacting when you just wanted to run. Or walk to church about 50 feet away – it can take like 20 minutes to get there!

Anyway… my hope is that maybe with Kampala internet connection I’ll be able to put up some pictures?! Not sure if that’s true, but I will try my best! I hope things are going well back in the states. I miss you guys. Thanks for the prayers and everything!

Everything always goes as planned.

Well… the plan was to drop Dr. Julie at the airport in Moroto on Monday morning, stop by the office for an hour or two to get a few things done and pick some stuff up, head back to Kangole to pack and leave for Soroti to get there by late afternoon, when we would get to the MTN store to try and get the internet working. We would stay in Soroti for a day and leave early on Wednesday morning to get to Ngenge for the afternoon and start phase II of their livestock training.

It is now Tuesday night, and let’s see how the plans are coming along. Monday morning Julie had to be at the airport (30 mins away) by 10:30 for her flight. We woke up around 6am, plenty of time to pack things up before breakfast at 7:30… at this point we didn’t know the time of the flight because they only tell you the morning of, and the earliest we would have had to leave was 8:30, so we were playing it safe. Sunday at Church they had announced that an older lady had died the day before, and the service was on Monday. Having one of the only vehicles in Kangole, Dr. Val was in charge of retrieving the body of the lady to bring her to the Church for the service. Luckily these days we have a driver named Lowok Godfrey, who has been extremely helpful. We also were going to be needing fuel because basically all of Northern Karamoja has been out for weeks. There was one place not too far away that had the only supply anywhere in the area and the prices were therefore through the roof. So Lowok left around 8 to do some errands. A while later he brings back a bag of tree sap that someone he ran into gave him to show Val. It is special sap… and the secret ingredient for Coca-Cola that the Karamojong have a lot of access to. We are trying to get woodlots started and turn it into a real business… Coke is requesting it from them by the truckload, but unfortunately it’s hard to harvest enough at this point. This man wanted 50,000 shillings for his kilogram of sap (it’s worth more like 2,000), so Val sent Lowok back to inform the man. He then had to figure out the fuel, but the man wouldn’t sell a small amount because he “didn’t have time for that”. So instead, he came in the truck with Lowok back to Dr. Val to discuss what to do. We ended up just buying 200,000 shillings worth from him despite the ridiculous price… not much you can do when you need the fuel! After that, Lowok went back to pick up the body.
Meanwhile, Dr. Val, Dr. Julie and I are at home finishing up our tea, trying to get the modem-man to help us with our internet issues, and bottle-feeding/medicating the goat kid that we had obtained a couple days before. We discuss all the interesting things happening so early in the morning. Lowok driving back with a dead lady in the truck (probably not in a casket yet) to finish the errands before the service starts. Bathing with frigid water at dawn, cleaning goat feces off of my skirt and then bottle feeding a kid before breakfast. And I almost forgot… how could I forget?! You all want to know what breakfast included, don’t you? Well. The night before we had had a going-away party for Julie. Well, it was that combined with a celebration for Uganda’s independence day (that was Saturday, but we had gotten home too late to roast the goat we had picked up on the way back). We had bought this black, good-looking male goat for 65,000 shillings (about $30). Our watchman is the one who slaughters and roasts our animals for us and in exchange he gets to keep the head and the hooves (don’t ask me how that’s a fair exchange… that does NOT count as payment in my book). We had a fun little party that night. I had a great time because somehow the intestines had gone missing by the time it came out to the table and I somehow got away with avoiding the liver… there wasn’t enough so I was generous enough to share it with the others. But anyway… back to breakfast. The next morning we were looking for a saucepan to warm up the leftover rice with. We were thinking we’d turn it into some version of rice pudding when all of a sudden we found the missing intestines. Turns out they had reserved the best part for the hosts of the party! Awesome. So what do we do with them? We have no fridge so it’s not like we can save them for dinner; therefore, they had to be eaten. For breakfast. I was sitting there smelling… well… intestines, thinking about the rice pudding that had sounded