Finished the report!

Hello All!

How is it possible that it is already the last day of January? 2011 is off to a speedy start. I have always enjoyed thinking back to what I was doing a year ago to the day...on this day last year, Sarah and I would have been heading back to Kampala from Jinja after a weekend away with Katie, our new acquaintance from Switzerland.


Overlooking the Nile.
Well, in the last post I had alluded that we would have some exciting stuff to share...aka a synopsis our report! Well, we have composed the rough draft(52 pages later!!)...

Within the report is a basic review of rickets, nutrition, and relating these to Uganda. Details as to methodology. Results, as mentioned previously, in the form of graphs and tables. And, finally, the discussion bringing it all together.

As you may recall, I shared last time that analysis showed children with and without bone deformities in Kumi and Mbarara to be below the WHO recommended daily intake values for calcium, vitamin A and caloric intake. Within the discussion, we related this to a variety demographic factors affecting nutrition status...employment, family size, food expenditure, to name a few. And discussed the role of dietary calcium intake and how it could be (feasibly and affordably) improved.

So, the next step is getting stuff published...sure to be an adventure in and of itself.

Some kids fetching water from the local borehole.
For those who are interested, here is another neat report that I came across...WFP - Comprehensive Food Security and Vulernability Analysis - Uganda. Just a warning, it is kind of gigantic and might slow your computer down for a few minutes, but very interesting. Compiled by the World Food Programme, this report looks at a multitude of factors affecting food production and consumption all throughout Uganda.


Amazing balance.
Not quite sure who keeps up with our blog anymore, but we are most thankful for your interest. If at any time you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us at our email address ugandanadventure2010 at gmail dot com.

Take care,
Jo-Anna

December Update

Hello!!

Somehow it is already almost mid December! Time is just flying by...Thought it would be a good idea to write a little about where we are just at the moment with the project and share a little bit of relevant literature I have been reading as of late. Interspersed throughout are pictures :)

Bandas off the road to Kumi Hospital with women out front doing their gardening.
Sarah and I are working away at preparing a very thorough report from the data collected. Data analysis is complete. (Thank goodness!!) But as we are learning, composing and arranging stuff in a meaningful manner is no simple task.

Cow herders on a road to get to Kumi Hospital. Oh, that red dirt!!
(I love this picture and posted a similar picture before.)
Analysis has shown that in general children were below the recommended daily intake values provided by the WHO for calcium and vitamin A intake, as well as calorically. It is a little tough in projects like this because you want your hypothesis to be correct...but would mean wanting children to be malnourished. And no one wants that!!! However, showing the children are malnourished does identify the problem...meaning that a solution or plan can be formed to help rectify the situation. And education as a means of prevention just seems so simple. The Ugandans we met were so eager to learn more about nutrition!!

A single row of shops near where we spent some time one fateful day waiting for the next taxi to come. (The time we were told we were going "nearby" and two and a half hours later, or so, arrived at our target destination - not a terribly fond memory).
I believe we were in Kashiri (a county within Mbarara district).
Leading up to this project both Sarah and I did a lot of reading and research to familiarize ourselves with nutrition in Uganda. Finding information was not as easy as one might hope, particularly in relation to calcium, as calcium intake really hasn't been investigated. Anyway, I recently came across this report put out by FANTA-2 and USAID in May 2010, titled "The Analysis of the Nutrition Situation in Uganda."
To check it out click here
http://www.fantaproject.org/downloads/pdfs/Uganda_NSA_May2010.pdf It is super thorough and goes over all aspects of nutrition in the various regions of Uganda. As well, it seems that many non-governmental organizations do have some sort of nutrition program in place, though I contemplate whether it is primarily providing food to those in need as opposed to raising awareness of appropriate feeding practices. A bit of a Catch-22, really! Both are important.

During our walk to see a child with an angular bone deformity,
we came passed this group on the road.
Well, that's all for now! We are planning to have some exciting stuff to share in January.

Hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas!! And best wishes for 2011!

Jo-Anna

An update...

Hello!!

Wow! An update is quite overdue...a month and a half is quite the hiatus. Of interest, today it is four months to the day that I (Jo-Anna) have been back in Canada. That would make it almost five for Sarah. This is a post about where we are at with our research, as well as a few pictures from our time in Uganda...I tried to choose pictures that hadn't been posted before.

