Our stay at Kisiizi, South West Uganda

In 2004 Gareth and I were lucky enough to spend 3 months working in Uganda, Gareth as part of his medical elective and I as a volunteer teacher in the hospital primary school. Since returning, we are pleased to say that St Mark’s has decided to support Kisiizi through its Sponsor-an-Orphan scheme. (More information can be found at http://www.kisiiziorphans.org.uk/). Here is just a bit more information about the Kisiizi community and some of our photos which I hope you’ll enjoy.

Kisiizi Hospital is in the Kigezi highlands of south-western Uganda, about 4,500 feet above sea level. A spectacular waterfall powers an hydroelectric generator which provides electricity for the hospital and campus. The nearest town, one and half hours away by road, is Kabale.

The beautiful landscape is one of green hills stretching away as far as the eye can see. The vegetation in the valleys is lush, consisting of banana plantations, pineapple crops and small homesteads with gardens growing avocados, passion fruit, yams, cassava, coffee, maize, beans and pumpkin.

The climate is like that of a pleasant English summer and there are two rainy seasons a year. Some households are lucky enough to own a few goats, cattle or chickens. So you could be mistaken for thinking you were back in England at the sight of some Fresian cattle grazing in a grassy field!

However, in this beautiful setting is found real poverty. If they are lucky, families can grow enough food to feed themselves, but there is rarely much left over to sell to earn money. This means they have little resources to meet essential expenditure such as medical care if they are sick or school fees for their children.  If a family loses its land – for example if it has to sell it to pay for medical care, or if the parents die leaving their children orpahned – this is a disaster for that family which is left with no means of support.

Kisiizi hospital was established in 1958 by the Ruanda Mission but later handed over to the Church of Uganda. It has provided healing and caring ever since for a wide catchment area stretching hundreds of miles, patients sometimes travelling from beyond Mbarara, the regional town 80 miles away. It receives little Government funding and has to charge for treatment, but it will waive fees if patients are genuinely unable to pay – relying on funds donated in the UK and elsewhere.

Although basic compared to Western standards, the hospital deals with all the common medical problems found in Uganda – including Malaria, TB, pneumonia, malnutrition and HIV (a third of the adult population are HIV positive).  Life expectancy is only around 45 years.

The chapel is very much at the centre of the hospital’s work both physically (it is the central building in the hospital campus) and spiritually. Each day at 8.00am the working community is summoned by drum to the chapel for morning prayer.

Kisiizi Hospital Primary school, also starts its day with prayer as well as exercises and marching on the compound. As they raise the Ugandan flag they sing the Ugandan National Anthem and the school song:

We young women and men of Uganda

Are marching along the path of Education

Singing and dancing with joy together,

Uniting for a better Uganda.

We are the pillars of tomorrow’s Uganda,

Let’s rise now embrace true knowledge,

Yielding, discipline, resourcefulness

To rebuild the Great, Great Pearl!

There are roughly 300 children in the school ranging from 3 to 14 years old. The children are smartly dressed (as all Ugandan school children seem to be) in red and white checked dresses or grey shorts and checked shirts. They study extremely hard as competition is fierce to get into secondary school (if they can afford it). Yet they remain cheerful and enthusiastic to learn.

The children’s dancing to a drum beat, the sound of people greeting one another with ‘Agandi!’, a pickup bursting with singing passengers and the torrential rain beating down on the corrugated iron roof are just some of the sounds of Kisiizi. Above the altar in the chapel is written ‘Life in all its fullness’ and after a stay at Kisiizi it certainly feels like this is what you have been privileged to experience.