A Successful End Before a New Beginning!

It’s been an exhausting few weeks in Kitovu, with Sarah being kept busy with baby unit work, as well as doing a lot of training (running four one-day adapted advanced paediatric life support courses (APLS) in a row, as well as running several training sessions for staff on newborn resuscitation).

Amidst the joy and excitement of the opening of our baby unit, some people have commented that Sarah’s “dreams have been realised”.  Well, no, they have actually been exceeded!  The unit is working really well, the nurses are doing a great job caring for the babies and keeping the unit spic and span, and babies’ lives are really being saved.  What’s more, we recently got the very exciting news that a hospital in the States is planning to donate C-PAP machines to our unit, which is fantastic.  C-PAP basically puts a continuous air pressure into the baby’s lungs, so that the lungs never collapse down at the end of a breath, thus making the next breath much easier (bit like blowing up a balloon that still has a little air left in it, rather than an empty balloon).  Having just watched a tiny baby really struggling to breathe for a week before he finally improved, we could not be more delighted! 

The beautiful little premature baby who tried to die during our training has thankfully agreed to stick with us, and has been doing very well indeed, making us all laugh with how active she is.  One minute she has been put carefully into her incubator by her doting mother, the next minute, she can be found on the other side of the incubator, with her bottom squashed against the plastic case!  It's been quite a journey, and finally this week, she is ready to go home with her maama, so we have reluctantly said our goodbyes. 

Miracle Baby aka Umasharama, 
ready to go home!

Having previously lost 3 newborn babies, Maama Umasharama is very happy to be taking 
her gorgeous baby home! 

The end of January saw the climax of the Synergy Cup. Unfortunately some teams and their supporters once again made life difficult for us as organisers leading to us needing police, armed with shot guns and tear gas, for some matches. Thankfully our Synergy teams managed to dispatch these opposition so that both of our senior teams reached the senior final, and one of our junior teams reached the junior final. Synergy lost the junior final 2-1, but with success guaranteed in the senior final we saw our reserve team beat the Synergy first team on penalties when it remained 1-1 after extra time. 

Synergy Saints celebrate their
 Synergy Cup triumph!

3 Days later Synergy then managed to win another tournament organised by an official from the Buganda parliament. It means that as we commemorate Synergy's first official birthday, we have 3 trophies acquired in the last 2 months to crown our celebrations! Praise God!

We are making final preparations to head back to the UK, in anticipation of a new beginning with the birth of the little creature who keeps kicking and punching Sarah.  We are hoping that British Airways will not consider her too fat to put on the plane, and are considering attaching a notice to warn fellow passengers, much as this considerate truck has done for its fellow road users (complete with typically appropriate Ugandan spelling!)

So, as a two, we bid Uganda “adieu”, and look forward to coming back as a three this summer!

And finally...

You know you’re in Uganda when....

1.     You tell everyone you are going to start training at 8am, but end up sitting by yourself looking like billy-no-mates until well after 9am when people finally start ambling casually in! 

3.     A staff meeting is interrupted by an urgent phone call, and one of the directors has to dash off! Is a family member sick? No. Is her house burning down? No. Her cow has fallen into a ditch and needs to be rescued!

4.     You see a boda boda (motorcycle) driver with a helmet attached casually to his handlebars.  When asked why he’s not actually wearing the helmet, he looks perplexed and says “Why would I?  It’s not raining!”