The kids are expected to catch up with Dutch language after their morning lessons at the local primary school. They had open day this morning, all parents and carers were welcomed inside the classrooms were the teachers did a good job and gave some information on the child’s progress to each parent.

I am very happy with this school, teachers seem to be dedicated and the kids are fond of them. Just the few hours in the afternoon for Dutch language home schooling is more than enough for all of us… Anne Fleur seemed to pick Dutch reading and writing up quite easily, Ruben is different and his writing resembles Russian more than Dutch, many letters go the wrong way round. I’m therefore happy to get some sound testing done once we’re in the Netherlands for furlough in due time. Maybe I see things that are not there; maybe I’m too laid back about the whole thing and overlook many issues.

That’s the thing here; you are often the only “expert” while you’re definitely not an expert. The same with health issues. Normal wounds, bruises and children diseases can be dealt with and even a bit more with nurse/midwife background. (Though Aart will argue that nurses as wives or mothers are the harshest of their kind and give the least tender loving care during sickness to their own spouses).

At the moment we have no expat doctor within the Arua expat community. Sometimes there are good Ugandan doctors at one of the two hospitals within reach, but you never know when. Couple of weeks ago we had a problem with a kid who fell from his bike, his mom who happens to be an ER nurse had a look at the X ray, which looked fine to her, as there was no doctor available to have a look at it. Things seemed to be okay, however; complications emerged after a couple of days. The good thing was that we just had an American Paediatrician at our Guesthouse, and she had brought some very useful medicine. Most available medicines here are manufactured in India and way cheaper than the other pharmaceuticals, but the quality is not always as good. In the end the patient still had to go to Kampala for proper treatment but the parents got at least some backup while they took the trip down South (at least 7 hours).

In our day-to-day living we seem to depend more on our Heavenly Father than in the West where we expect to handle the situation all right with all the medical services at hand. Right now I’m just very grateful that we’re all in reasonable good health and I simply don’t want to take that for granted. And as much as I’ve drawn the “challenging” picture, we are blessed with so many people and services we’ve got access to. Especially when I compare our care with what is available to many local Ugandans in remote areas, I feel a real wimp at times.

Okay folks, these were just a few lines from a mother and house wife in Arua. Also part of living and working in Uganda. Thanks for taking time to read it and staying in touch.