so tasty. There’s also more leftover meat, so we have to get rid of that. Val drops a piece of rumen on my plate and I groan with enthusiasm as I scoop some plain cold rice on my plate to drown out the taste. Some potatoes were cooked in with the intestines, so I mistakenly think it’d be a good idea to have that alongside. Having been cooked in that mixture, they tasted just like intestine juice and are covered in grease… just what I wanted for breakfast. I take some goat meat – sadly a relief from the piece of rumen that I had choked down. I rip through the meat, trying to avoid all the fat that’s left and the leather that surrounds it. They cook it in the skin, and then eat that too. But it literally is leather and trying it once was all I needed. It was still covered in hair anyway… so appetizing. Course two of breakfast did include some makeshift rice pudding… so much better. Topped with semi-alcoholic bananas. We had obtained an entire bundle including about 84 bananas while we were in Kapchorwa the weekend before, and were doing our best to eat them all before they were entirely rotten. We’d been giving them out to people all over the place, but in nearing the end, they had been beginning the fermentation process and were a bit off. You just can’t waste these things with so many hungry people around. So that was breakfast. Then, when we were about ready to leave, we realized that Lowok wasn’t back yet. Julie wanted to pick up some Karamojong items before heading out, but time was running low. By the time 10:00 rolls around (the latest we should have been leaving… and that without having any time to shop), the vehicle wasn’t there and we decided to call Lowok. It turns out while he was out the police decided to take him in. He’s in some way a leader in his community of the village and they had had a problem where an alcoholic lady decided to poison a bunch of people by putting pig feces in the local brew, resulting in many people getting sick. Lowok had been dealing with this issue for quite some time, but now the police wanted to talk to him I guess. So there he was in the police station when we needed to leave to catch a plane that was taking off at 10:30. He managed to get back to a semi-frantic Dr. Val by 10:15 and we rushed off to Moroto. Dr. Val drove because she’s preparing for a future in Land Rover racing through the African bush. We got there in a very impressive 15 minutes. The plane flew in at pretty much the exact time we drove up to the runway. Yeah, that’s how it works… they land, they put your bags in the bottom (NO security) then you fly off. So we sadly parted ways with Dr. Julie.

Wow. That was just the morning! We then headed to the office. I will omit some not-so-interesting detail here for the sake of your day. Basically, we didn’t leave the office until 3 or so. We stopped a couple places on the way out of Moroto to find milk to feed to our goat kid and were too exhausted to stop and get lunch so we decided to have a redo of that wonderful breakfast for lunch. There were stilllll leftovers. When we arrived in Kangole about 30 mins later, we opened the hut to find our little Juliette sleeping… permanently… in her little basin home. :-/ It wasn’t so much of a surprise… she hadn’t looked so good that morning and she had had pneumonia like her twin sister when we adopted them. It was very sad to lose my first two adopted kids, but we decided to do some exploration to find out what had happened. Dr. Val and I took our surgery kit and did a necropsy on the little thing. She still had diarrhea all over her because of the cow milk she had to take since their mom had died after the birth. We found the intestines semi-inflamed, but not bad. The cause of death was determined to be pneumonia due to initial force-feeding of milk by her owner. (Many times we find people who don’t understand the whole swallowing reflex thing… don’t hold the tongue out and pour liquids down an animal’s throat!) At the end of our necropsy and after identifying and evaluating each organ (yes, Niells… we examined the kidney well… and I told Val about your obsession :-P), Dr. Val blew up the lungs. It’s quite a fun experiment next time you all find a dead animal. Just cut out the lungs and blow into the trachea. It’s like balloons! It also showed the pneumonia well. We then gave the carcass to some kids nearby who were excited to have a good lunch to roast up and we moved on to our lunch. A semi-repeat of breakfast except that I managed to avoid the innards and just have the real meat (and a taste of leather). The dogs got all my scraps (LOTS of fat and skin and a femur bone) and the kids (who had been voluntarily doing some work for us) got what was left of the meat. Eventually we got ourselves together enough to leave for Soroti.

