First day of work

Written April 23rd


Today was our first day of practicum. It was a pretty hectic day, to say the least. First off, it was a bit of a hassle getting there because Robert wasn’t quite familiar with where the place was, and it took a while to get there because we were stuck in a traffic jam and didn’t move for 15 minutes at one point. Once we reached our destination, the Katalemwa Cheshire Home, we were taken to reception and told that the people Diana had been in contact with no longer work for them, and they were not expecting us at all. This was obviously shocking to us because we were expecting to be welcomed and that they would have something set up for us. But anyways, long story short, it seems as though our contacts Edrine and Connie have since relocated to another organization called the Centre for Disability and Rehabilitation Uganda. This location is about 3 km from Katalemwa so it’s not much further and I have a really good feeling about it. It’s a parent led organization, and most of the staff are volunteers themselves, because they are a fairly new organization and they don’t have much funding secured. I really respect the philosophy they have of empowering the families and the parents to change their attitudes towards disabled children, and to learn how to give therapy to their own children when going elsewhere to receive care is not an option. They have many different programs that they take part in, and some of that is outreach into the villages. So they have certain clients around various areas that they go to check on maybe once or twice a week to see how they are doing, and we actually got to go with them today to do that. So we went with two of the parents, a social worker and occupational therapist named Alex, and Sarah, who is trained in orthopedics. We visited a 9 year old girl who lives with her grandmother because her parents abandoned her. Josephine has cerebral palsy, which is very common in Uganda. Her grandmother is 89 and is sick with cancer and doesn’t have much strength to take care of herself, let alone Josephine. She does what she can to make little bits of money here and there but Josephine is severely malnourished. She can’t weigh more than 40 pounds, and it was difficult to watch how weak she was. I felt like she was dying in front of us, I had to hold in tears a few times because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had expected to be in these scenarios but today was my first time actually witnessing one particularly difficult one. I am amazed I have not broken down yet over this as normally I am so emotional. I guess I am handling it in a different way than I normally would be since I am in such a different environment. I’m sure I will hit my wall eventually.