I LIED: That wasn't my last post. I decided there might be more fun things to post. Now that my brain is actually catching up with my body, I'm remembering more things to tell. Like Auntie's thoughts on our friends the Brits, or on smearing habanero paste on dogs' butts. Besides, I've realized some of my writerly friends actually read my blog, and, being the competitive med student that I am, I want to demonstrate that when I pay attention, I can actually write. I'll defer demonstrating that until later.

SAVE A LIFE: This will be my last post until I return to Uganda. Until then, I wanted to let you know about a small foundation based out of UCSF that provides free antiretrovirals (ARVs) to Ugandans with AIDS. Currently, life-saving ARVs are too expensive for most families. The vast majority of Ugandans who take ARVs receive it for free through the Global Fund and PEPFAR. Unfortunately, these programs are still growing and only reach a minority of people who need medication. To help close the gap between demand and supply, the Family Treatment Fund, a foundation based out of UCSF, is raising money to provide a five year supply of anti-retrovirals to patients who need medication. The foundation prioritizes widows with children, in order to reach to the people most at need and maximize the benefit of each donation. Medication is guaranteed for five years to each recipient, since it is expected that enough free ARVs will be available in 5 years that recipients can be transitioned to another funding source.

A $1,100 donation will provide 5 years of treatment to one person with HIV. Granted, this is not a systematic response to the problem of poverty and HIV in Uganda, but sometimes when systematic responses feel too overwhelming, it's helpful to focus on the individual. All donations are tax-deductible, and the money is carefully monitored to make sure it goes where it's intended.

If you want more info or are interested in making a donation, please go to www.familytreatmentfund.ucsf.edu

If you are interested in supporting systematic solutions... this is harder. Support U.S. funding of free anti-retrovirals, HIV prevention programs that emphasize condom use along with abstinence and faithfulness, adequate financial monitoring, and...

Thanks for all your love and support the past 3 months!

Marissa

PHOTOS: Now that I'm back in the States with high speed internet (a wonder to behold), I'm adding more photos to the blog. Adding some photos to previous posts, and also adding miscellaneous photos here.

Don't despair, I will have one more post after this one.

TOURISTY TRAVELS: I spent the last 2 1/2 weeks travelling the country with my mom and Nate. Very fun, and very tiring. Here is a brief synopsis of our marvelous journey, complete with a summary of each event:
- Mom visits Mbarara and hospital: Go mom!
- Murchison Falls National Park: Hot. Giraffes! for birders: shoebill.
- Road from Murchison to Fort Portal: Is there a masseuse out there?
- Fort Portal and Ndali Lodge: Luscious accomodation, aristocratic Brit owner, Lord of the Rings view
- Rafting the Nile: more on that from Nate, so he can gloat about my excellent rafting skills and I can pretend not to be conceited.
- Mom leaves for the U.S.: Had fun! Nate and I are alone!
- Gorillas in Rwanda: Now I see what the fuss is about.
- Lake Bunyoni: R&R

Okay, here's the rafting scoop from Nate:

On the biggest rapid that is comercially rafted in the whole world, class 5 plus, we hit it straight on and everyone fell out except Marissa. The raft was literally more than vertical and shot up in the air high enough to lose contact with the water. The guides and rescue guys in kayaks all came over to give her five. Let's hope there's a picture of it. Had she held onto her paddle, it would have been even more impressive, but no one's perfect.

KIGALI, RWANDA: Hi all, sorry for the huge break between posts. I got caught up yanking my mom and nate all around the country on a touristy blitz. More on that later. Weeks ago I went to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, with a Montefiore resident for the weekend to see the Genocide Memorial Centre. It is eery to travel in a country, and know that everyone has a family member who killed or was killed, if they themselves were not perpetrators or survivors. I look around at passersby, and wonder... I see a scar on the face, or arm, and don't know if it is just a scar? Does everyone have a mask covering a secret, or darkness, or wounds. We ended up staying at the Hotel des Milles Collines (the hotel on which Hotel Rwanda is based), which was also... eery isn't quite the word I'm looking for. To stand in the restaurant on the upper floors, and look out to the street below, and know that 11 yrs ago others looked out to see horror. One drives along the road through towns and villages, and not infrequently one sees that town's mass grave as a memorial.