On the way to Soroti, around 5:00pm, Dr. Val got a phone call from the Ugandan Army commander. I think I mentioned before that Val lost her dog in the bush right before I got here… about 2.5 months ago. Well, it turns out someone had spotted her again the night before! Which was crazy news… it’s insane that she would have survived this long, but from the descriptions it was definitely her. We happened to be driving by the place Punzel was seen on the way to Soroti and were going to be there in about a half hour. So we met the commander and a bunch of villagers there, including the lady who had spotted her, just as it was starting to get dark. We broke out whatever flashlights we could muster up and searched in the recently burned off grass for about a half hour. No sign of Punzel. We did see some adorable Bush Babies (google them, they’re so cool – though I hear, quite evil). We wanted to search more, but it was too dangerous in the dark, so we decided to spend the night sleeping at the Army barracks. The funny part was that we hadn’t exactly planned this, so it’s not like we had a tent. The closest thing we had were these two “coffin” things. They’re mosquito nets that are tubular and you sleep inside. If you are claustrophobic, you’re in trouble. We set them up in the dark… next to the commander’s tiny hut. Looked quite entertaining… two coffins with net/see-through tops on top of a folded up tarp which we used as a form of mattress. My name being Nakiru (born with the rain) we were worried we might get poured on. Luckily, that morning a lady had given me a second name… Limlim (meaning one who brings sprinkling/light rain) that goes with my first. Oh, we also had no food with us except for some Matoke bananas, so that was dinner… and no water because the borehole had disappeared with the darkness and we couldn’t find it. At about 3am, I woke with a start. Raindrops were beginning to fall on my head. I knew what could be coming and Val and I rushed up and flipped the tarp over our coffins. Great. Now they were essentially flattened and we were going to be rolled up in a tarp the rest of the night. Quite a sight. Luckily, my new name did us some good and it did not end up pouring, which would have created a puddle between the two coffins… probably completely soaking us and our blankets. We managed to maneuver ourselves back into our coffins with our roofs touching our faces… but we both fell back asleep and woke up with the sun at about 5:45 to some minor puddling at either end where the tarp didn’t quite cover. My toes were frozen but it wasn’t so bad. Since we hadn’t brought any clothes for this adventure, we didn’t have to do much. Brushed our teeth with no water… ate another matoke for breakfast and got ready to search the bush with 5 army men. We spread out and managed to find some of Punzel’s footprints. Unfortunately we couldn’t follow them long because the grass then became over our heads. Trekking through in a skirt and sandals, pushing tall grass and unseen thorny bushes aside with my ankles, we searched in procession for a couple of hours. We ended our loop at the local borehole where I rinsed the mud, sweat and a little blood off of myself.
We all walked back down the road to the army barracks with a few kids who had been fetching water. They joined us in the call “Punzel, Punzel!” but still with no avail. Val and I had decided that next we would do a “quick” drive-by at the dam where she had been seen at one point as well. Only problem with that was that the vehicle wouldn’t start when we got back to the barracks. It has two batteries, but one was non-functioning and the other was not doing well either, so we have had issues starting it multiple times. This time we thought we were in luck because we had a bunch of army men around to join in the pushing. We pushed and pushed, trying many times to start it. We got out to the main road and thought we’d be set then. There was a slight slope going down, making our pushing easier, but we still had no luck. Another vehicle drove by a while later, but of course, someone had permanently “borrowed” Val’s jumper cables so that was no help. They still pulled over and tried to help – everyone suggesting different things that were wrong and looking for the battery under the hood (aka “bonnet”) when really it’s under the passenger seat - so they weren’t much use :-P We kept trying and after a lot of groaning and on about the 4000th try, it started! Only problem then was that the fuel started pouring out from the fuel pump. I reached down through the cascade of diesel and tried to tighten the bolt but it wouldn’t turn. We had to turn the vehicle off again. Val got down and removed/replaced the bolt, praying that it would work. Covered in fuel, we tried it again and it started! I looked and saw that the fuel was staying in its appropriate location! YAY. We thanked everyone for their efforts and discussed what to do next. We decided to still go to the dam, but that we would not turn off the vehicle again! Especially because it was a ways off the road and then we would be stuck in the bush far away from civilization.
