Mama Jude: An Australian Nurse’s Extraordinary Other Life In Africa

by Judy Steel

  When I got back to the clinic I called Edward and Florence together for a meeting. Edward immediately caught on to my anger and distress. I told him that this woman was being treated worse than a dog – strong language to use in discussion with a Ugandan. Arrangements were made for three widows to clean her house. The hospital carpenter was commissioned to make her a bed which was close to the ground so she could lift herself into it, and it came with a new mattress and sheets.

  In the weeks that followed we had the floor cemented and a ramp built so Noellina could use it to crawl in and out of her house. She asked if there was any money left over to help with the cold wind that comes in the window (a hole with bars on it, covered by a bag and a piece of tin at night); the carpenter installed shutters. I had found that two women lived in this house (Prossy and another one) paying minimal rent so I lined them up and asked them if they liked to have nice bedrooms. When they said yes I told them that our jaja also liked and deserved to have a nice room, and that they were to clear the rubbish out of her room and keep it so that she could get in and out of her bed. They understood, particularly when I explained that if they didn’t I would clean it out myself and burn the lot when I next visited. They also knew that I had reported them to the head woman of the village and she would be keeping her eye on them.

  In the weeks that followed I had a lovely surprise when two women came to thank me for what we were doing for Noellina. One was her daughter and the other the woman who slept in the other bed and apparently looked after her in the evenings. We spoke about her needs and right to receive care, food and love.

  Even then in my fourth year in Uganda, there were still plenty of cultural communication breakdowns. One morning, Flavia from the widows group committee came to the office asking me to their meeting (which I knew nothing about). When we started the meeting the chairwoman and one other committee member were missing. I politely told them there would be no meeting unless the chair was there along with all members of the committee, so we then spent some time talking generally about their lives. When I went back to the hospital, Edward was chuckling and said, ‘I told them you would not have the meeting unless they were all there.’

  Another of the communication frustrations was to make plain that UACO was not about handing out money endlessly. Time and again I would ask for some ideas regarding ways we could support the widows and orphans and the answers would be simply to give more money for medicines, increased salaries or equipment. We needed to find sustainable ways to administer primary health and generate income. If I just had a handout mentality, it would be possible for me to step off the plane every time I came and hand a UACO cheque over and fly home again. We needed schemes to improve life and empower communities in the long term.

  I had given handouts particularly in Nakulabye, largely due to the generosity of friends in Australia who had given money for me to use where needed. But we had learnt lessons along the way. The UACO committee in Australia, in consultation with Edward, had decided we wanted to develop an emphasis on empowerment rather than paternalism.

  Other breakdowns had nothing to do with Africans but African infrastructure. One day I went to Edward’s office to use the computer while he was out. I tried ringing Edward but the phones weren’t working. After a while they came good so I spoke to him, but during that time the power went off. When it returned the computer seized up and had to be switched on and off, losing the morning’s work. Even sending an email home could be a drama and I had regular and frustrating conversations with technical people trying to find a better way. Mostly it was to no avail, so when I found a connection that was online and working I would tend to send everything I could, fearing it would crash any second.

  In contrast to the e-frustrations, I was thrilled with the way things were being run. Florence and Edward both understood my obsession with transparency. They kept good records and Edward showed again that his generosity extended beyond his medical care for others. The bank account we opened for UACO last year didn’t come through for three months but this didn’t stop bills mounting up for the clinic, so Edward personally paid them. Even when 17 million shillings (then about A$15,000) from the Canadian consulate was deposited in the account to pay for the cows, he didn’t touch it until I had looked through the books. He was happy to be reimbursed when I was satisfied all was in order. Edward, to use his own words, understands money.

  It still took many, many hours to go through all the receipts and notes and match everything up. I found it exhausting and, despite reciting ‘TIA’ over and over in my head, eventually I needed to act. Help came in the form of Bukenya, who administered and handled the accounts at Edward’s hospital. He agreed to help manage the UACO accounts and the small loan scheme, which was a tremendous relief. I was realising that my role was changing within UACO toward administration rather than nursing – although the two positions would remain intricately woven.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE LOCAL PAPERS WERE full of the rumblings of tribal politics. Celebrations including a military parade were to be staged in honour of the downfall of Idi Amin – some twenty-three years after the event. According to President Museveni’s political secretary, Moses Byaruhanga, the cabinet decided the overthrow of the former dictator hadn’t been given the necessary attention in the past. The idea was that a celebration of his downfall would now be an annual event to encourage unity and stability. Apparently the cabinet had agreed on the celebration last year but hadn’t managed to organise it until now in April 2002. There was talk about Obote being allowed back to live in Uganda, but Edward said that would never happen while Museveni was in power – that is, unless there was another civil war.

  I was getting desperate for a break or, more specifically, some sleep – the hostel was as noisy as ever, with much late-night partying. Rather than escaping again to the sheraton, this time I booked a short holiday at a Nile River resort at Jinja, north-east of Kampala.