A boy drinking his porrige out of his lovely blue cup. We were told they were called 'nice' cups. Everyone seemed to have them.
If we thought that we spent a lot of time putting data into our computers in Uganda, well, that was just the beginning!! We are knee deep number crunching just at the moment...with no end in sight (or so it feels). We were a little stuck back in September, as we needed a way to convert our food measurements from cups to grams. Putting the measurements into grams was necessary to determine nutrient intake. After spending oodles of time inputting conversion factors into Excel we have derived nutrient values. Now we just have to rearrange it all such that it can be easily analyzed and get on to data analysis. Things are definitely moving in the right direction, though!!

What to say about trends that we have seen...hmmm...well, Ugandans really like their grains and starchy vegetables!! Matoke, millet, maize, rice, potatoes, and cassava are definite staples.


Mmmmmmm...millet!
As one might recall, our research was intended to derive some sort of estimate of calcium consumption. I am unsure of the average daily calcium intake, but can say pretty certainly that it will be below that of the suggested daily intake for children in Canada. No surprise there. From looking at the food composition values, it was interesting to learn that millet is a pretty decent source of calcium. As well as amaranth leaves. Cassava leaves also appear to have a high calcium content, but there are varieties that are poisonous. Have to be careful before suggesting that one! Silver fish are super fantastic, as they can be ground up and consumed. The calcium is found in the bones. Milk is undeniably the best way to get one's calcium (as would be expected), but consumption is rare as few can afford it. We are also determining average daily caloric and vitamin A intake.


Two ladies walking down the road in Kumi.
Well, that is all for now.

Will update again in the future :)
Jo-Anna

PS - If you want to look at the food composition tables we are using, go to http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/files/tanzania-food-composition-tables.pdf. Uganda doesn't actually have their own food composition tables, so were provided with some from Tanzania that were collected and analyzed with the assistance of Harvard.

Pictures that didn't make it on previously...

Hello All!

I had hoped to post some more pictures before leaving Kampala, but as previously mentioned the internet was not cooperating at all. Anyway, here are some shots that I like and hope you will enjoy...most are meant to give you a bit more of a feel for Kampala, but there are also a trip I took to the equator marker before Masaka with Angela and Katie. (A side note: To call the ride there ridiculous, would be an understatement, as it was the first time that I actually feared for my life while in a matatu. And that after using matatus as my main source of transportation for the five months! In short, it was raining hard and the road was under construction, so we were driving on a gravel surface with lots of pot holes at full speed, all while the windows were totally fogged up. Driver's included. A few of the ladies in the matatu were actually yelling at him.)

Hope all is well :)
Jo-Anna


Sarah, Angela, and I with a security guard in front of the cinema in Garden City shopping centre. After being in Kumi for a month and a half, the three of us met up in Kampala and went for lunch and movie! It was a little strange being in such a big city again. For some reason this picture always makes me laugh.


Sarah, Katie, and I posing with an elephant statue outside of Oasis, another mall right beside Garden City where we would do a bit of our grocery shopping for the stuff that we could not find in the roadside markets. The grocery store here, called Nakumatt, was like a WalMart and even had two floors!


This is a view of Old Kampala from the Namirimbe Cathedral. We would go to the Namirimbe Guest House to use their wireless internet. It was a lot faster there than other places.


A view of downtown Kampala from a four story building. It isn't quite representative, as it was Sunday, so it was remarkably less busy downtown than usual.


Another picture from the Sunday downtown, but at street view. Bodaboda and matatus included!


This is what the road coming out of the new taxi park looks like at around 3. It is referred to as a jam...wall to wall matatus and one can expect to wait an hour just to get to the road they need to. When we were staying in Makindye in January, we would get stuck in the jam, but after that we stayed in Mengo/Rubaga which meant we got to go out another way and didn't have to wait quite so long. Keep in mind that it is suuuupppper hot while you are sitting in the matatus. Not the most pleasant, but that's life!


On the street in Kampala, in lieu of payphones like that we see in North America, are individuals with these cool yellow phones. You can make your call using one after talking with the individual in charge. Angela and I nicely asked if we could have our picture with them, as we thought they were pretty funny. (For quite a few weeks we had been talking about how we needed to find one and have our picture taken, as we jokingly called them banana phones given the colour).