Finding the dam was an adventure as well. The “road” consisted of a path that Val had made about a month ago by driving the Land Rover through the bush with someone walking in front of her to tell her where she should avoid a stump or a rock or a termite mound or a ditch, etc. So we didn’t want to stray from that path… there was another path made by an APC (armored personnel carrier = tank) that we found first… but discovered it was not the right one when it proceeded to go right over a medium-sized tree that had been knocked over. We turned around and eventually found the partially flattened trail that was Val’s “road”. I got on top of the vehicle to watch for Punzel as we drove out maybe a kilometer or two to the big pond created by the dam. No luck, unfortunately, but at the end we got out and looked down at the water. We were still disgusting and sweaty from our trek through the bush and that algae-covered, extremely turbid water looked quite appealing. We decided that we were actually wearing our swimming skirts (and shirts… and shoes) and went around to where we could check out the water. It smelled a little funny, but not funnier than we already did. The vehicle was still running because we still were not daring to turn it off, but since absolutely no one would ever be back there we didn’t need to worry so much. We jumped in the water and did a few laps. I had to take off my swimming shoes because they were quite awkward but I avoided the bottom. I had to sneak in some butterfly, and Val even made quite the valiant effort considering the amount of drag we were wearing. We both fooled around for a while and called out to Punzel, telling her she should join us. After a while, we returned to the vehicle and changed into whatever other dirty clothes we were able to find… at least they were dry. A few minutes after we finished changing, two men come up to Val’s side of the vehicle (suspicious timing, huh?...). One of them is holding an axe, and they talk to Val for a little bit while I stay on the other side of the vehicle… we didn’t really want to do any bargaining for cows at that point. They talk a little about the dog and rumors about where she’s been and then they leave. Val and I find an orange and an overly-ripe avocado that we had in the truck and give it to them in appreciation of their “information” (basically we just try to make friends with anyone carrying a weapon!). We’re thinking they’ve probably never seen an avocado so I wonder if he tried to bite into it like an apple… yummmm. They didn’t speak English, so we couldn’t do much explaining. They went on their way with no trouble.
Val and I decide to head out after a little more calling and honking the horn for Punzel. We spread some leftover burnt posho around the area that we had found on the ground at the army barracks so Punzel would have some food. I ride on the roof to keep a lookout and make sure our sopping wet clothes don’t go flying off since they were drying on top. We eventually get to the road and decide we need to move on to get to Soroti. After a quick stop at the borehole to rinse off a little and get a sip of hydration (and then help a construction guy load about 20 Jerricans of water into the truck so we could take them down the road for him) we were on our way. We were supposed to arrive in Soroti the night before (Monday night) and start the animal training in Ngenge on Wednesday morning (a 3-4 hour drive from Soroti). God knew we needed a break, though… Val got a phone call about an hour down the road saying that they guy we were working with in Ngenge would rather have the training be just two days, starting Thursday morning instead. We were relieved. We stopped in Iriiri to grab some lunch and met a few hundred people who all knew Val and had questions and requests for her. Eventually we made it out… ate some Chapatis and beans and were on our way. Last leg of the journey… we were going to make it! About 15 minutes out of Iriiri we had to let off some people who had hitched a ride in the back of the truck and some guys came up to the window trying to sell us some sticks. They had very pointed ends and I wondered if they were daggers (why were they selling those on the side of the street?!). As I looked more closely and as Val was looking interested, I noticed that there was a string attached to it and a loop at the bottom. Then it clicked! They were rat traps. I had seen one demonstrated a while before… it’s quite an ingenious construction, actually. Not sure I can explain how it works, but hopefully I’ll bring one home… we got 6 of them (for about $2). Basically you stick it down in the ground, where there is a path that the rats take, and a loop is formed at the bottom that when they get their heads in it, it will tighten around their neck. Then you have dinner! Awesome. I can’t wait to try! :-P Once we bought them we were determined to make it to Soroti.