The Genocide Memorial Centre was extremely well done, and between that and a book I just finished I've realized how I understood nothing about what happened in Rwanda in 1994. I remember reading the NYT after the genocide, and being unable to figure out if Hutus or Tutsis were the minority group, and thinking they'd been at each others throats forever. I had no idea why the genocide really happened, and the role of the West in helping create conditions for genocide, and, in the case of France in particular, funding the genocide. I strongly recommend reading "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" by Philip Gourevitch. It is a journalist's non-fiction exploration of why the genocide happened and what happened after. It's lucid, and he does a remarkable job of creating a coherent account of a complex story.

I've attached a photo of the pool at Hotel des Milles Collines.

I promise the next post will be a more uplifting topic.

THANKSGIVING: We had quite the Thanksgiving feast here at Nneka's dreamhouse. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted potatoes and veggies, green beans, pureed pumpkin, mac and cheese, pumpkin pie, apple pie, the fattest whipped cream I've ever seen, wine... Yum! It was wonderful to spend Thanksgiving with friends when I'm so far away from home. So, here are a few pictures. Our turkey was free range until the very end, as you'll see.

POLITICS: Last week was quite eventful, to say the least. The excitement began Friday, Nov 11 when students at the main university in the capital of Kampala- Makerere Univ- protested an enormous increase in student fees. The protest quickly became a riot, complete with burning of cars and looting of businesses, and the police were deployed. A fellow med student at UCSF and 2 students with whom I had just gone to Lake Mburo had all the windows of their house broken as students tried to break in. (They lived with a Makerere Univ professor/administrator, and the house was therefore targeted.) The riot settled down by Friday afternoon, with smaller flares over the weekend.

Things got even more interesting Monday the 14th. (As background, Uganda’s current president, Museveni, is just finishing two 10 year terms. He is up for re-election for a third term, having just changed the constitution to remove term limits. He led the army that overthrew the dictator Obote, ending years of government terror and brutality, and generally has been seen as a good president, although the recent constitution change has people rightfully worried about his democratic intentions.) Besigye, Museveni’s main opposition candidate (and former personal doctor and good friend),returned from self-imposed exile in South Africa recently to run in March’s presidential election. He was arrested Monday, charged with a 1997 rape and supporting a guerilla army based in Congo. The charges appear, shall we say, politically motivated. His arrest triggered further rioting in Kampala that lasted throughout the day. We were watching events carefully from Mbarara, a 4 hour drive to the southwest, uncertain if the riots would be confined to Kampala, or spread to other cities.

Early Tuesday morning, Nneka knocked on my door to inform me that military police were stationed throughout Mbarara, and to be prepared to leave for Rwanda should violence break out in Mbarara. (Rwanda, two hours by car, is the nearest border.) I promptly went into town to get money from the bank and refill the minutes on my mobile. At noon, about 20 military police were stationed in the golf course in front of my house, and at 12:30 pm I received an unnerving text message from a friend of mine with the following security alert sent by the organization for which she works: “confirmed rioting at Makerere and central Kampala 11:30 AM. Military police using live ammo deployed in central. Do not approach these areas for any reason”. Kampala quieted by Tuesday evening, and when I returned home from work Tuesday night, the military presence was gone.

Things remained quiet the remainder of the week, and have been quiet since. Besigye is scheduled for a bail hearing Nov 24th, which may also become interesting as other men charged along with him were released on bail late last week, only to be met by a heretofore unknown military group called the “black mamba urban hit squad”. (I kid you not.) The black mamba squad, dressed in black and carrying automatic weapons, tried to force their way into the court house to “arrest” the men who had just been released on bail. Newspaper editorials and the judges spoke out against this afterwards, as such military action obviously threatens the independence of the judiciary, harkens back to days when political opponents mysteriously disappeared, and discourages multi-party politics.

To add to these concerning developments, the police entered the offices of one of the two main national papers, saying that the paper was illegally publishing paid advertising for a fundraising campaign for Besigye. They confiscated many of that day’s papers, and delayed delivery to much of the country, specifically the region from which Besigye hails. So, to add to the intimidation of the judiciary, is intimidation of the press.

It is encouraging that editorials from the national papers, including the pro-Museveni paper, are harshly criticizing Museveni, and that the situation has been calm now for many days.