  The weekend didn’t get off to a great start when it rained heavily the night before and the road to Jinja became a bog. I grew worried when the driver started slowing, because in Uganda there is only one speed – flat out. We groaned and creaked our way to the resort signpost and proceeded down a very muddy road. Eventually the driver said he couldn’t go any further and that it was ‘just round the corner’. I got out of the car and walked in the mud, slipping, sliding and praying all the time. I finally made it to the resort, leaving my mud-caked shoes at the front entrance. It took another five hours before my room was available, a little cottage consisting of a bedroom and lounge with a TV that only showed a 24-hour sports channel. I didn’t really care because I had a book to read and from the little balcony I could watch the Nile. Men were fishing from small boats and on the other bank women were doing their washing. There were some rapids here and there, and sometimes you could see tourists canoeing down them. Mostly I slept or rested, which was the point of the whole exercise.

  I returned feeling refreshed and decided it was time to pay Frank and Michele a visit. Their circumstances had changed. They had moved from the house I shared with them on my first journey to Uganda and were now living in terrible conditions. In some parts of the house there were no ceilings, fly screens or inside plumbing. There were even rats and mice, although they had a cat to act as a deterrent. They had built their own church and started a small school in Lugala, a slum area on the western part of Kampala. It was about a forty-five minute drive from the Busabala Road clinic and occasionally they would bring sick or dying people there for free treatment. Other than that we met socially a few times when I was in Uganda to share our experiences and senses of humour.

  Michele and I visited Suzan, the orphan sponsored by my daughter, who was at a boarding school. She was eight years old now and looked gorgeous and grabbed me into a huge hug. I gave her a recent photo of Fiona and she put it with her precious things. She had grown taller and a teacher told us she was very bright and well liked. Michele gave her a large bag of sweets wh
ich Suzan, without prompting, took outside and shared with all of the other children. Her medical condition continued to be precarious, however, because her keloid scarring was again preventing her from standing properly as she grew. I took Suzan to see Edward and he believed that soon she would need more extensive surgery.

  When I returned to UACO, the youth group’s first football match was a scene of much excitement. The directors of UACO (that is, Edward and me) were officially introduced to both teams. Our boys looked very smart in their new t-shirts with the UACO logo on them, though the footwear wasn’t so consistent. Some played barefoot, some had sneakers while others wore odd, very worn-out boots. The pitch was dirt with fine, loose stones sprayed across it, the potholes filled with soil-stuffed plastic bags. UACO won four-nil, with great screams of delight accompanying every goal (particularly from me).

  We shouted them all a soft drink afterwards and, as usual, I had to make a speech, which I used to tell our boys how excited and proud we were of them. After some photos I taught them to chant ‘UACO! UACO! Go! Go! Go!’, which caused more laughter, and now everyone in Najjanankumbi knew about the mzungu who goes to the football.

  Soon after, Edward spent a week in Tripoli at an AIDS conference and the timing couldn’t have been worse as the hospital was overrun with patients. As torrential rain bucketed down, we were run off our feet in the clinic due to some very sick babies with malaria, probably as a result of the rain.

  While Edward was away, standards and effort quickly started slipping at the hospital. A radio blared on the nurses’ desk while a very sick person was in a bed next door. The driver and car disappeared without telling anyone and we needed to send a patient to Mulago urgently. And despite always being instructed to light the furnace in the evening, the cleaners lit it during the day and filled the clinic with choking grey smoke.

  A few hospital staff members were shocked when I came through the corridors and gave them some lessons in how things should be done. Playing the parts of auditor, director of nursing and general dragon lady, I pulled my weight all over the hospital, reprimanding staff for being lazy, sleeping on duty and ignoring their patients and equipment. I even shouted at one snoozing cleaner and threatened to sack him; he was not happy. When I stopped for lunch with Rose, she was delighted and laughed when I told her that the word was out: ‘Don’t mess with mzungu mama!’ In a short time the hospital was pulled into shape again.

  It turned out Edward’s week at the AIDS ‘conference’ was a giant scam by Gaddafi. He had brought together, at his own cost, 600 ministers and doctors from all over the continent to explain how he wanted to be president of a United States of Africa. They were taken from Tripoli to his palace at Benghazi where he and his ministers spoke about the need for African unity. The only mention of AIDS was that there is ‘a problem’, an unnecessary understatement to say the least. Gaddafi finished with a tirade against the USA and Israel, and Edward returned with a head cold but without his baggage.

  I can barely describe how wonderful the day was when Allan arrived. The days leading up to it were spent cleaning the tiny room at the hostel and trying to overcome a bout of illness; I had some symptoms of malaria but a test proved negative. I was so ill one weekend I could barely get out of bed, so I spent much time imagining where Allan would be on the flight and what he was doing.

  I met him at Entebbe airport and, after lunch with Edward and Rose, we unpacked at the hostel. In no time Allan had the cork out of a bottle of Penfolds red which we drank accompanied by an African fruit salad and a beautiful sunset. We had so much to catch up on and just talked and talked and talked. The long and winding conversation included a discussion about the future of UACO, and I concluded that this would be my last time working in Uganda. I was now almost sixty, I had regular aches and pains to contend with, the travel costs were expensive and I missed Allan too much. We agreed to rethink our commitment to UACO because we felt it was time for others to be involved and take over some roles. I felt firm in my resolve, but in the back of my mind I was aware that I had been so in the past – would God have other plans for me?

