The Finale Finally

I'm not sure about reverse culture shock, but I feel I might be suffering from reverse climate frostbite. I left for Uganda at the end of January; a perfectly natural time for snow. As I drove South from Manchester to Herts the falling snow blurred past the car in white streaks, that the slightly more childish side of myself really enjoyed as it looked just like hyperspace (a Star Wars reference for those unenlightened)...sometimes the childish side is the dominant force, and I may or may not have made some sound effects to accompany it. Sufficed to say the snow was a few inches thick when I left. As I said: perfectly acceptable for January. The big shock was that after enjoying temperatures in the mid twenties to mid thirties I returned to find the weather in the UK almost unchanged. As though to spite my absence it had stubbornly kept the thermostat the same to punish me on return. This meant that despite a 2 month gap, both the trail South and the return journey North were snow covered affairs.
 This blog is intending to cover three weeks so brace yourselves: verbage is coming.

 I asked a Ugandan man how parents came up with the names for their children in their country. He responded, straight faced, that they look through the dictionary for words they like...then use them as names. If that is the case.... it definitely shows. This particular gent had named his eldest children Innocent (the guy of course) and Immaculate (the girl), which aren't exactly the easiest names to live up to, even with the best school record. His name selection isn't exceptional, I made good friends with at least two Innocents and an Immaculate in my time out there.
(As an aside -you must be getting used to my style by now right-  I could help but imagining a future court room scene involving one of these ambitiously named kids. Something along the lines of:
 Judge: So who is the accused
 Barrister: The accused is Innocent sir
 Judge: Are they now?
 Barrister: They are Innocent sir.
 Judge: I think we'll be the judge of that. The cheek of the man.
 Barrister: No sir I don't think you understand, Their name is innocent.
 Judge: Ah, I see. How do they plead
 Barrister: Innocent?
 Judge: Innocent is it? Even with all those witnesses. Very well.
 Barrister: No guilty
 Judge: Is that their middle name?....... )
Other names Include Blessing, Happy and Dopey (that one isn't true). There's also a great trend towards choosing names that would have been incredibly popular at the turn of the Century: Doris, Geoffrey, Edmund and Doreen to name but a few. I'm partly tempted to return to Uganda for the birth of my children call them Salacity, Plethora and Englebert (two girls and a boy if you're wondering, the second one had some weight issues) and watch them coast through school without even a moments bullying.
 In the Buconzu region there's a second part to the naming process where instead of having family name (there is no surname), your first name would be your position in the family i.e. 'firstborndaughter' and all the following children named in respect to their order of emergence from their mothers womb. There's also names specific to twins and the order that they make their escape. The honour associated with childbirth also bestows a new name on the mother of said twins, triplets gets you even more kudos...the more womb-mates, the more respect. (So Tom Breckers, your mother is a woman of great honour is seems)
 
 Once the Oxford lads had left there was a respite in comings and goings. A paediatric Intermediate life support (ILS) course took place over the next two days so we were busily distracted from the 'gaping hole' the boys had left (I'm only being mostly sarcastic R and K). So to a degree, I can now save the life of children....although with the over 5s I'm only used to resuscitating them if they are quadruple amputees and have permanently closed eyes (I'm referring to the slightly creepy 'little-annie' dolls that are used for resus training that in order to save material and space have nothing but the portions vital for practice. They also allow the over-zealous play-actor to shout 'Holy Cow! It's been a massacre in here, their arms and legs are gone!..I'm going to check breathing while you search for their limbs, they may still be viable' but who would be that absurd?)

 Friday afternoon I finally managed to visit the local market to pick up some local fruit and sugar cane. Trying to get the cane to give up it's sweet goods demonstrated why everyone over the age of 4 seems to walk around with a machete, my knife and fork skills were useless here.

 On friday evening before you could say 'ze Germans are coming' er...the Germans had come, four more. Two fourth year medical students there for a fortnight, a sixth year student on a 5 month elective (they have a lot of elective on the germanic degrees it seems) and a radiology assistant coming out for a year. All hope of a British majority being re-established were crushed a few days later. Before you could say 'Waffles, Ice tea and war memorials' four Belgian nursing students and their overseer had arrived.
 So I was finally a plucky Brit amongst Europeans and Ugandans.

Saturday evening was Dr Chris's leaving do. The best thing to do when confronted with grief and the impending departure of friends is to burn some animals (having killed them first) and then eat them. So this was done. Succulent pork and surprisingly tender goat supported the speeches and heartfelt goodbyes that evening as the sun set behind the Rwenzoris.

