What have we let ourselves in for?
The journey from Entebbe to Kisiizi took us twelve hours; we enjoyed looking out of the car windows admiring the luscious green scenery & the beautifully rustic Ugandan villages, in between napping, as we travelled increasingly remotely, & the roads became increasingly windy & bumpy. We stopped off at the equator on the way to take the obligatory photos, & marvel at the water swirling different directions down the plughole on the different sides of the equator. With Uganda being on the equator sun light hours are reliably between 7am & 7pm, & it rises & sets quickly within a few minutes.
Kisiizi is a small rural town in South West Uganda that has grown up around the hospital. The hospital was built here in 1958 because there is a waterfall that provides hydro-electricity & a water supply. The sound of the waterfall can be heard out across most of Kisiizi. It sits in a beautiful green valley lined with forests, plantations, crops & mud huts. There is an amazing array of exotic looking birds who sing from morning till night, particularly first thing in the morning, so we’re now getting used to being woken up by birdsong. We have a particular favourite who has a call that sounds a bit like a computer game. And when the goats join in & the cockerels are cock-a-doodle-doo’ing, there can be quite a racket. To accompany the birdsong, there is a large drum that sits in the hospital grounds that beats out across Kisiizi several times a day, the first time being at 6.30am in order to waken everyone for the days work ahead.
Kisiizi has recently started trying to establish itself as a tourist destination, & they have built a Visitors Centre, a zip-line over the waterfall & a lagoon for kayaking. Kisiizi has a dark past, it used to be the site for throwing girls, with their hands & feet bound, off the top of the waterfall & to their death, as punishment for becoming pregnant out of wedlock. There is now a moving statue that was made by a local artist in memorial of this close to the waterfall. The money made through tourism is then used to pay for healthcare in Kisiizi Hospital for those patients that cannot afford it.
The majority of the population around Kisiizi are subsistence farmers, & the local people can often be seen hoeing & carrying heavy loads of water & goods.
English is the official language of Uganda, but there are over 50 different local dialects spoken throughout Uganda. Most professional & national communications are in English, for example most communication between healthcare professionals in the hospital is in English, however many of the patients don’t speak English. We are trying to learn a bit of Rugika, but we’re really struggling to remember & pronounce the words, they are just so different to English, it’s not like learning another Latin based language. The language barrier makes working in psychiatry particularly challenging.
The Ugandans love a carb, & a lot of meals here contain two, or even three carbs, some of their favourite, being Irish, their name for potatoes, & matoke, which is like a savoury banana. There is also an amazing selection of delicious fruit & vegetables here, which make the fruit & vegetables at home seam bland in comparison; we seam to have sacrificed taste, for size & regularity. Our new favourite snack is cutting open a passion fruit & then scooping out & eating the insides with a spoon.
Kisiizi has an amazing sense of community, with everyone looking out for each other, which is something that is sadly often lacking at home, although we also get the impression it is your typical small town which likes to gossip. We have received the most warmest welcome, & been made to feel instantly at home.
