Mama Jude: An Australian Nurse’s Extraordinary Other Life In Africa

by Judy Steel

  I set myself a challenge of learning fifty new Lugandan words per week, but language was no barrier on the first walking clinic. The jajas were so excited to see me, they flung their walking sticks (tree branches) to the ground and held onto me instead. Those who could danced around, and women came from everywhere in a gaggle of chatter and laughter. I was thrilled to see some were not pregnant this year. Rita and Flavia from the widows’ association came along accompanied by a band of young people called ‘lady scouts’ which, curiously, included a couple of young men. They had been enlisted to do things for the old people, like cleaning their houses and compounds.

  Between all this joyfulness, I was distressed to see one of my old ladies, Bitajuma, in a very poor state. Although blind for years, she was now also paralysed in her right leg, and she was hungry, thirsty, dirty and lying on a wet mattress from her incontinence. The grandson who was supposed to be looking after her was now well on the way with AIDS and even filthier. I arranged a mattress from the hospital with a thick rubber coating for her and some sheets. Her grandson disappeared somewhere and I didn’t see him again. Between me and the lady scouts, we promised to visit her regularly.

  Anthony was still alive and caring for his six greatgrandchildren. Despite being worn down by the years, he continued his slow walks down the hills to bring back jerry cans of drinking water for people who tipped him for the service. Our first clinic had begun in an uplifting way, but by the end I was also weary – it was not just the smells and noise that were familiar but also the sorrow. I headed home to my guesthouse in the heat and stifling humidity. Before it rains in Uganda, the sky is heavy with cloud, and the perspiration just pours off you until you almost beg for the heavens to open.

  I thought I had seen a lot of traumatic things in Africa, but within a week of arriving I was witness to something that will stay in my mind forever. Edward had taken me to see a group of Congolese refugees he was treating. We arrived at a large two-storey house where we met a Catholic priest, Father Michael. He was also a refugee and had been living there for about four years. In this house, including the shed at the back, lived eighty-seven adults and forty children, the youngest being four days old. They were so poor they often went without food for up to three days. They had crossed the border in a desperate attempt to escape the ethnic and civil war that has racked the Democratic Republic of Congo since the mid 1990s. Millions have died through violence and starvation and those who survived have experienced indescribable horrors.

  One man called Mane (pronounced mine), who looked about thirty-five, was a qualified social worker with an organisation in Congo caring for orphans. After being jailed for resisting government soldiers, Mane said he was flogged with a lash twenty times every morning, twelve times at noon and another twenty times in the evening. He was then told he was being transferred to another jail for execution, but a warden helped him escape. He went home to discover soldiers had raped his wife in front of their children, who were now gone,. He continued to his parent’s house and found they had been ‘slashed to pieces’. His only option was to escape. He still doesn’t know what happened to his children. His face held a look of total despair, like the walking dead. He said he desperately needed to do something, anything, so he had a reason to wake up each morning. There was nothing I could do for him and during the time I was in Uganda I never saw him again.

  Edward told all the women and children to come to the clinic for immunisation and education on safe sex, because some of the women were prostituting themselves for food. I had never seen squalor on this scale before, nor stared in the face of anguish and hopelessness such as this. They were three months behind with the rent and threatened with eviction. The only things I could think of to assist was paying the young Congolese men to unpack the container and giving Father Michael food to be given to the refugees.

  The container remained in Ugandan customs with no sign of being released. Meanwhile, my own accommodation was causing problems. On arrival I had checked into a guesthouse but became quickly frustrated by the tiny room, which was only two paces wide and four paces long, with no drawers or space to unpack anything. The first night I rolled back the bed covers and discovered a bat in residence. Although it was only the size of a mouse, as it began flapping around and making a noise it seemed to grow to the size of an elephant. I quickly got dressed and went down to reception, then a beautiful young man named Joseph came and removed it while I took out a large tin of insect spray and sent a cloud of pesticide over the room. The power went off but was quickly restored when the manager fired up a particularly noisy generator outside my window. I tried to block it out by listening to some tapes but even the music was drowned out by the thumping noise.

  Despite my commitment to bug spray, by morning I found myself covered in bites. I navigated my way through my luggage into the tiny bathroom and listened as fellow guests loudly cleared their throats and hoicked. As I sat on the bed feeling rather desperate, I picked up a note sent by Judy Howe, the Canadian evangelical I met last time, who lived in a sweet cottage with two large alsatians for company, plus a night watchman armed with a bow and arrow. On my last trip Judy had offered to share her house with me. Scratching the bites, looking at my belongings stacked on top of each other and wishing the generator would come back on to drown out the revolting bathroom throat chorus, it suddenly seemed like an offer too good to refuse. I rang, just to tell her I was back, and she shrieked, ‘Get ready for at least ten hugs and lots of screaming with delight.’

  When we met a few days later, she burst into tears of happiness. I immediately asked if the offer to share her house was still open and she cried some more. I had paid for two weeks in advance at the guesthouse and decided I would see that time out, but as the day went on the itchier I got and the more I yearned for my own space. So later that day I rang to see if I could come straightaway – Judy cried some more. She had been very lonely and having a tough time financially, so the combination of company and shared expenses thrilled her. Edward came to collect me and, as we drove to Judy’s house, he told me bats carry mites. I realised what had been the cause of the trouble.