  Allan’s first day at work was an experience for everyone. The minute I got there Edward whisked Allan off to show him around while I was still downloading my email in the office, and I suddenly realised he had taken Allan out to the clinic and was introducing him to everyone. I was furious, not to mention incredibly hurt that he had not included me. I told Edward that I didn’t mind him showing Allan around the hospital, but the clinic was my heart’s work. Edward has never seen me so cross. I understood his excitement but I was hurt. He was very sorry and apologised profusely.

  Allan was given a formal welcome at the clinic by both the widows and the youths. We both made speeches, during which we told them we would buy the youth group some African drums to replace the plastic jerry cans they had been using.

  After observing the mayhem of the clinic, the following day Allan had his first look at the life of the people of Najjanankumbi. As we walked the locals called out to me as usual using various names, while Allan looked like the Pied Piper with about twenty kids running behind him at one stage. The noise was incredible; I wondered if they had ever seen a white man there before. My jajas were so pleased to meet him. It was important for me too that Allan saw how hard the work was, how great the humanity, and the reasons I was so worn out and yet enamored of Africa.

  He later told me how struck he was by the poverty of the people the clinic reached. There was no government health care, unemployment benefits or pensions here. People sleep on bags, cardboard or papers on a dirt floor; most do not have water, electricity or sewerage. Amid this he also saw the hope and joy people felt when they received the benefits of what the clinic provided. In addition to being able to show Uganda to Allan, it was wonderful to discuss the administrative stuff with him. He helped write the final budget which we explained in detail during meetings with Edward, Rose, Florence and Bukenya. They were all pleased and agreed that UACO should concentrate on free medical outreach for the needy.

  In between work we slipped away to see the source of the Nile River and the beautiful Bujaghali Falls at Jinja. In Kampala we visited a craft market and saw ebony being carved, had a cold beer at the Sheraton and caught a boda-boda up the hill to All Saints Church. The service was louder and more Pentecostal than Allan was used to but he enjoyed the sermon. For me it is Africa; there is nothing quite as wonderful as resonant African voices raised in song and I always love it. The men in particular singing ‘Amazing Grace’ is something I will never forget.

  Edward asked if we wanted to visit the equator zone, which is about an hour’s drive south-east of Kampala. As we headed off Allan started feeling poorly, which I at first put down to some travel sickness combined with the diesel fumes. By the time we returned to the compound it had progressed from stomach aches to the point where he couldn’t walk and was white as a sheet. He lay on the floor of Edward’s office looking like a cadaver.

  We put him into one of the hospital beds and as we treated him I saw a suitcase near the end of his bed with sheets from Australia in it. The writing on the case was Allan’s. He had gone full circle: having packed the bed and mattress he was now using them on the other side of the world. Rose brought him black African tea with ginger in it. Allan eventually got down two cups and I got him dressed and home to the hostel to recover.

  It took several days for Allan to get back on his feet, so he was unable to visit Recheal at the hospital at Kiwoko with me, a one and a half hour drive to the north toward Sudan. Recheal was so excited to see me and the gifts I had brought. I met the hospital’s medical superintendent to get an update on how she was going and to pay her fees for the next twelve months, plus some extra for clothes, text books and stationery. It added up to about $2000, which I paid for.

  In the final days before Allan and I were due to fly out, we transferred the money from UACO Australia into the bank account in Kampala to fulfill the UACO budget and began a series
of farewells, starting with the jajas on our walking clinic through the village. Allan and I bought groceries for Anna-Mary and Beth. They were living in the most deplorable conditions, but Beth was well and happy enough. We gave Beth some books and crayons and she read to us. She had improved much since last year. Anna-Mary had prepared lunch and soon started on about what she wanted, but I had become adept at setting boundaries regarding what I could and couldn’t provide. We left enough money with Frank and Michele to pay three months rent in advance when she found a bigger room.

  We then visited Alice at the Florence Nightingale Clinic in Nakulabye. She was expecting us and so was in her best dress and high-heeled shoes. There was a brand new baby boy there and Allan was asked to name him. He suggested Joshua, explaining to the mother that Joshua had saved many people’s lives and was a good man. Thomas was there as usual but he looked so thin. Allan handed out some sweets and it caused a stampede; one little tot who could not have been more than two came tearing across the compound in full voice and pushed her way to the front.

  After the mayhem died down, we went with Alice and a nurse to visit three AIDS patients. This way Allan was able to see the slums of Nakulabye without raising too many suspicions. The people still remembered me there, otherwise they would have been very suspicious about a couple of mzungus walking about their village. I have always thought it an intrusion to go into the slums where I am unknown and so take things gently until they understand why I am there. I think it is fair to say that Allan had his eyes opened.