reflecting

The challenges in Uganda are so basic, most live without electricity and running water. Transportation other then feet and bicycle is rare, unreliable and unsafe. I actually enjoyed the simpleness of all that including being mostly confined to a few square kilometers and bathing from a bucket with the water falling back to the earth. Eating simple and only water a tea to drink. What I felt was really lacking was education, educational materials and information. There are no newspapers, books, computers, or other media commonly available. There is radio but the programing is not informative or educational. SO for example pregnant woman would not commonly know how many weeks is normal for a pregnancy. While I imagine most girls in the western world would know this sort of basic fact, there a woman having her 5th child may not know that. I gave the parish priest a rosary from Lourdes in France and he had never heard of Lourdes and was only vaguely aware of France. This isolation, perhaps a reflection of my own ignorance of so much of the world was the hardest thing for me...where do you start with education around basic health issues never mind deep healing . I saw many healthy babies born and much physical healing. I saw death, people who waited too long for help, others who could not get transportation to appropriate care.People often comment "how wonderful you went , you must have saved so many lives" Maybe, I aided in the saving of a few lives I am more hopeful that the teaching I did for local midwives might result in saved lives. However in general the culture is very timid and afraid to take leadership in situations that require bold action. There seems to be is no interest or idealization of being heroic . For example we flagged down a bus to transport a woman who needed to get to the hospital, the bus driver was not happy about it at all . When we went a few days later to inquire at the hospital if she had made it...well they had no record. So we do not know what happened. I wish I could have stayed longer and I wish I could go back I felt I was making some good progress. I was translating basic health and midwifery concepts into the local language. Repainting the Mary and Jesus statues in the local church - spiritually this was a high point. To tangibly repair the symbols of spirit and healing that had been damaged was gratifying. That is another thing I did not like was the dis-repair of so many buildings and the lack of effort to design or make pretty the surrounding environment, but again motivation to act and effect change is very low in general , almost seemed like a cultural thing. However people were very responsive when anything was made nicer or easier. Thanks for reading and if I go on to other adventures I will keep posting...