dr. tom

“Why do girl’s armpits smell but boy’s feet smell?” That was one of the questions from the discussion I had with the children today – but more on that in a minute.

When preparing to come to Uganda to do medical work with the children at St. Mary Kevin orphanage I was unsure what to expect… I was concerned about what facilities would be available and what kind of resources were accessible for problems identified. It didn’t matter – we basically started from scratch. I was shown what would be the clinic: a room with beans covering the floor and a large generator, intended to power the flour mill, in the middle of the room. But by the end of the first day, with the help of the children, the room was cleared.


Each child is being seen for a general physical exam and any specific problems they are having. There are no health records, immunization records, growth charts and very limited family histories for children. While the children speak excellent English for the most part, they are VERY soft spoken and tend to answer “yes” to every question.

The general health of the children is remarkably good, given the sanitation conditions. Even more striking is the cheerful disposition and happiness of each child. There are a few children that are known to be HIV positive and have access to a clinic where they are provided antiviral medications at no cost. All of the children have the same three complaints: headaches, cough and abdominal pain. Malaria is very common here and most/all of the children have been treated for it at some point.

My biggest mistake so far was handing out eyeglasses that we brought (thanks to Amy) to several of the children who had difficulty reading their books (rather than waiting till the end of our visit.) Now EVERY child I see complains of eye problems because the glasses were such a big hit!


When seeing some of the older children I realized that many of them had the same questions about their bodies changing and “personal things.” So we had a group discussion with them this afternoon where we talked about everything from body functions (hence the question at the beginning of this entry) to the basics of disease prevention and STDs.

Nurse Jane and I have seen about 1/3rd of the children so far but I have still managed to sneak time in for some games of volleyball, basketball and check on the progress of the garden that Randy and Steve (a friend from Development In Gardening) have created.

It has been an incredible experience so far – and we’ve only been here for three days! I’ve still got some time to learn and practice my Lugandan language lessons.