Okavango pantomime under a mango tree

Grant is off playing poker tonight, so I am enjoying a free night to myself...and figured we are due for a blog post. He is more creative with his posts, but since he is so "busy"...

Over the last couple weeks a lot has been going on between getting a new roommate, sending people off on their holiday travels, good and bad news at work, and experiencing more and more of life here in Uganda.

Rugby - Our new favorite spectator sport, which our friends here have turned us on to. We are learning the rules and getting better at heckling each time we pack into Bubbles for a game. We watched a heated Ireland vs South Africa game after which our SA friends disappeared and the Irish bought multiple rounds of shots for everyone in the bar and displayed some fine Riverdance and obnoxious acapella Irish ballads.

Holiday desertion - The expat community is slowly dwindling as the holidays get closer, and it seems to be the goal to send each one off to the airport hungover, or better yet, still drunk.

We are out with Gareth for a "quiet beer" the night before he flies home to the Kingdom of Dundee for the holidays. This is also the first foray on Bubbles for our new roomie Allison...and her first flaming Sambuca shot, whoops.

Uganda/MN exchange - Just before we left MN, two Ugandan medical students arrived in Mpls to do clinical rotations at Hennepin County Medical Center. Francis and Joseph came over to my house in NE and out to dinner with us in Cedar-Riverside as they settled in. A few weeks ago, they arrived back in Kampala beaming about their experience in MN. We are grateful to our friends for showing them a good time, and for Dr. Stillman for really making their hospital experience worthwhile (Francis does a spot-on impersonation!). They want our experience in Uganda to be just as rewarding, and they took us out for pork last week where we talked at length about some important topics - health care and beer.

Fembots - Grant did mention last time that we went to an Austin Powers party while he played in a poker tourney. But what he missed was the work Miriam and I put in to make those costumes! We went to THE Owino market, Pioneer Mall, and all the shops down by the taxi park to find each piece - from lingerie (trying them on over our clothes), to fuzzy material aka winter hats (explaining "fuzzy" turned out to be harder than we thought), to formal gloves (wedding shop, obviously), to wigs (no blonde to be found), to tinsel and bulk cotton. After relaxing for a minute with an expensive Cherry Coke from Ranchers, we went home and assembled it all. I wish we had pictures of us cutting and sewing and stuffing and turning Miriam's living room into a sweat shop.

Quiz night - Again. Fortunately, we did not win this time. But...interesting questions answered correctly by us:

Where do Panama hats come from?

Ecuador - still reaping royalties of my previous expat life

Which is the only river in Africa that does not eventually reach the sea?

Okavango - our friend Glen just left Kampala for Botswana and left us with this timely little factoid.

Pantomime - Myself, being so well-versed in forms of theatre, had no idea what a pantomime was before arriving at the Kampala Amateur Dramatic Society's holiday play. It turns out that guy sitting behind us, with his lewd comments and actor-bashing, was more informed than I was. When I figured out what was going on, and had time to read a summary of the plot during intermission, the second act made much more sense. A few friends and their children were involved in the production, so a group of us girls went to support and do something different on a Friday night while our male counterparts were at the casino.

Dinner under a mango tree - Our friends Martin and Mar-Louise Maybergh invited Grant and I out to their house in Bugolobi for dinner on Saturday. It was a beautiful night (I think there was a snowstorm in MN that day) to sit in their yard, under a mango tree, with amazing food, cold drinks, and wonderful conversation.

Luganda - This is a hard language to learn - there are 21 verb classes! We had an "exam" last week and realized just how far I have come in the past couple months...

Work update - Someone once told me they could never be a farmer because so much of your livelihood depends on unpredictable factors, like the weather. Well, 'tis the world of research where everything depends on grant funding. The research team Grant and I work with has a few grants pending with various institutions across the globe, all relating to HIV/AIDS patients and Cryptococcal meningitis (a nasty infection that is quite common in our setting). Good news is that we received a perfect score on a grant application to do neurocognitive testing on these patients! Grant is working on developing the exam and materials to be used in testing these patients. Hopefully, he will be able to start seeing patients as early as March! However, the grant application for the project I have been working on, when to start antiretroviral therapy in the same group of patients, did not get as high of a score and will likely not get funding before we are set to leave in June. What this means is that I will still be working on preparing for this trial - developing forms, revising operations manuals, and piloting the process - but I will not be around when it actually starts. Kind of a bummer that I won't be able to do the patient-care part, which is a great learning experience and the part that I really love about clinical research, but now I am able to devote some time to other projects. I want to finish the project I started the first time I was here - addressing patients' and families' bias against lumbar punctures to improve patient outcomes. And now I am very interested in getting some information on the burden of Cryptococcal meningitis here in Uganda. I actually have a list of 7 or so projects that I may work on, so although things have changed, I will still be contributing to the big picture. And let's face it, do things ever go according to plan? The beauty is in the journey and all the twists and turns that guide us to where we ultimately belong, and I am thankful for every step and every opportunity.

Grant and I in front of Mulago Hospital and the IDI in our short white coats

We have just a few days of work left before our holidays officially begin and we leave for Tanzania on Sunday! We will be visiting our friend Imee in Dar Es Salaam for a few days and then spending the rest of the time in Zanzibar with Maiken, Phil, Katie, Ryan, Christine and Brandon! Before we take off though, celebrations every day this week...Melissa's bday lunch at Javas, Mar-Louise bday dinner at Mamba Point Italian, and IDI end of the year party.

I am rounding up lots of beach books to bring with to Zanzibar because that is what I plan to do for the next 2 weeks! We should come back well-rested and ready to attack those projects in full-force. I am also starting my public health coursework in January, online, and looking forward to some formal training in such an important area of medicine!

