We started the week with some orientation/Luganda lessons with the med students given to us by Doreen and Susan. Doreen and Susan are basically international student liaisons and they are AWESOME. They take care of everything we need and pretty much see to it that we don't get run over or robbed while we're here.
Tuesday through Friday we worked at Mulago Hospital, each of us assigned to a different physiotherapist to shadow for the week. I was assigned to Sam, the spine ward PT, although apparently spine ward also entails cancer, orthopedics, and pediatrics with a small dose of surgery ward thrown in. Despite moving at a generally slow pace and rarely working what could be considered a full day, we all finished out each day feeling pretty mentally and emotionally exhausted from everything we saw. However the public forum being what it is, I'll have to spare the details for now.
Saturday we went white water rafting in Jinja, or more specifically we rafted a Class 5 Rapids at the source of the Nile. Seriously. Having never rafted before in my life, and seeing as how Class 5 is the highest commercially navigable rapids, I was pretty darn nervous (but fortunately so was Anna so I didn't have to feel like the lone coward of the group). But for all my nervousness I sit here two days later completely intact save a few miniscule bruises and tolerable sunburn. Our raft only flipped once, possibly the best of the 5 rafts on the river that day, and we saw only one snake! For lunch they served us sandwiches with salami, green peppers, carrots, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, guacamole, pineapple, and potato salad, without a doubt the best meal we've had since getting to Uganda.
In other news, we've spent most of our free time scouring the nearby markets for fruit and other cheap souvenirs and trying to avoid what Anna dubs the 'thunder down under', though to date she's the only one who has suffered that catastrophe.
Our driver is almost here! More to come.
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