  Judy’s cottage was brand-new and she had taken a lot of trouble to make it homely. It had a functioning bathroom and a kitchen where I could cook. Financially I was better off than at the hostel or guest house and had more independence too. I was in seventh heaven.

  Wednesday, 2 May 2001: the day the container arrived. Edward and I went to the Kampala bond store and checked it was intact, after which came a series of events that, if I didn’t know better, I would have believed was a deliberate, systematic test of my patience.

  On Monday, Edward told me he thought it would be on the block on Wednesday. Wednesday came and went. On Thursday, customs said signatures were still needed. On Friday, the clearing agent said he was having difficulties and still needed some signatures, but it would be Saturday morning for sure. On Saturday, the agent went to get the final signature but the person who had to sign wasn’t at work. On Monday, he got the final signature but as it was four o’clock the bond store wouldn’t release it because it was too late for processing. The Ugandan Revenue Authority had to observe the unloading on our site. This didn’t happen on Tuesday because it was a public holiday.

  Wednesday morning finally arrived and Edward and I drove out to the bond store very early.

  A crane delicately lowered the container onto the back of a flat-top truck, which then lurched out of the customs compound into the chaotic traffic. We followed in a car behind and as we moved toward the main road, I was horrified to see the truck suddenly turn left instead of right. I raced ahead and flagged it down, only to be told the driver was going to get fuel. I had to suppress a smirk when I saw across the back of the truck a sign saying: ‘Don’t follow me am also lost.’

  When the container finally arrived at the hospital, the Congolese men worked their hearts out. The only instructions they needed every now and then was pole em pole, meaning ‘slowly, slowly�
��. The packing was so good that nothing had been broken on the way. At one stage I feared the worst when representatives from the Ugandan Drug Authority asked for an inspection. I opened the first box and they looked inside, ticked off their paperwork and said that I was obviously a busy woman and they would let me get on with it. TIA – this is Africa.

  It was like Christmas as the beds, wheelchairs, walking frames, cradles, crutches, baby clothes, medicines and dressings were unloaded. A camera crew from the Presidential Press Unit at Uganda TV recorded the work, while two women from the Uganda Revenue Authority sat and listed everything that came out. Their only real interest was in the cardboard boxes, and asked to open only one of those: the doctor’s bag full of instruments and medical textbooks inside made them happy.

  The rooms that had only hours before been concrete shells suddenly looked like hospital wards. Patients who had been lying on old blankets on the floor were eased into beds and could now be moved in wheelchairs. Equipment was stored in cupboards instead of on the floor. I gave a knitted hat and scarf to our night watchman: he was thrilled to know a jaja in Australia had made it for him.

  The container was practically empty in about two and a half hours, with the exception of the anaesthetic machine and the operating table. I hadn’t wanted to unload them until the container was off the truck and solidly on the ground, but I then realised that couldn’t happen because they would move when the crane lifted it to its final resting place. So the wonderful Congolese workers climbed up inside the container and lifted this precious equipment out; I was so nervous I couldn’t bear to look. It went perfectly, and soon the crane arrived and lifted the container gently onto the concrete foundation that had been prepared for it a few weeks previously. A workman immediately began installing windows and doors on the container as it began its transformation into a clinic.

  All of a sudden, people started arriving and a celebration began. The Permanent Private Secretary to President Museveni on Religious Affairs opened with prayers, and Edward made the most beautiful speech of thanks. Then it was my turn. Having no idea that any of this was going to happen, I flew by the seat of my pants and explained that my tears were of happiness, and everyone clapped. During the day a reporter from the New Vision newspaper interviewed me and we made every TV news program that evening.

  We finally went to Rose and Edward’s home for lunch about 3.30 pm. Ugandans do not as a rule show their emotions, but Rose said that she couldn’t say the words that were in her heart. And I could not have got the smile off Edward’s face if I had tried! He said he was so excited and overawed by the quality of the equipment that he couldn’t sleep that night.

  At the end of a very long day, I put on some music, showered and collapsed onto the lounge at my new home. I then remembered the little bottles of bubbly from the plane – now safely stowed in the fridge. Judy and I opened them and made several toasts: to God, then the people of Uganda, and my beautiful Australia.

  Chapter Thirteen

  EDWARD IS SERIOUSLY POLITICALLY connected in Uganda. He seems to have either been to school with, is related to, or is friends with just about everyone. Often when something was needed he would make a phone call or just mysteriously sort it out. I know he has been approached to run for parliament and he often supports others seeking office.

  His connections were confirmed when he collected me one morning looking very smart, as the Ugandans like to say. We were heading to a thanksgiving service for the President’s reelection and picked up the President’s adviser on religion along the way. Driving north towards sudan through stunning tropical country and then to Luwero along an incredibly bumpy road, we eventually slowed to less than walking pace as the road became clogged with people passing through security scanners. I was wearing my gomez and people started to look and smile at a mzungu in their national dress. Once past security we were escorted through a huge covered pavilion, across the front of another raised pavilion and up some steps to be seated in the same area as President Museveni.

