This week seems to have embodied the idea that all good things come in threes--water, electricity, and internet--but no one is allowed to have all three working at any one time. The guys' building has been without water probably 3 times this week, the girls' building is without electricity so we've been running on a generator or going without, and the darn green door apartment is still without internet (along with the classroom). But, aside from the pesky, never-ending list of housing grievances, it has been a hugely eventful week of NGO visits, classes, and exploring the city.
We went to visit different NGOs to get a sense of the different organizations that work here in Uganda and so that students could link up with the group they'll work with this quarter. One of the most interesting visits was to the national referral mental hospital called Butabika. It was simultaneously fascinating and a bit disturbing to learn about the Uganda perception of persons with mental illness. The general belief is that people in mental hospitals are crazy, dirty, and don't deserve to be treated well or with respect. There is a huge amount of stigma surrounding mental illness in this country--far more so than in the US--which often means that patients who receive treatment at Butabika are unwilling to return home because their family and their community doesn't want to deal with them and the negative connotations. At Butabika, some patients have chosen to simply stay and live there for many years--a few patients have been there for close to 20 years.
We were able to tour the facility and actually go into patient wards. All of the patients are required to wear green gowns so that they can be easily identified by hospital personnel as well as civilians in the event that someone escapes. The wards were extremely simple with just a large room completely full of beds. They clearly have a large and ever-growing number of patients, so they have trouble with housing and enough staff to take care of the patients. Although the average stay is 2 months, many patients stay longer than that or are readmitted after family members refuse to take care of them. Although there was some evidence of talk therapy and other approaches to treatment, it seemed that a huge emphasis was placed on drug therapy. Perhaps in a facility in which doctors are extremely! limited, the easiest way to control someone is through medication.
Another part of the tour that I found extremely interesting was the fact that people being treated for drug and alcohol abuse are treated at the same facility. The Ugandan perception seems to be that addiction is another form of mental illness and that those people are crazy as well. While I'm not familiar with the exact definition of addiction and whether it does fall under mental illness, I was still surprised to find rehab patients in the place as people with serious mental disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Perhaps I'm focusing on the US model where most rehab programs are privately run, but I was still taken a bit aback at the understanding of mental illness in this country.
Probably the most memorable experience of the week was our visit on Friday to an organization called Peace for Children Africa. PCA is a group that works to help street children achieve a better life. They provide food, housing, and education for a huge number of kids who live on the streets, left to beg, steal, and get by on their own. They first took us to the slum where they find most of these kids and we saw the terrible conditions that people are forced to live in. For the children that they can't accommodate at their permanent house, PCA runs an outreach program in the slum every Friday. In a community hall they provide basic education, first aid, and socialization for a group of street kids. We were able to interact with the kids, hear their stories about why they live on the streets, and came to realize that these are kids who are in a terrible situation and deserve a better life.
Once we had seen the slums, we went back to the PCA house where the street kids that they're currently rehabilitating live. There were lots of triple bunks with mosquito nets, a large living room with tables where kids do homework, and a workshop in the backyard where some of the older boys make wooden carvings and other crafts to sell at markets to earn a little extra money for PCA. We spent a good chunk of time--probably an hour--just meeting the kids and playing with them outside. One of the girls, Aisha, brought out some traditional grass dance skirts and tried to teach the girls how to do a traditional Ugandan dance. Once the boys got back from school, they brought out drums and started doing some cool acrobatics like back flips, round offs, etc. It was a really great way to spend the afternoon and it showed me that once these kids are given the resources they need and a safe environment to live in they behave just like a typical kid, despite their history.
After visiting the different organizations this week I wish I had even more time to spend here. We always seem to be over-programmed with activities and there's never enough time to see and spend time at all of the different places. Hopefully things calm down a bit in the next week and we can settle into our respective NGOs. Since we all attend Northwestern, where power, water, and internet are taken for granted, this week of seeing the different situations that people must live in has helped me gain a bit of perspective about my own life. It's hard to completely change our expectations, but at least we can be a bit more patient when things don't go exactly as we expect.
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