Real Beauty, Real Heroes

((You know you’ve hit blog nirvana when you are called a ‘hater’.))

I’m on my way out of Bundibugyo.  The only reason I am returning to Krazy Kampala is that I ran out of money yesterday and my stupid pride won’t allow me to live on charity for more than one day.

I leave Bundibugyo at a loss for words on the Ebola epidemic.

What can I say about a people so poor and yet so brave; so frail and yet so strong?  What can I say about the medics, who despite their limited experience and the absence of equipment fought to contain a disease that baffled even the greatest among them?  What can I say about the more than 100 local volunteers, who receiving nothing but a small lunch allowance, traverse the mountains of this remote district to educate the population about Ebola, report new cases and struggle through the rough terrain to bring the sick to hospital?

What can I say about the Real Heroes … 

… and the Real Beauty of the magnificent desolate Bundibugyo?  

Sempaya Hot Springs

Semliki River Valley (on the other side of the river is the DRC)

Mbale Records its First Ebola Death

The first suspected Ebola death outside Kampala City and the Rwenzori Mountains region has been recorded at Mbale Hospital.  Olive Esther Mukite, the Sironko District Information Officer, died this evening at about 5 p.m.

Olive Mukite was admitted at Mbale Hospital this morning after displaying symptoms of Ebola and was quickly placed in an isolation ward. Henry Luigale, the Mbale Hospital Medical Superintendent, says Mukite and 65 councilors from Sironko returned from a study tour of Kisoro district on Friday last week.  He cannot say for sure that Mukite died of the disease and is awaiting a post mortem report from a team of medical experts from Kampala who will travel to Mbale tomorrow.  No case of the hemorrhagic fever has been reported in either Kisoro districts.

The staff at Mbale Hospital were completely unprepared for Ebola in their neck of the woods and several medical officers, including a nurse who was by Mukite’s side throughout her ordeal, have been put in isolation for observation.