UgandAshis 16: Teaching

UgandAshis 16. Teaching.

Kampala, Uganda, June 6, 2009.

Teaching.

Fort Portal, named after a pompous British administrator who never even visited the place lies on a nice elevation. It overlooks Rwenzori mountains and has lots of rain and matooke (plaintin). As there has been findings of oil it is likely the place will boom and bloom. And of old there is the tourism; an abundance of animals (gorilla, baboon, chimpanzee, leopard, lion, kob, spider monkey and a range of birds) and flora can be found. If I make time I can visit some of the wild life parks over the next weeks. I would love to see a gorilla in nature. Or spend a day listening to birds and monkeys.

Talking about monkeys; monkey king or mister monkey is the name the kids have given me here. As I call them monkeys so do they me. A lot of wild life conservation is being done in this area and it is necessary.

The hospital and the clinical officer medical school take up most of my time in Fort Portal. For example this week I did a 3 hour ward round with about 25 students followed by a preparation for their final examinations. We reviewed the clinical examination and looking at the clock it became clear we had been discussing for nearly three hours. Today I added another two hours of theory on diagnosis and treatment of common medical conditions in a hospital setting. To keep them awake I shower them with questions and do a jiggy (dombolo) once in a while.

At the end of the day I ran in to the principal of the clinical officer school. He had booked me for examining in the clinic around 30 (?) students in what is called long and short case. Then I bumped in to the course organizer of the public health school. Next week we meet on Tuesday to see how we can prepare the New Public Health in a bachelor’s course at the Half Moon Monkey Mountain University.

All in all enough there is enough to do for a while. And then I am meeting up with some other local NGO’s with international roots. One of the organization’s founder’s is becoming a close friend and fellow entrepreneur. She has set up a beautiful primary school with boarding facilities and is thinking of constructing buildings for a secondary school. As it is now many children leave around 04.00 am to reach school before 08.00 am and after school they walk back another 4 hours. In theory there is universal primary education, free schooling for all, at least primary level in practice a small contribution is asked for each trimester, as well as uniform money, books, note books and pen/pencil and lunch fees. Despite the total fee may be about $50 only for all expenses for many parents that is out of reach and children stay home until part of the harvest is sold.

In the end most people living in the rural areas have a very low income. Yesterday in the state of the nation President Museveni declared the average income to be $440 dollars a year. Many do not reach $35 a month or just more than a dollar a day. Oil has been found in Lake Albert region, quite a lot in fact. Straight away there is an issue as the government wishes to build a refinery and a oil pipe line through Kenya but have no funding to start the project. The explorers of the oilfields are smaller oil companies and do not have the cash either so they want to export the raw unprocessed oil. The final question will be if the average Ugandan benefits from the rich resources found in the country. Sad news is Uganda scored a third place in Transparancy International Corruption Index.

Namaskar,
Ashis