VHW Goodbye

Friday, the 19th of June marked my last day participating in our weekly village health worker
trainings.

This past year I've taught lessons, helped write curricula, created the schedules for the days, and played with adorable babies while their moms take exams. So, at the end of that final training day, Sam -- the hospital's senior Clinical Officer and our close friend and colleague -- brought me in front of the group to announce my imminent departure. Sam orated in Rufumbira as only he can and then opened the floor to me, standing by to translate.

Nearly twenty adults sat in front of me who had devoted the last two years of their life to public healthcare. They had given up their Fridays to hitch rides into town for eight-hour trainings; they gathered at twice-monthly tutorials to review topics they had learned; they put their domestic and professional lives on hold whenever one of our staff came to their village to conduct a census or check up on their work. They are, in short, incredibly committed individuals. I felt, standing in front of them, suddenly very small but bursting with appreciation.

I told them that this year in Kisoro, working with them, has been one of the best years of my life. I  told them how proud I was to have worked with them, to watch them grow as healers and teachers. I thanked them for welcoming me so warmly. Then Naomi, the VHW from Mugwata, stood to address me on behalf of all the VHWs. Sam translated for me her words of effusive thanks and kindness and well-wishes.

I don't like goodbyes and minimize them whenever at all possible. But standing in that training room that we had all grown so used to together, there was nowhere else I would have rather been. It was one more clue (and they have been mounting these past few weeks) that I will miss Kisoro more than I ever would have guessed. This place and these people have shaped themselves into a home for me our of sheer kind-heartedness.

When these VHWs graduate from their training later this August, they will each be outfitted with a well-stocked "doctor bag" and vested with the authority to care for their neighbors' aches and pains, dress their wounds, counsel them through difficult times, and refer them to the hospital when a situation is serious. Their villages are lucky to have them.

Afterwards, I received more warm thanks and wishes for a safe journey. I was also made to promise that I would greet all my family from them. So, family, the VHWs of Kisoro send you their best. And I can tell you that their best is outstanding.

Back:Jane, Sam, Agnes, Emma, Naomi, Me, Domitira, Emma, Amos
Middle: Jovia, Juliana, Jesca, Dorothy
Front: Oliver, Ben, Amos, Nathan, Benon

Fresh Beans

Katrina, tireless advocate for her patients that she is, received recently an enormous sack of white potatoes as a “thank you” from a patient. In the sack, resting on top of the potatoes was a plastic bag full of long, cream-colored bean pods and so the gift was that much sweeter. The next night, one of our good Kisoroan friends came for dinner and brought with her a bag of more beans as a gift. We were suddenly rich.

The next day, home from hospital work, I decided to try to make food from these bursting bags of plant seeds. Our friend, Charity, had shown me the method of shelling. You hold the pod with both hands and use your thumbs to split along the seam, then run one thumb down the open pod to push out each bean into the pot in front of you.

When I sat down to the effort, I remembered a woman I saw in a village called Buzeyi, a long ride from town spread on the rising slope of Mount Muhavura. She saw in her courtyard, a tangled pile of bean vines studded with crisp, dry pods within arm’s reach. As we spoke with her husband about managing his Parkinson’s, her gaze was fixed gently on the horizon and her hands automatically took pods from the tangle and, with easy fluid motions, split and spilled the beans into a woven basket.

I tried to emulate her that afternoon as I shelled my own beans, affect her unconcerned gaze into the far-distance, and work my hands in a series of quiet, efficient movements. It takes practice, years of it no doubt, to work with a bean harvest as deftly as this woman and each bean requires a slightly different effort.

Some pods are fresher and firm with moisture. They split, in my maladroit hands, in rips and flakes. The drier ones open willingly with light pressure from your thumbs and reveal the 5 or six bean fruits inside. Each bean – I was delighted to discover pod-by-pod – was unique and colored from a prismatic palette. Large zebra-striped beans, small ones white as teeth, mottled purple ones, grey ones bruised with orange, a few dusky blue, and one perfectly golden bean. Their dark, withered pods gave no clue as to the quality of these precious stones.

To cook them, I sautéed a base of shredded carrots, onions and smashed fresh tomatoes – all from the previous day’s market. Splashes of balsamic vinegar (one of the imports we implored Katrina’s parents to bring over), stirred in with our sturdy wooden spoon, deglazed the pot of the sweet carrots’ burned caramel bits. Four pinches of homemade chili seasoning from Ben and Molly’s wedding went in and a few shakes of salt. I dumped all of this into the huge pot of shelled beans with cups and cups of water.

This simmered for most of the late-afternoon and by eight in the evening, we ate the beans over rice. The pigments had cooked out of them, but the beans were tender, and suffused with the rich, red broth they had bubbled in for hours. We ate on the porch under candle light, ate our fill without reservation. The simple market ingredients were all we had needed.

Mood Lighting

We had our friends Robert and Charity for dinner

We've had three lovely second-year medical students staying with us -- Madeline, Sarah, and Hope. We welcomed them with dinner on our porch the day they arrived. On that night I had a vision.

Our porch has one high-wattage fluorescent bulb that gives off a powerful, cold glare -- not dinner party lighting. For months we have been amassing a small battalion of washed-clean glass jars, presumably awaiting re-use. I was almost sure we had twine tucked away somewhere, and long candles can be had in town for 8 to the dollar.

