Saturday, October 9, 2010
Update on our update
Quick Update
Well, in just 5 days we will be touching down in Canada – we’ve been looking forward to this visit back home for some time now. When we haven’t been thinking of coming home, we’ve been moving along just great here in Kampala.
I (Deb) have been working to the brink, but making really good progress. We just received ethical approval for our main trial, ‘The ACT PRIME Study: Evaluating the impact of enhanced health facility-based care for malaria and febrile illnesses in children in Tororo, Uganda’ and are awaiting ethical approval for our supplementary trial, ‘The ACT PROCESS Study: Evaluating the process, context, and impact of interventions to enhance health facilities in Tororo, Uganda’. While it may seem boring to the outsider, receiving ethical approval is a big challenge and quite a lot of work, but also integral to the study design process. Over the past few months, we have been really thinking through the science and practicalities of how we will run our studies and how we will achieve & measure our outcomes. For our studies, we’ve had to apply to four ethical boards (2 in Uganda + London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine + University of California, San Francisco), most trials only go through one or two boards.
In addition to these ethical approvals, I have been working like mad on developing our ‘health facility intervention’ which is to train health workers at lower-level government health centres in the areas of ‘health centre management’ and ‘patient-centred services’. It’s been a really awesome experience to develop training for health workers from the ground up and I’ve been leading a really great team. We still have a ways to go and many challenges to overcome – so it doesn’t look like my 70+ hour weeks will be ending anytime soon...
Stu has been keeping busy as usual doing all of the manly things he likes to do - like cooking and baking. Today (while I am at work), Stu is preparing a Canadian Thanksgiving for 12 of our friends. The menu, developed and prepared entirely by Stu, is: Deviled Eggs for appetizer (my contribution here is to bring some chips from the corner store), Roasted carrots, Mashed potatoes, 3 beer can chickens (with different spice rubs on each), Stuffing, and Salad for the main course; and Coconut cream pumpkin pie with ginger snap crust for dessert! Phew! Stu woke up early this morning to go to the meat packers to get fresh chickens...and the rest of the dinner is in progress...
We are looking forward to seeing some of you in Ancaster/London/Cambridge/Waterloo/Toronto, Atlanta and Amsterdam very soon! For others we won’t be seeing this time around – we are sending you much love and kisses from Kampala! Come visit – Stu needs taste-testers...!!
D&S
Friday, October 1, 2010
Dolla J, Silent Discos, Goat races, and the Cranes
Many people have asked us what Kampala is like at night and what there is to do here. As we have said numerous times, Kampala has so much to offer. Aside from the outdoor activities (game drives, whitewater kayaking, and climbing) that are an easy weekend adventure, there is all kinds of things to do in town. Over the last couple months we have been getting much more into the Kampala scene. The city has a surprisingly good art scene, the largest music scene in East Africa (although some might debate this) as well as all kinds of activities aimed at expats.
The music in Uganda is a mix of 90’s Hip Hop and Dance Hall. They idolize the North American bar music from the late 90s and early 00s (and also unfortunately Celine Dione). Modern Uganda music (like that from Kenya) includes a lot of these beats but adds a much more dancy feel. The Ugandans love to dance. They really get going to any beat at all and use their whole bodies to get into it. Some of the biggest musicians are Bebe Cool, Chameleon, Radio & Weasel, Rachel K and Kid Fox. After a particularly eventful night, we got to meet an aspiring artist named Dolla J (I have no idea what his real name is). He has taken me under his wing and tried to teach me a little about the music scene. It has been great to have a local show us around the music scene. Needless to say, both Deb and I have had some crazy nights out dancing away with the Ugandans. They usually head OUT at around 11…..and that is usually to a bar serving as a meeting place. The dancing doesn’t get going until around 3 and the bars stay open until the patrons leave. We have not been there yet, but there are many bars still pounding out the music at 10am! I am not sure I could walk out of a bar after a night of dancing and have the sun come up….although we may have to once as a ‘cultural experience’.
One of the coolest Ugandan music experiences was at the annual Bayimba festival, which highlights some of the best musicians and artists. The weekend featured many great artists on the main stage (including the one and only Ugandan rock band, who were surprisingly good). However, the best part was a silent disco. For those who have never heard of this concept, a silent disco is when all attendees wear head phones wirelessly connected to the DJ (or in this case, DJs which you got to choose between). It is a surreal experience when you see hundreds of people dancing away in complete silence with DJs at the front egging on the crowd.
