On a happy note though, last week was the birth of the Ugandan Kayak Club; after all the hard work from Karl and Tara, all the gear has officially been donated to the UKC with special thanks to all the sponsors: NRS, Wave Sport, SR helmets, AT Paddles, and Astral PFDs. So after Karl spent 3 weeks fighting to get the kayaks and gear through customs, the opening began. It was great to be involved in this event; all the locals were very excited to be part of this co-op that provides access to all the gear for an annual fee of only 5000 Ush. However, no good deed goes unpunished; of course, 2 days after the opening of the UKC, 3 of our paddles were stolen while scouting some of the back channels. And they thought we would not notice that our paddles went missing? I am sure that hand paddling down Blade Runner could be an option as well. It was a frustrating day to say the least. The back channel “expedition” day definitely turned out to be a true mission, not necessarily the rapids, but more so running around the village and finding the guilty thieves.
I have made a few trips back to Kampala to refer some of out patients to the International Hospital; I keep finding myself in disbelief that I am still in Uganda whenever I go to IHK. Everything seems so clean and up-to-date, however, there are still moments of frustration: misuse of antibiotics without ever doing a culture or not even looking at the wound to see if it has made any improvement. My main goal of this week is to get a friend to the AIDS Information Center in Jinja for further work-up and possible ARVs depending on his CD4 count, and of course, sell some more mosquito nets and continue being the condom fairy. The good thing is that everyone who wants to join the UKC will be required to attend our malaria and family planning sessions; in the next week or so, I am sure Anna and I will be doing our best to get the nets and condoms distributed.
