Time in Tororo

Our team spent most of this past week in a city called Tororo.

The Global Health Uganda building with the Tororo research team works.

Even if GHU is partnered through Makerere University and Michigan State, the Ugandans know whats up ;) 

On our way to Tororo, we stopped over a night at a place called Sisiyi Falls. It was a small village and we arrived at night, so we were not able to see exactly what our surroundings looked like. But when we woke up on Sunday morning, we found ourselves in a beautiful garden at the base of rushing waterfall. We understood, then, why our professors called this place Eden. It was absolutely gorgeous and almost completely natural (seriously, no running water or electricity). We had a quick sunrise breakfast and then began our hike up the falls! I was told it wouldn’t be a hard hike, but I was in a skirt and converse shoes and it had been raining the previous two days, haha, but despite being poorly prepared, we made it up and down all in one piece. The whole trek took about 3 hours, with some stop time at the top with the local village kids.

A view of Sisiyi Falls from the base.

Our faithful guides, William and Ronald, helping us up and down the falls safely.

Following that adventure, we continued on to our lodgings in Tororo, Café Davis. It was right next door to a Pentecostal Out Reach Ministry, so we got to hear their worship service all day long, which was pretty cool. The purpose for our visit to Tororo was to drop off the students who will be working at Tororo District Hospital through our partnership with Global Health Uganda (GHU). This study location is looking at providing an intervention for caregivers. HIV and cognition are the main focus in this study. I was able to go into the field with one of the trainers to do follow up with one of our mother-child participants and this was truly an amazing experience. It was probably the most rural setting I have been to thus far, but seeing the positive relations between trainer and participant was such a sweet thing.

My very sweet new friend, Vero, who took me to do field work with her.

This little one was scared up us at first, but then just very interested in my funny hair!

The rest of our time in Tororo was spent touring the other medical and research related centers in the area. Our first visit was to the Bendictine Eye Clinic. Started by a group of Bendictine fathers, this location is reknown for the care they provide to Africans with all kinds of disabilities. Our guide, Lucy, was very inspiring and reminded us that Ugandans are smart, and when they are told that (instead of money just being dropped off), they are motivated to better their country through education. We went to The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) and learned about the work they are doing to supply resources and counseling to that population. The IDRC (Infectious Disease Research Collaboration) office. They are doing a lot of interesting work with malaria in pregnant mothers and children up to 3 years. The next day, we visited Cure Children’s Hospital of Uganda. Their specialty is neurosurgery and they see thousands of cases of hydrocephalus and 100-200 cases of spina bifida every year. They have pioneered a unique procedure for hydrocephalus and offer training to pediatric neurosurgeons from all over the world.

The next place we went was the Kanginima Hospital. It was started by a local doctor who lived in America for many years following his medical training, but felt called back to his home village to begin healthcare reform in Uganda. Starting with capping wells for bring fresh water to lower infant mortality, to developing a strong agricultural system to fight malnutrition, to building churches to counter the prostitution and gambling that came with increased resources, Dr. Mutono and his wife have been actively taking concrete steps to improve their community and their country. Another one of the ways he hopes to do improve healthcare availability is through starting up his nursing school, but I’ll be talking about that more in the next post! His passion has gotten him all the way to parliament where he hopes to continue improving healthcare outcomes in this country. 

Kinginima Hospital 

The supply closet for the operating theater.

One of the largest capped wells built through Mutono's program. We acquired quite the little entourage on our drive there =)

One of the tilapia ponds started to fight malnutrition.

After those visits, we found this great little coffee shop in Mbale called Endiro. With wifi, lattes, and cheese grater chandeliers, I almost felt like I was back in Ann Arbor, haha. Our last day we had a tea to say goodbye to the Tororo team and the students staying there and then we made our way back to Mama Riba’s until I move over to the hospital on Saturday.

Endiro coffee shop for lunch and lattes.