  Yoweri Museveni is one of three principal characters of Ugandan politics since independence in 1962, a period dominated by tribal rivalries, the others being Milton Obote, who was the country’s first prime minister and president, and his notorious former military commander, Idi Amin. Museveni studied politics and economics at university in Tanzania in the 1960s, declaring himself both a born-again Christian and a Marxist. He was working in the intelligence service in 1971 when Idi Amin staged a coup and overthrew Obote’s government. Museveni went into exile in Tanzania, returning in 1979 as a senior member of the Uganda National Liberation Front that overthrew Amin’s government. As minister of defence he developed strong links with the army. In 1980 an election was held and Museveni’s newly formed party, the Uganda Patriotic Movement, did poorly, winning only one seat. Obote’s Uganda People’s Congress won amid allegations of irregularities that heavily favoured the Lango tribe at the expense of the Buganda. It was in this area around Luwero where Museveni and his supporters then formed what became the National Resistance Army. They suffered greatly at the hands of Obote’s troops in what was later known as the ‘bush war’. Obote slaughtered thousands and there are 70,000 known skeletons in the Luwero district alone. Amnesty International estimates the Obote regime killed 300,000 civilians and a special memorial in Luwero marks 2000 skulls in a communal grave. Museveni is said to have personally counted them.

  In January 1986, Museveni’s forces took Kampala and he was sworn in as President. Edward admires them greatly and gave me a video about the formation of the Museveni rebel soldiers who eventually marched on Kampala. I don’t think Museveni is without blemish, but he did save the largest tribe (the Buganda, which Edward is a member of) from Obote, who wanted to rid Kampala of them and bring in his tribe (the Lango) from the north. Since then Museveni has won two elections, the last being a few weeks before I arrived when he famously travelled on a boda-boda to cast his vote.

  Luwero is therefore a hugely significant place for those who suffered for Museveni, and the thanksgiving service was ecumenical to say the least. Catholic, Anglican, Seventh Day Adventist, Muslim and Hindu prayers were all said, and it went on for three hours. While I was mostly enthralled, it did get hot and I was dehydrating. I wanted to go to the loo but I felt conspicuous in my gomez so only drank a little and hung on until I got home – eleven hours later. As we all lined up for lunch the heavens opened and it bucketed down. I have no idea what I looked like, with my hair starting to frizz with the rain, my gomez being held up around my knees and my ankles sinking into the mud, but it didn’t matter. Edward appeared at my side with plates of food and we sheltered in the big pavilion. It reminded me of the Bible story of the loaves and fishes, only on this occasion about 10,000 people were fed for free. The majority of people were very poor so for them to have such a feast was truly magnificent.

  As I was leaving, the local women became fascinated with me. Edward translated they thought I had paid them a very big compliment by wearing my gomez. The women were laughing and calling out as we got into the car, with me feeling just a bit overwhelmed. And so began the biggest traffic jam I have ever been in; it took us two hours to go two kilometres. As we drove along, men and women called out to me so I started to wave and laugh and talk to them in Luganda – I felt a bit like the Queen.

  My second dose of Ugandan politics came a fortnight later at a public function to celebrate President Museveni’s re-election. Predictably it began with award-winning traffic snarls, which gave me time to admire the streets bedecked with banners of red, yellow and black along with photos of Museveni and his close friend Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. Gaddafi is supposed to have given him 5000 rifles during the bush war, and it was this plus help from Tanzania that enabled Museveni to deliver the Ugandans from Obote.

  The 10,000 at Luwero was a Sunday school picnic compared to this. Among the VIPs were the heads of state of Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda, the Vice-President of South Africa, and a former
Nigerian president. There were also delegates from Senegal, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Mozambique, Congo and Egypt. Gaddafi arrived in a white stretch limousine accompanied by his own ambulance, a bevy of four-wheel drives and his personal guards, all beautiful women with long hair, wearing berets, tight trousers and shirts.

  The ceremony went for three hours, including interludes by drummers and dancers. Every time Museveni opened his mouth, thousands screamed and blew whistles. I didn’t anticipate the twenty-one-gun salute and Edward laughed heartily when I jumped. To add to my astonishment, two Russian MiGs thundered overhead. I didn’t even know Uganda had an air force, but Edward told me there are four planes.

  Over the weeks the clinic began to take shape. A vinyl floor was installed, iron roof put on, furniture added and a rainwater tank plumbed. We ordered a generator for the hospital, and its arrival was relief for the health workers who no longer had to worry about blackouts interrupting their work. Later a concrete slab was poured for the clinic verandah and I bought twenty plastic chairs, a rubbish bin, a coiled mat for the floor and a mop. Edward helped pay for a stone wall to be built right around the compound for our safety.

  I had always thought it would be wonderful to grow vegetables around the clinic, but the ground proved unsuitable. When Edward bought the property it was effectively a steep hill. This was overcome by bringing in about one hundred truckloads of rubble from the Entebbe road when it was being constructed. Although the resulting ground was so poor in quality we couldn’t start a vegetable garden, we eventually were able to grow some matoke and some shrubs.