We drove a couple hours and were getting close when we saw a lorrie that had driven off the road. It’s not an uncommon scene, but this didn’t look good. People were gathered and the lorrie was sideways in a swamp/pond down from the road. We opened the window to ask what was going on. They said all the people were out but they needed help. As we pulled up, I saw why… it had been carrying a bunch of cows. They had been tied up in the back of the vehicle… packed in – maybe about 15 total. A number of them had gotten out and some were swimming to shore as we came over, but there were about 5 still stuck. We locked the vehicle and Val ran down to try to help… her veterinary oath kicking in. I shut the window in back and as I was catching up to Val, I saw a woman standing there shaking from the cold – she had been sitting on top of the lorrie with a bunch of other people and had been thrown in the water when it went off the road. The driver had already run away from the scene, knowing how much trouble he would be in, leaving all his passengers to fend for themselves and to try to rescue the cows as well. I wanted to help this lady but now the car was locked so I run to find Val and get the keys. When I get behind the lorrie, Val is already in the middle of it all and she’s yelling for me to bring a knife. I take the keys and run back to the vehicle. I unlock the door and find my knife. As I’m about to leave I quickly find a towel to give to the lady. Relock… and run to the scene, wrapping the lady with the towel as I run by. Val is nowhere to be seen as I get to the back of the vehicle, so I follow suit and jump into the water… with my second swimming skirt of the day. People yell, warning me it’s deep and telling me to be careful. I, of course, ignore them (I think I might be able to swim :-P) and slide down the slope in my sandals and skirt right into the water. It’s up to my waist as I walk around the side of the vehicle (well… the top… which had become the side as it sank into the pond). As I turn the corner, the scene is quite amazing. Val takes the knife to free one of the cows whose head is barely above water. There were five or six total and they were all tangled in one another and in the frame of the vehicle. Val hands me back the knife and I put it in my pocket (covered in manure and swamp). She tells me to hold up the head of the cow to keep it from going under again while she and another man try to pull at various legs and tails and free it from the mess. I hold it up by the nostrils (surprisingly, quite a good grip) and as I’m standing on one bar of the vehicle and the side of another cow that was already dead, they extricate it enough for it to be freed. There was one more living cow, but it was under some dead cows and in a very awkward place. I hold it’s head out of the water and then pull on one of its legs while Val and the man move another dead cow and try to get the other end free. I hope that it doesn’t decide to kick me and try to stand far enough forward that it won’t be able to and eventually it is able to struggle its way out of the mess. They pull it to shore while Val and I determine that our work is done. We follow the cow’s path to get out of the water. As I’m following Val, climbing up the hill behind her, the men yell for the knife again. Not sure why, I quickly pass it up to them and when I reach the top I see why. They were slaughtering the first cow we rescued to sell the meat! There were at least 3 or 4 dead ones and we wondered why they were killing the one we went through so much to rescue. Eventually we discovered that it had collapsed when it got out of the water, so we felt better. I guess they can get more money for the meat if it’s slaughtered, as opposed to it dying by itself. During the rescuing process, we discovered that the men didn’t know that cows breathe through their noses or something. They kept letting the heads fall underwater and that last cow had been dunked a few too many times. The man who was slaughtering it kindly went down to the water to wash the blood off my knife and returned it to me. We headed back to the truck… taking a few soaked passengers who were also headed to Soroti. Unfortunately the lady was going the other direction, but we were able to help a few guys, one of whom had a pretty good gash in his arm. Our duty done, we start on our way. Unfortunately, Val’s towel had been the one closest to the top, so I may have given it away to that lady :-P But we found some things to sit on and laughed about how ridiculous our day had been. We were… for the second time… covered in nasty swamp. And this time, we both smelled like cow manure on top of it. As we continued to Soroti, we decided that instead of going home right away, we should go into town to get there before all the shops were closed. We needed to go to a store and get the internet fixed since we hadn’t had any in about two weeks. We were quite the sight going into that store – I picked some swamp grass out of Val’s shoes and got some manure out of my hair before entering. We got the modem fixed at the last second – they were very nice to let us in the store when they were trying to close! And then we headed home. There’s even electricity in Soroti so we heated up some hot water on the stove and Val took a bath while I bathed mug-style with my nice hot water :-) And it was good. So as usual, that day went just as planned!

Internet is back!!! Catch up time...

Dr. Julie Kyle from Vermont came in last Monday (okay, that’s three Mondays ago now… what little internet we had before died for a couple weeks) to work with us. She is planning on doing long term missions and is checking out a team with Africa Inland Mission (AIM) in the Western part of Uganda (Mbarara). She came a couple weeks early to learn from Dr. Val and see the work she’s doing up in Karamoja. So this past week has been a bit different… the few days after she got in we were doing some rabies vaccinations for the dogs and cats of the area. Tuesday was International Rabies Day so the DVO (District Veterinary Officer) had organized for a big vaccination day in Kangole (where we live mainly).

