Hello Muzungu! First impressions in Mbale, Uganda

Natalie and I arrived in Mbale with our teacher, Angela, two days ago, and spent our first day settling in and getting organized and oriented here. We are staying on the hospital grounds, not far from the labour and delivery and post-partum wards. The grounds are lovely and green, and are kept that way by many hard workers- we saw them cutting the grass this morning by hand with machetes! Many of the hospital staff live here, and have created a community. On our way to the wards or into town, we walk past stalks of corn and friendly children playing with a soccer ball they’ve made of old plastic bags.

The local midwives, doctors and nurses have been warm and friendly, and we feel welcome. Natalie’s name has turned out to be too difficult to pronounce, so she goes by Lea (her middle name) here. On the other hand, my name gets a different reaction, and I have to explain to everyone I meet that no, I am not trying to convince them that I am royalty. Angela has begun spelling my name whenever the eyebrows of my new acquaintance go up- “It’s Q- U- I- N-N, not Queen.”

The local children are also very interested in us, and will call out “Hello Muzungu!” as we pass, or run over and shake all of our hands or give us a squeeze. (A muzungu is a foreign person, but if you look it up on Wikipedia, you learn that it translates literally as “someone who roams around aimlessly” or “aimless wanderer”... How appropriate!)

I was nervous this morning arriving at the ward in my white uniform (already red-brown to the ankle with earth from the short walk over). I wasn’t really sure what to expect. We sat in on the rounds first thing, where we heard about the 25 or so women who had delivered in the last day, and the obstetrician’s recent trip to a fistula clinic. (For those who don’t know, a fistula is when there is damage to the bladder or bowel resulting in medical consequences such as incontinence, and social stigmatization for many women. It is most often caused by a labour that doesn’t progress normally, but can also be caused by cesarian section or sexual assault.) Then we reported to the labour and delivery ward, where things were rather quiet. But, there were many women with their families just outside, waiting for their labours to be active enough for admission.

It was a bit of an adjustment catching a baby under these new circumstances, and I was caught off guard more than once when I realized I didn’t have some piece of equipment I was used to from home. Despite all the differences, we had incredibly satisfying experiences today, and realized that more was the same than was different. The woman I helped today was lovely, labouring with the help of her doting mother. I managed my first sticky shoulder (the baby’s top shoulder became wedged behind the pubic bone), and was surprised how much force was required to dislodge it, but happy that my efforts worked, and the baby came out just fine. Natalie also caught her first Ugandan baby today, an adorable little girl. It was straight forward, and she managed it like a pro!

The midwives and clients looked at us funny more than once when we suggested things from home that were out of the ordinary here, like labouring or delivering in different positions or slowly delivering the head. We were instructed on some of the local practices, for example holding up the baby to show the mother its sex. We are trying to bridge our previous knowledge to the birthing culture here, and we are sure we will learn a lot in the process!


-Quinn