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Hello!!
Am trying to write fast in this internet cafe!)

Absolutely loving it here. Masaka is brilliant, so African. I just keep walking round staring at everything. Beautiful weather as well and the docs I’m with are really friendly.
Wow the hospital is so different. It’s quite big, loads of little buildings scattered around. The wards smell pretty gross but it’s not too hot despite the white coat! I’m doing obs&gynae for the first 3 weeks which is brilliant, the doctor said I can assist in theatre and deliver babies- perfect.
Saw my first kid with marasmus. Did my first pv examination on a pregnant woman. Got a bit bored waiting for a primi to give birth. Saw a hysterectomy, big fibroid uterus. Theatre is massively different! It’s just a random room and their theatre gowns and masks are material and you reuse masks and hats and scrubs without washing them. There was a fly on the sterile field. The door was wide open the whole time. Some of the instruments were a bit blunt. There was a lovely flowery clock on the wall and a blackboard for writing how many swabs you’ve used. One lady was having a manual evacuation of retained products after her 6mo gestation baby died the day before. I asked what anaesthetic they were using – and it was just IM Diazepam. And she was in a LOT of pain. The doctor told me that was the only anaesthetic they could afford. Wow.

They wrap their babies up so much right over their heads. On the ward round we came to this lady and I thought she must by a gynae patient (post-nates, ante-nates and gynae are all mixed up over a few wards) but then she unwrapped all this material and there was the tinest premature baby at the bottom of all the blankets. It died today sadly.

There are some seriously swarky birds in the tree by our accommodation. I thought it was a labouring cow last night but it’s a tree full of these massive black birds with long beaks. There was an eagle owl in the tree this evening, we were staring at it for about half an hour, the Ugandans thought we were mental!

We went on an explore round the hospital grounds. You can see Lake Victoria in the distance. Uganda is really really green. Then we left the hospital and there’s a little settlement right by it with some shops and lots of kids. 2 of them came running over so I took their picture and showed it them and they loved it! Really poor kids with rubbish clothes but gorgeous, totally beautiful. They laughed so much at the pictures of themselves and the video I took. I was in hysterics at their excitement. It was lovely. Loads more appeared so we took more pics. I showed them the pictures of my sisters hen-party on my camera, they were like “Mzungus!!” I’m hoping they don’t think all English people wear bunny ears, feather boas and fluffy tiaras. One little girl was called Sharon, I gave her a piggy back and everyone around was staring at us. Then some annoying ex-pats walked past and told us to watch out we might get an infection. Couldn’t care less. Probably got TB.

We have two cooks one called Regina and one called Maria. Regina has a big smile and Maria laughs a lot. We gave them some shortbread to see what they think of it. They are reporting back! Pau-pau tastes mildly of vomit but is eatable. Pineapple is the nicest thing in the world. So sweet. Absolutely love the g-nut and banana thing.
Back to the hospital on a boda-boda!!!!!

See you soon!
Christine