Kaugege

Spent the day in Kaugege – so many interviews! Totally exhausted, but they went really well. Milicent was with me for the first time today and that was so good – I noticed a huge difference in how much the women talked and how open they were. Only at the end did the last woman totally avoid eye contact, but then she had all these questions for me about health and the best way to care for herself during pregnancy, so I guess body language isn’t everything. It’s so sad – this village is so poor. Most women say they didn’t have enough to eat during pregnancy and would just take water for their meals. Then they don’t have enough milk to breastfeed and so struggle with feeding their babies.

Learned some interesting things today – for example, there are beliefs about how long a baby has to remain indoors after delivery – 3 days for a girl, 4 days for a boy. No idea why, “just tradition”. Several women said, though, that tradition was “in the past.” Still, they keep their babies inside that long, so I’m not sure that’s really true. It definitely poses an issue for immediate post-partum care – if the woman delivers in the home, the earliest she would leave (at least what most of them say) is at one week and for most, it’s 2 weeks. Which means things like infant polio, which needs to be given within the first two weeks, basically never gets given.

Most of the women got to another health center that is closer to them – Angaya – but they still have to pay 500 shillings per delivery. Which, I learned, is actually totally against the health policy – it is a Level III health facility and Level III and lower are supposed to be completely free. Except, of course, there is no supervision to make sure any of those policies are followed and so they aren’t. Totally infuriates me! I was telling Soti that they should just go and report them, over and over, until someone listens, but I guess that would be stepping outside of their jurisdiction (and of course, they’re not the only ones, so if you report them and they actually get in trouble, then it’s a chain effect). And I totally get not wanting to rock the boat, but still…

I am going to Milicent’s house this weekend – should be an interesting time! She lives in Kirindo, which is just a little bit further down the main road than the clinic, about a 15 minute moto ride from town. I’m sure I’ll have lots to tell when I get back, but will be out of internet range until Monday, so expect an update then.

Oh, p.s. – can’t remember if I’ve talked about the old school music I get to listen to here – lots of Boys to Men, “Joe”, 98 Degrees, Backstreet Boys, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey…so am totally listening to Julio Iglesias (Enrique Iglesias' father??) - it sounds like it belongs in an Italian theme restaurant or something – lots of accordion and some flute every so often. According to Wikipedia, he rose to fame in the 1970's and 80's with his romantic ballards. oy. So funny…