I have made a few local Kangole friends. They’re actually going to school in Kangole – a couple of them are from different parts of the country. But I met them at the borehole (where we get water). Normally we have a lady who works for us that does the cleaning and water-getting and things like that but she was sick for a while and so I was hired to fetch the water. Yes… I carried it on my head! And yes, I entertained the whole town! I have heard that when people go into long-term missions their first goal is that for the first year they are there to entertain the local people. Basically you are supposed to attempt the language and the culture and that will result in MUCH amusement for the locals. I have already accomplished this goal in large part. Every time I go to the borehole there are tons of kids around getting water. They all have a Jerrican (plastic – normally 20L or 5 gallon capacity that weighs about 40 lbs) according to their size – it’s cute. The little little kids, even the 4 and 5 year olds have their mini Jerricans that they even carry on their heads. So the first time I tried it I dropped it in about 20 meters. People have been impressed that I can carry it but I have NO idea how they can balance it without hands. They use NO hands. It makes NO sense!! I need both hands and I’m using them constantly… by the end my head and neck are fine but my arms get so tired! After that first drop I have been much more successful – it is getting better balance-wise but I still can not at all picture being able to balance it without hands. Also… I tried carrying a gigantic bundle of bananas today and I’m pretty sure it is a disadvantage to have such slippery hair. The bananas were harder than the water – they totaled about 50 lbs probably! But I did succeed – they tried to get me to stop and take it from me a couple times but I was determined to make it to the car! And I did :-) But I will from now on be using my slippery blonde (“corn silk” – which, as I’ve told you, mom, is not very accurate as that is extremely sticky stuff) hair as an excuse for not being able to balance things on my head. So anyway… our time in Kangole was good. There was one little puppy that had been punctured by a stick a while before and it’s omasum was coming out of its abdomen. That would normally not be a good thing – and wasn’t – but the puppy had been doing a fine job of sealing it off. Meaning it was nice and necrotic by the time we got it. We gave it some ace and local anesthetic – it was definitely still awake but was semi-okay with the procedure. Then we carefully started pulling at things to make sure they weren’t intestines and sewed it back up. Gave it some antibiotics and it was on its way with its owner the Mzee (respectful word for an old man) who was a sweet man and knew no English. He looked like he must be blind the way his eyes were half closed and shrivel-ey, but he waited so patiently for us to attend to his puppy and when we were done carried it away in his arms. We were able to go see him the next day and the puppy was trailing on his heels as he walked and sitting on his feet when he stopped. The pup was doing well after surgery :-) We were actually in his area of the village for another interesting call. A couple nights before some warriors had come into his home to try to steal some animals… Many people have dogs in the area, but they are almost never for pets. Their purpose is to be guard dogs and almost all people are scared of their own dogs and they beat them and things. But this time the warriors had come in with an ax and had axed the dog on the head. We were called to check on it, but no one could catch the dog so we only saw it from a distance. Unfortunately we couldn’t treat it from that far (if anyone has a dart gun up for grabs maybe that would help :-P) but we did see the wounds on his head, neck and back end. We may be able to help him at some point when we get back if he needs it. Oh, another fun/interesting one we had a bit earlier… There were two dogs that had been shot with arrows (same sort of deal with the warriors. One still had the arrow in it and we still have it as a keepsake. The wounds were on their backs – one went all the way in and out of the side and the other just went in but both were pretty shallow and didn’t go into the abdomen which is really good. We flushed them both out and helped them continue draining. Gave some meds to get the maggots out and hopefully they will heal up well. We saw the one that went all the way through a few days later and it was looking good – but that one would drain better so I hope we can see the other sometime to check on him. They started this thing in Kangole where at night they bring all the cows and goats and sheep into the center of town. That way if warriors come they can’t enter from both sides – there is only one way in that they can guard. The army is refusing to protect the animals like they used to so this is the “best” solution at the moment. Not sure that’s actually the case considering the attraction thousands of cows would be to a bunch of raiders but we will pray they don’t decide to come try and take over the town one night! Luckily that’s why we have cement walls and a guard and a big compound (with no attractive animals… so don’t worry) :-)