While not dancing, we have also attended several sporting events. The most notable was the Royal Ascot Goat Races. The races are organised annually as a fundraiser for a variety of different charities around Uganda. We had no idea what to expect with
the day but everyone told us that we needed to attend. Needless to say, the day did not disappoint. The event took place at Munyoyo, which is a very posh resort that was set up for the 2007 Commonwealth conference (as is much of the Ugandan infrastructure). The core idea behind the event is to raise money and have fun. It is hard to have fun when you see ten goats ‘run’ around a track with hundreds of people cheering on the goat they bet on. Needless to say, most of the ‘race’ involves the goats eating grass and slowly moseying around the track. The race is sped along by caretakers who push a giant board to make sure the goats move and encouraged by live play-by-play worthy of the Kentucky Derby. Next year we are going to buy a goat and cheer it on with all we have got.
While not cheering on goats, we have been encouraging the Cranes with our money and our voices. The is the Uganda Cranes football (soccer) team who are in the process of qualifying for the Africa 2012 Cup of Nations. The atmosphere at the stadium is unbelievable. Ugandans take their football seriously and once you mix in nationalism, things can get a little out of hand. Fans dress up and cover themselves in full body paint, jump, scream, play drums, 
and blow vuvuzellas at all times (and I think all the hoopla about them at the World Cup is garbage! Talking to some people who went to the WC and the qualifiers, they were mush louder in Kampala and I love them. I think South Americans and Europeans just didn’t like that their songs could not be heard over the sound of their chants). One fan even brought an air raid horn to the game!!! Having been to some games in Europe and South America, nothing competes. Everything here is at such a high intensity; it is hard to not get wrapped up in all of the emotion. Thankfully Uganda won their game and are still sitting on table of the table. Can’t wait for their next home game!!!
The music in Uganda is a mix of 90’s Hip Hop and Dance Hall. They idolize the North American bar music from the late 90s and early 00s (and also unfortunately Celine Dione). Modern Uganda music (like that from Kenya) includes a lot of these beats but adds a much more dancy feel. The Ugandans love to dance. They really get going to any beat at all and use their whole bodies to get into it. Some of the biggest musicians are Bebe Cool, Chameleon, Radio & Weasel, Rachel K and Kid Fox. After a particularly eventful night, we got to meet an aspiring artist named Dolla J (I have no idea what his real name is). He has taken me under his wing and tried to teach me a little about the music scene. It has been great to have a local show us around the music scene. Needless to say, both Deb and I have had some crazy nights out dancing away with the Ugandans. They usually head OUT at around 11…..and that is usually to a bar serving as a meeting place. The dancing doesn’t get going until around 3 and the bars stay open until the patrons leave. We have not been there yet, but there are many bars still pounding out the music at 10am! I am not sure I could walk out of a bar after a night of dancing and have the sun come up….although we may have to once as a ‘cultural experience’.
While not dancing, we have also attended several sporting events. The most notable was the Royal Ascot Goat Races. The races are organised annually as a fundraiser for a variety of different charities around Uganda. We had no idea what to expect with
the day but everyone told us that we needed to attend. Needless to say, the day did not disappoint. The event took place at Munyoyo, which is a very posh resort that was set up for the 2007 Commonwealth conference (as is much of the Ugandan infrastructure). The core idea behind the event is to raise money and have fun. It is hard to have fun when you see ten goats ‘run’ around a track with hundreds of people cheering on the goat they bet on. Needless to say, most of the ‘race’ involves the goats eating grass and slowly moseying around the track. The race is sped along by caretakers who push a giant board to make sure the goats move and encouraged by live play-by-play worthy of the Kentucky Derby. Next year we are going to buy a goat and cheer it on with all we have got.
While not cheering on goats, we have been encouraging the Cranes with our money and our voices. The is the Uganda Cranes football (soccer) team who are in the process of qualifying for the Africa 2012 Cup of Nations. The atmosphere at the stadium is unbelievable. Ugandans take their football seriously and once you mix in nationalism, things can get a little out of hand. Fans dress up and cover themselves in full body paint, jump, scream, play drums, and blow vuvuzellas at all times (and I think all the hoopla about them at the World Cup is garbage! Talking to some people who went to the WC and the qualifiers, they were mush louder in Kampala and I love them. I think South Americans and Europeans just didn’t like that their songs could not be heard over the sound of their chants). One fan even brought an air raid horn to the game!!! Having been to some games in Europe and South America, nothing competes. Everything here is at such a high intensity; it is hard to not get wrapped up in all of the emotion. Thankfully Uganda won their game and are still sitting on table of the table. Can’t wait for their next home game!!!
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