The phone operator kindly let Angela take his picture. Here he is just hanging out waiting for a customer. Who wouldn't want to talk on a cool yellow phone!?


Katie, Angela, and I at the equator sharing a good laugh. After the crazy ride and the pouring rain at the equator, we were a tad giddy.


Another at the equator.


Me on the equator line!


Group breakfast at our guesthouse on Katie's last day (I left the day after Katie). Angela very kindly went all out with breakfast! Am currently missing passion fruit!


Nina's boots. Nina, the young daughter of the owners of the guesthouse, had left her boots at the door as it poured outside with rain.

Finally...my reflections on Gulu!!!

Hello again!!

Weird not to have blogged for so long...I am going to miss it a little when I finally give it up.

Okay, so this took way longer to post than I had anticipated...having been back just over two weeks and all...Nonetheless, as promised previously, here is my final reflections on Gulu post. I must admit I had difficulty writing this post in a manner such that it is cohesive and to the point, so I apologize in advance.

(Just a note, I have a couple more posts still after this one, so keep checking the blog. As well, come August I hope to update you more on our project, the outcome, future plans, and more...things are just a tad on hold for the month of July and a bit.)

Katie and I had a good chat with Sally about the troubles that Gulu has faced and continues to face, and the challenges the people of Gulu have to overcome in the future. It is from this conversation that I draw these inferences.

Again, a little history...northern Uganda has seen over 20 years of civil war. Some may have heard of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), headed by Joseph Kony. It occupied the area and terrorized many. Possibly you have even heard of child soldiers? Basically, the LRA would capture children from the villages and use them as soldiers. It was so bad, that we were told parents would not send their children to school for fear that the LRA might come and kidnap them. At night people would opt to stay in gated areas for protection, as they were easier to defend. The hospital where Alex works, St. Mary's Hospital Lacor, was one place where the people would go to sleep at night due to night time attacks by the LRA, as it is gated (making it easier to patrol). There was no free ground space, as apparently 2000 and 10,000 women and children would crowd into the hospital compound nightly seeking a safe place to sleep.


St. Mary's Hospital Lacor - view from the street. The hospital was also often caught in the crossfire during the Idi Amin era.

We were told that children born in the displacement camps (now young adults) do not wish to return to their villages, as having not been raised in the village they do not know how to live life there. Instead, this group has opted to go to Kampala and seek employment there.

Throughout our time talking with Sally, the Ugandan military and UN were 'practicing' in the background at a camp about fifteen minutes away (aka gun noises and loud booms). Sally thinks that the military, along with the UN, are going to attack Kony in the Congo sometime in the coming months, as a Kony has been back to his old ways as of late. He recently stormed a village in the Congo.

If you are interested in more facts about Kony and the LRA, a google search would provide lots of info. He is not a good man and the details are not pleasant.

Katie and I have found the people of Gulu to be friendly and kind. Life here moves a little slower as people live in the moment. Most are quite friendly and greet us sincerely as we walk down the street. Having spent quite a bit of time in the market, we found the market ladies to be warm and genuine. All are more than eager to help us, even if it means referring on business to someone else.


This is a repost, but I love this picture! Some of the market ladies laughing because Katie wanted to take their picture. They found it equally as hilarious when she showed them the actual picture on her camera.


Ladies sewing.


Alex and Sally in the market.

The incidence of mental health problems is clearly higher. It is not uncommon to see a drunk man wandering down the street and saying something a little too loud. There are also several wounded people who limp or walk on crutches. What was explained to us was that people here try to forget the horror that they have seen and experienced. Some deal with it in different ways from others. Many are yet to deal with the anguish, rather keeping it buried below the surface as they just want to move on.


Katie on Market Road.


A herd of cows that we shared the path with on one of our walks.


Huts that we walked past down the road from our hotel.


Sally and Alex in front of the little building through which St. Mary`s Hospital was started.

Again, these are observations and explanations, as observed by and explained to us. Hopefully I'm not inserting too much of a Western outlook on things. Nonetheless, there is always hope and by all means I certainly hope that history does not repeat itself, the Ugandan north remains stable, and those who have been through so much would find peace and resolution.