Bill and Wanda’s Incredible Journey

A hillside house that Wanda visited.

For the last two weeks I (Wanda) have been going out daily to the villages which are the catchment area of the hospital with 20 student nurses.  This has been as part of my induction program and also to assist the student nurses with a “Community Diagnosis Survey”.

We have gone out in the hospital pickup van, with 17 students standing at the back, and four of us squeezed in at the front. The red dust we pick up on the way covers us with its powder, and the track is bumpy and terrain hilly:  the students are all cheerful and good natured and have a cloth to cover them from the dust.

They have been conducting a village survey which has involved talking to the householders of the homesteads we visited. The terrain is very hilly and as getting to these places requires much hill walking, there is no need for me to do any other exercises to keep fit! The views I get are naturally seen in the course of my days work and we are very close to the birds-of-prey flying on the hill tops.  (For bird lovers amongst our readers – possible Augur Buzzards).

A ` homestead’ is how they describe where people live in a lot of Africa (I’ve come across the term in connection with Zimbabwe), i.e. they don’t live in flats or houses. A `homestead’ could well include the following:

• a house made of mud and clay with clay floors and with either a tin or straw roof;
• a separate similar construction as the kitchen;
• a granary;
• a clothes line and then outside separate wooden type constructions for a pots drying rack;
• a bath shelter;
• a latrine;
• animal house;
• a refuse pit/compost pit.

By law, each of the homesteads has to have a latrine, away from the house.  It is essentially a squat.  I was impressed at this requirement and was surprised by one question that a resident asked “what should I do as my neighbour does not wish to build a latrine”. When I asked him what he felt should happen he replied “The police should arrest him”. This apparently is an arrestable crime here is Uganda. 

In Wanda’s next posting, she’ll tell us about living conditions in the hills.