These are the People
Last week marked my final few days in Yumbe. After a delayed start to my week, I finally made it to town and lo, all of the staff at Needy Kids, one of the two non-profits I'm working with, was absent, registering Ugandans for the fall elections (strangely, a temporary, paid job here) and Abaru Beatrice, the director of Safe Motherhood was only around for two days. It was an unexpected, if fitting "This is Africa" final week of work. If I haven't already made it clear, interruptions, extreme delays and like are par for the course here. But the weather was relatively cool with massive storm clouds whirling around every afternoon, the mangoes were so plentiful that 10 cents bought you a garbage bag full, and I still managed to get some important work done.
Pictured above are two local folks that work with Safe Motherhood - the first is woman named Agnes, a beneficiary whose five-year-old son was quickly treated for malaria thanks to the work of Safe Motherhood and Wellshare International, and the second is Kassim, a Community Medicine Distributor, a first volunteer responder in the Ugandan chain of health services. My work with sub-granting and what might be loosely called "non-profit management" is a few degrees removed from the Ugandans who cope with malaria, so it is heartening and inspiring to meet a couple of people who can describe the real stakes. For Agnes, if she or her son has malaria, it means she can't work in the field to bring food to her family. The seemingly minor expense of drugs for treatment - a few dollars - is an enormous burden a subsistence farming family like Agnes's. So for her, the stakes are high - to avoid malaria and to treat it before it kills means everything. For Kassim, as a volunteer Community Medicine Distributor, he plays a vital role, but one that doesn't get much support from the Ministry of Health here. It's tremendously beneficial for a local non-profit like Safe Motherhood (with support from Wellshare and, in turn, USAID) to provide him with more information and to reach out to educate his village of Aria. Below are Adiga, myself and Beatrice in front of the Safe Motherhood office on the day of my departure. The second photo is of Tamia Christine, the office assistant at Needy Kids, who I worked with often in the absence of other staff. Good folks, all. If you're headed to Yumbe anytme soon, say 'hi' for me.