Anyway, we decided to spend the weekend up in the mountains - in Kapchorwa. We needed to go meet up with a couple of people from the US working as missionaries with some Christian coffee organization. I think it’s funny that that exists but it may not only be for coffee… but one of their ministries at least works with the people of Kapchorwa who grow lots of coffee. They have a disease this year that we are going to try to help them with. Dr. Val has been doing work with the Karamojong with Ethno-Veterinary Medicine – she works “together with” (that’s a very common phrase that I find entertaining) the traditional healers here. Over the years they have come up with lots of treatments for their animals using the plants that grow around and now they are doing research to make them into modern medicines. It’s actually REALLY cool. There are meds for things like retained placenta and microplasma pneumonia that are really effective and we don’t even have in the states. There’s a ringworm oil that we are going to try to use for the coffee disease. It’s a fungus called “Leaf Rust” that is destroying the crops this year. It’s very possible that our ringworm oil could work. We’re going to look into making a spray that they could use. The problem is that the only other treatment they know of is some sort of copper/heavy metal treatment that would be detected in the beans and cause them to be rejected leading to huge problems from lack of income in the already impoverished area. The ringworm oil would cause no problems in the beans so we are praying we can get things together and help them out asap! So they’re working on getting about 20 of the Karamojong medicines patented and on the market. Problem is that it is a really expensive project – about $1000 per medicine and no one has that sort of money around here. There are more than 200 potential drugs right now but they have narrowed it down to 20 to pursue… eventually – once we manage to get funding!
So Kapchorwa was SO beautiful. You are on top of a big mountain and Sipi Falls is there. There are three different waterfalls actually on the Sipi River. We hiked to two of them. I really wanted to go swimming but the water was too high at the first fall – you couldn’t walk down far enough unfortunately. The second time we were hiking I forgot to bring my swimming skirt! It was really sad :-( Yes, you have to swim in a skirt. There are some tourists around that area so it wouldn’t be quite as big of a deal there but we try to blend in with the culture and it would not have been acceptable to be in any form of a bathing suit! So we hiked down the mountain and through a cave that went behind the falls in our skirts and sandals and with a gigantic hiking stick (essential as a third leg because of the muddy/slippery paths). We got some interesting pictures of that I think. There’s a photographer, David, with us now doing some documentary kind of stuff so I’m sure he got some good ones!

As a quick summary/update because I now have two posts to put up as there has been a long time with no internet… we went back to Ngenge (bottom of the mountain from Kapchorwa) the next week to do an animal training with the people. They were a great group – very enthusiastic to learn about their diseases, ways to prevent and general health issues. It was part I of a two part farmer training… the next one is more details about each disease in the area. One fun story… while I was working with my group of about 8 guys, we were wandering through the village deworming their animals and we came across a lady who had a sick goat. I had to bring Dr. Val back to look at it later, and after carrying the old think outside we noticed that it was verging on giving birth. She was having no contractions and couldn’t stand up because she was so weak. We gave her some food and calcium and multivitamins to revive her a little and get the kids moving. Dr. Julie did a lot of assisting but eventually they came! The first was an adorable little thing… tricolor spotted goat. The second was mostly white but also had some color and maybe would have more as she grew. The next day we came back to check on them and to hopefully adopt the kids. Val and I had talked… the goat mom had no milk and couldn’t even stand for the kids to suckle if she had had any. The owner was going to have to feed them cow’s milk every four hours, which she didn’t have the time or money to do. So we decided she would want us to take them off her hands! We dropped by on our way out of town to see and sure enough, she did! The mom was on verge of death – she was really old and had had many successful kids, but it was her time to feed the family now. We took the adorable little babies home and started bottle-feeding them. They were both having some issues… the lady had kind of force-fed them the milk by pouring it into their lungs, so we soon discovered the pneumonia was really bad. The little one (named Chorwette meaning Friend in the local language) especially was not doing well. We medicated them the best we could, but unfortunately my first kid did not make it through the night. The next one (named Juliette after Dr. Julie who had delivered them) was looking much stronger than her sister. She would wobble around the ground and started to suckle enthusiastically on her bottle though her breathing was still a bit off. Her story will continue during the next post…