 The final week then went too quickly:
 On monday I taught a gathering of nations (Germany, Belgium, Britain, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda all represented) about the basic management of congenital malformations (having only read up on it that day).
 Tuesday we headed to the Congolese border for Epilepsy outreach clinics, we didn't cross into Congo; but we were situated on a hillside the river in the valley at the bottom of which marked the border and the hill rising up directly in front of us was Congo. It looked greener, but grass always does.
 Wednesday and Thurs were busy. The ILS course was being rerun again, and a lot of the paediatrics team teaching or learning on it, so I went ahead and looked after paediatrics (it wasn't actually just me...but it felt that way) and attempted to do some teaching in the process. Weirdly enough, I occasionally thought that the nurses calling me doctor was justified. Reality returned quite quickly however.
 Then all of a sudden It was the final fellowship with my international brothers and sisters on thursday evening. Then Friday morning arrived and I hit the road.

 My Travels from there in summary:
 Friday night: Kingfisher lodge, great food, swimming pool, pretty much abandoned except for my good self.
 Saturday: Traveled to Mbrara for debrief and to start the process of ranking 274 (that's right 274!!) jobs on FPAS.
 Sunday: Church at MUST (the university in Mbrara) and journeying to Kampala.
 Monday: 'Relaxing' by finishing FPAS ranking.....this took hours.
 Tues: White water rafting on the source of the nile in Jinja with Some Ozzies, Germans (these guys get literally everywhere) som czechs, british JWs, Japanese soldiers that spoke no english and some 'Gap-Yahr' students nursing hang-overs having 'experienced' some Ugandan culture last night.
 Weds: Traveled back to Kampala and watched Django Unchained in a Ugandan cinema as part of my world cinema tourism program.
 Thurs: Packed, actually relaxed....at last.
 Friday: 1am returned to the UK......followed by sleep.
 Sunday: Return to Manc.
 Monday: Placement re-commences....

Part of my farewells involved food. Food is an important social occasion out here as it is in many cultures. There are two particularly distinctive foods that were staples for the nursing students. Posho and Bundu (TP will no doubt correct me on the spelling here). They are both dining experiences. Posho is a lump of maize flour (or something like it) that looks not unlike porridge that has been cooked and then abandoned in it's bowl overnight. Except that it doesn't have any of those distracting features of porridge...like flavour. Paul Shep would have it that it tastes like 'white' but I think that that does a disservice to white. Sugar, salt, icing, mayonnaise all are the flavour of white....this was more like the taste version of beige, it definitely has a flavour but it's one that makes very little effort and doesn't really care if you notice it or not. Either way, it's function is to leave you full and this it does quite well, as long as you load your fork with beans and sauce the lack of flavour isn't really an issue. The other is bundu. This one your not supposed to taste, and if you do your doing it wrong. A friend of mine when asked which was their favourite food said 'Bundu, because you don't have to chew it. It just goes down'. Just like an inexpensive, vegan friendly version of the oyster you just put it straight in; bypassing the mouth into the food pipe. Bundu is good, if you approach your food like a performance art or a sport..... and have no teeth. Again sauce is where you get the flavour from. You make a ball by rolling a chunk of bundu in you palm, you then plunge your thumb into it to make a hole scoop up some soup-sauce-stuff and throw back your head. Simple right. Don't make the mistake of chewing, then you'll find that it has the consistency of play-do and wants to cling to the roof of your mouth with the tenacity of an alien face-hugger.

 So I dined with my Ugandan friends and said my multitude of farewells. It seems like I was only arriving yesterday, but already the time had gone. Friendships between brothers are eternal however, and there is no such thing as a missed opportunity amoungst Christians as we will hang-out in eternity. As sad as parting may be, it will be the briefest of breaks in contact in the light of eternity. Maybe I will return there some day, there's still Murchison falls to visit and a number of things to do that an impoverished student couldn't afford. Who knows? the future is written but I will not be privy to it until I walk into it.
 I've had great times, made some fascinating friends from vastly different backgrounds, been pushed professionally and learnt much about myself, God and the nature of poverty. Will I work in Uganda in the future, maybe. Will I take this experience with me whatever the future holds: of course.


Prayer:
 -The Shepherds are still out there and on their final stretch. Pray for their work, health and walk with the LORD.
-Matt Craggs is out there now as the Manc representative on the ME program. He's not got quite the ego I do to keep a blog....but I promise he is there, but pray that it'll be a great experience for him.
-For my final two months or so in Manchester before I move on to the great unknown of a job in South England.

Thanks for reading this, the gramma and spelling must have been gruelling. But I appreciate the effort.