Kampala Marathon - November 22, 2009

The IDI, where I work, put together a team for the 2009 MTN Kampala Marathon. Over 100 people signed up and the reception secretary, Connie, put everything together for us. She even set up outside one day to hand us all our "kits," a nice cloth bag with a race brochure and map, visor, race jersey, bib number, and race chip. This was a seriously big deal. Something like 18,000 participants signed up and it was a sight to behold on race day!

Four hours after getting home from the crazy fun of the SAWA ball, I was back up and getting ready to run. All the madness was starting at the Kololo airstrip and my chances of meeting up with friends before the race looked pretty grim. The race program stated the full marathon was going to start at 7:00, the half-marathon at 7:15 and the 10K (which I was running) was slated to take off at 7:30. That seemed a little ambitious for me, so I strolled up the hill to Kololo at 7:10 and to my surprise, the race had already started! There was still a mass of people waiting in line, and I found Sabine, Yuka, and Jen near the gate. Nobody seemed to be organized by race, so everyone just took off at the same time - although taking off is an exaggeration as we had to walk for the first 5 minutes because it was so crowded.

As we approached the starting line, the inflatable gate started collapsing, but did not deter the thousands of people ready to run (or walk, and I saw a couple people with bikes and someone on rollerblades!).

We ran out of Kololo and out onto Acacia Avenue at Bubbles, past Latinos, Khana Kazana, Casablanca, Protea (site of the previous night's escapades), and down toward the golf course.

Here is the mob going past the golf course club house, with the advertisement for the marathon looming above the road. I have to give credit to Ben Ho, who encouraged me to photodocument the whole race. I first thought it would be absurd to try and carry a camera during a race, but his advice was wisely taken and I will post here are a few choice pics.

My running partner Jen Orkis! I was happy to have a friend to run with and we had a blast with the camera. This was probably not the best idea to take our eyes off the road, considering the condition of Kampala's asphalt, to do an action self-portrait.

After climbing the final hill on Acacia, we turned left and went down Yusuf Lule past Garden City Mall and the new Nakumatt Oasis Complex.

At Centenary Park, we turned onto Jinja Road, past Hotel Africana and trekked down to the Lugogo Mall.

Coming up the Lugogo Bypass, I saw my friend Heleen. I sprinted to catch up and get in front of her to take this action shot. I convinced her to move to the lane on the other side of the median which was less crowded, to run with Jen and I. But soon after, we got reprimanded by some officers and had to jump the drainage ditch to get back...whoops.

Just before Kira Road, we turned back into Kololo and made our way back to the airstrip along Prince Charles Drive. The race is almost over, and the road is still packed!

The finish line is in sight!

Post-race was hectic. As you saw how many people were crossing the finish line at the same time, they were having a little trouble with crowd control. Then, they were giving out free water bottles when you turned in your race chip, and it turned into a mob! People were pushing and grabbing - my race bib got torn off as I was trying to make it out alive.

The IDI had a tent, and Connie was serving up samosas, cake, and juice! It was so much fun to see our colleagues out for the race.

Good work Sabine and Jen!

Nice shirt Heleen! And Sanne was sporting some new Ugandan tennis shoes for the event.

More members of the IDI team!

I was honored to have participated in such a uniting event, with thousands of Ugandans running beside myself and each other! The camaraderie after the event was amazing (minus the fighting over bottles), and am thankful to Connie and the IDI for setting it up for all of us.

Attack of the Fembots

The last few weeks have brought some changes as our friends Elena and Sheida have returned to the US. We have spent a lot of time with them, both in Kampala and "up country". We miss them already and want to wish them the best of luck during their residency interviews. Taking Sheida's room in our apartment is Allison (coincidentally from Minnesota) who is here for about 3 months working for a NGO. Our friend Glen, an internist from Winnipeg, also left and is probably back in Canadia by now after spending some time in Botswana.


Ann and Glen his last night in town.

Last week Ann and I got the opportunity to play some basketball, which we have been missing during our stay here. Our friend at the IDI, Sam, has been inviting us to come play so we joined him at Makerere University for the teams he coaches' (one girls, one guys) practice. I assumed we'd be shooting around, maybe play a quick game. I was wrong. On the way there Sam, who is quite soft-spoken, joked "are you ready to run". I laughed. Apparently he was serious. So yeah, we joined the college kids in their practice including all the drills, sprints, etc. I wasn't ready for that. So after a few days of recovering, we joined him on Friday after work for some 3-on-3 and 4-on-4 before his guys team had a game. So before the game was about to start, he handed me his whistle and told me I was refereeing the game. I was hesitant, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. It was tough as I was all alone and really have no experience refereeing basketball. Sure, I've played for many years and know (most of) the rules, but I guess I wasn't sure if I'd do a good enough job. It was controlled chaos, but I think it went pretty well. I ended up doing this past Friday's game as well, which was even more difficult considering it had just rained. Being that the games are played outdoors on a tar court left for some slippery conditions.

Last week was Thanksgiving, and we were fortunate to have a place to go as the head of research at the IDI is American and invited a number of the us at the IDI to her home. Her family had purchased a live turkey that roamed their yard for a few weeks before slaughter...truly free range. A very nice meal and we even got to watch a little football! Of course it was the early game (detroit vs. green bay) as we're 9 hours ahead of Central time. I don't know how I'm going to see the Vikings in the playoffs, but I really hope I can figure out a way. Especially if they get to the Super Bowl!

Last night Ann attended an Austin Powers theme party and I played in another poker tournament. Ann was a fembot and won the prize for best costume. I won the poker tournament and took home just over $1500 (3 million Ugandan shillings). So far I have played in 3 tournaments and have finished in the money in every one. It's a nice source of supplemental income!


Miriam and Ann in their fembot costumes.