The next morning, I sat down to cobble my vision together. I found twine -- inexplicably knit into what must have been a rude fisherman's net or a hammock for a kitten -- and spent an hour untangling it into usable pieces. I removed the labels from all our glass jars in soapy, scalding water and stared to bind their necks with twine and take measurements for the lengths that would hang them from our porch rafters. By mid-afternoon I had ten glass lanterns neatly hung.

We've so far lost one to a tilted candle that burnt into the glass and shattered the jar, and lost another to a flame that licked too eagerly at the hanging twine until it snapped and crashed to the porch. No one was injured :) I've trimmed the candles to keep their flames just below the lantern rims and filled the jars with sand to keep the candles straight.

For the past week or two, we've all gathered on the porch for dinner under the twinkling glass lights, pulling the couches close to eat and talk into the night. Most nights we light a fire of charcoal in our clay stove and watch the embers crackle and settle into deep oranges and astral whites and, of course, we roast marshmallows.

Gorilla Tracking!

This is THE thing to do in Kisoro. The town largely survives on the strength of a fairly constant stream of tourists stopping in town for the night before setting out early in the morning to the rainforests that surround the Virunga mountains. There, after 4 or 5 hours of hiking, guides lead you to a family group of the famous mountain gorillas. We had held off taking this adventure until Katrina's family was in town.

Only a few hundred of these unique, massive creatures exist on the planet and they're all in these forests, grazing through the slopes of these mountains. Their numbers are on the rise thanks to the increased attention and protection brought by the boost in tourism over the last twenty years when gorilla tracking started. This was preceded by a three-year period in which trackers and guides of the Ugandan Wildlife Authority were slowly introducing themselves to the 6-8 gorilla family groups of the forest, carefully and gradually habituating the gorillas to the presence of humans until they regarded us as common, nonthreatening features of the landscape.

That said, serious precautions are taken to make sure that humans and gorillas never get too close to one another and that we never do anything to agitate them toward aggression. Just watching a mature male mountain gorilla sleepily rip down a small tree to chew on the leaves is enough to inspire a healthy sense of fear and trembling in the heartiest explorer.

We made it up and down in one piece, all six of us (including three guides, one policeman [almost all with AK-47s], and two trackers who met us at the gorillas) and we'll never forget the harrowing climb through the mountainous forest nor the hushed, awesome hour we spent in the presence of these secretive colossi.

Our guide Wilbur tells us what to expect...and to tuck our pants into our socks to protect against ants

We had to climb up the side of a mountain to reach the entrance to the Impenetrable Forest

That road on the left hill in the middle distance was our path up, and there was still plenty to go

Approaching the edge of the park 

And we're in! Dense jungle all around

Nearing the gorillas, we had hiked up into the clouds

Our very first sighting: a napping Silverback -- the head male of the group

...and a timid baby peeks out from a tree

One of the mothers of the group

The gorillas move into the low brush

The Silverback and a baby hiding in the top-right corner

The happy couple

Lake Bunyonyi at Bird Nest Resort

Katrina's parents arrived a few days ago and, after a day touring Kigali, we drive 3 hours up into Uganda to stop at the magnificent Lake Bunyonyi. Katrina and I had been here back in November but this time we all stayed at the lake's premier resort: Bird Nest. A place of legend that all Kisoroan medical students dream of spending a luxurious weekend at. It does indeed live up to its reputation: Ice cream, wi-fi, cable TV, lake-view balconies off of each room, dozens of inspired menu options...

Aside from lounging at the resort, we took a boat tour around the lake. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story of this beautiful place.

Charcoal Cooking

Our kitchen is equipped with a fairly enormous tank of propane, so big it's only needed refilling twice since our arrival in September. Well, a few nights ago, part way through boiling pasta, the blue flame of the burner went out with a puff and we knew the tank was empty once again.

There was, in a far corner of the porch, a traditional Ugandan charcoal stove. It is terra-cotta, shaped like an urn with an area up top to pile in charcoal and a cavity beneath to light the initial flames that ignite the coals. When, months ago, our friend Jackie invited us over to teach us how to make some traditional foods, she insisted that this method -- over the slow, even heat of red-hot embers -- was the only way to do it right.

With some patience, charcoal, torn up scrap paper, and a lot of blowing, we got the coals ignited and just enough heat to finish off the pasta and a little sauce. Once the charcoal bloomed fully red, dinner was over but conditions were perfect for toasting marshmallows (hundreds of which had inexplicably accumulated in our kitchen). And once you're toasting marshmallows, why not add bits of chocolate and graham crackers? It was a decadent, relaxing, and decidedly old-fashioned way to end the evening.

Another Early Morning Hill Walk

I was up uncharacteristically early this Saturday morning. I put on my new hiking boots and decided to take advantage of the newly-rising sun to walk up crater hill, something I'd not done in a while.

Just past our house, down one of the main roads into town

My ultimate goal!

At the end of this side road where you turn into...

This nearly hidden-away side path

You pass a few homes, along with their cows just having breakfast

The view from the top into the crater

A rare view of our four closest volcanoes

And one picture to ensure our parents' we're alive and well. <3!