Embarking on a medical mission to Uganda

 

It must have reminded my Dad of the feeling he got when I announced I was going to drum for a band. Disbelief.

 

"There's only one problem," he said. "You don't play the drums."

"That's the thing, Dad," I replied, and he didn't need me to explain what was coming next. Dollar signs flashed before his eyes and he must have felt a twinge of the headaches to come as I diligently banged away on my rented drum set.

I'm not sure which images flashed before my Dad's eyes when, out of the blue, I asked him if I could go to Uganda. Perhaps he imagined my malaria-ridden body being evacuated from the country by helicopter. Or a sudden end to the 18-month cease-fire between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government, revamping the 21-year armed conflict that orphaned so many of the kids we now seek to help.

Six months and countless hours of work have passed since Jacquie Law, a junior at Vassar College, first told me about her plan to help found a medical clinic in Kaberamaido, Uganda. She hadn't intended to tell me. She had come to speak to Vassar College President Cappy Hill during her office hours to tell her about the plan and ask for advice. After all, Cappy had worked as an economist in sub-Saharan Africa. As one of Cappy's student assistants, I sat with Law while she waited for the school president to finish an appointment. I asked about her plans, trying to sound casual.

"I'm helping to found an orphanage in Kaberamaido, Uganda," she said. "My work is primarily to establish a medical facility."

I could barely contain my excitement and my desire to get involved. I have always jumped at opportunities to help - I cooked for homeless people in Washington every Sunday through high school, and I drove to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to do relief work. Perhaps sometimes I've gone a little too far, like when my Dad took me to a fancy restaurant in Israel for my Bat Mitzvah and I spent the entire meal huddled beneath a car out front, feeding butter to feral cats.

Law showed me a binder detailing the plans of the Asayo's Wish Foundation to build an orphanage for 400 children. It became clear the Vassar students involved in the project were all emergency medical technicians with concrete skills to contribute to a new medical clinic. They would set up the clinic, provide medical treatment, and educate people about basic first aid. I tried to envision a role for myself.

It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to convince Law I could help with her project. It turned out she wasn't in the habit of rejecting free help. Before I knew it, I was soliciting donations outside of Stop & Shop, making brownies for bake sales, issuing press releases and writing a constitution to make our project into a student organization on campus.

But I was not satisfied. I wanted to go to Uganda with the team of EMTs. Law was game. My Dad was not.

"I just don't want you to lose your momentum," he said in the concerned tone reserved for fathers.

It wasn't clear whether he thought it more likely I would meet a nice Ugandan man on the 10-day trip and never return, or that I would drop out of college to pursue humanitarian work while he footed the bill.

But I lucked out in the father department. My dad is a very generous man, and before I knew it I was happily (though dizzily) being poked in the arm with needle after needle of live and dead infectious microorganisms in preparation for the trip. We embark on Thursday.

People have donated tens of thousands of dollars worth of medical supplies to take to the clinic - prescription medications, defibrillators, stethoscopes, gauze, Advil.

Now the hard part - six Vassar EMTs, two Connecticut College EMTs, one doctor and I will pack whatever fraction of the 3,000 pounds of medical supplies that we can into the two or three suitcases each of us will carry.

Luckily, many of us will return to the orphanage in July, at which point the clinic will be fully staffed by medical professionals. We'll have a chance to bring more medical supplies then, in addition to shipping as much as we need.

We grow more and more excited as our departure approaches. And my Dad has really come around. He's added this project to his list of "Excuses to Shamelessly Brag about My Children."

I guess it doesn't hurt that I'll be surrounded by medical staff in case I contract Yellow Fever, and the Ugandan peace negotiations are making progress. Or maybe, with time, he's gotten used to the idea, just as he grew accustomed to me banging away to U2 and Led Zeppelin on my drums in our basement.

 

To find out how this project got started, check out the Miscellany News article.