Good overcomes Evil, the promise that our paltry efforts are part of the all-things-shall-be-worked-out-new . . .

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Rom 12:21

Morning reading, sipping coffee, pondering. Deep breath for facing the day. By 7:30 trying to sift through as many emails from overnight as possible giving quick answers before we head to the hospital at 8. There we find the usual morning staff meeting, outdoors and socially spaced, unusually well attended. The COVID - reality is sinking in like a lead balloon. This week we went from almost no cases in Bundibugyo to 5 to 10 (mostly hospital staff), including one very sick one. Colleagues told of a 40 and a 32 year old doctor who died of COVID in Kampala. Considering that we only can do a handful of tests, the fact that 70% have been positive is a bit worrisome. In the meeting we are discussing the fact that of our 18 oxygen cylinders, only 4 were refilled in Fort Portal (2 hours away) because the plant is maxed in capacity.  We have bought numerous oxygen concentrators this past year, but most seem to have mechanical issues after a few months, due to the unstable electricity or the constant use or the humid bug-dense Bundibugyo atmosphere or the fact that most health care staff have minimal experience with machines. Two were repaired this week. The pharmacist is concerned about indications for dexamethasone; if over-prescribed we will soon run out. Everyone is concerned about masks. The meeting has the feeling of a town without defenses preparing for siege. The evil of a virus, of poverty and injustice, of unequal access to vaccines and oxygen . . . As the United States trends downward with rapidly dropping rates and hopeful summer concerts and plans, Uganda trends steeply upward with sorrow and uncertainty and restrictions. Until everyone is safe, no one is safe. South America, southern Africa, India, so much suffering. How do we overcome such evil with good? We start with sharing a box of our remaining masks. 

As the meeting finishes, we get a call from our office manager John. Two days prior, the local government had informed us that the transit camp for our border with the DRC was receiving refugees crossing the Semiliki river at the rate of 100-150/day, and the total already topped twelve hundred. While refugees are the purview of UNHCR and the Office of the Prime Minister in Uganda, the response engine starts and moves slowly. Red Cross had blankets, but immediate food aid was needed. We decided to spend down some of the balance from our previous flood relief campaign, thankful that we had established an emergency relief fund. For ten thousand dollars we could serve over a thousand people with beans, posho, oil, plates, cups and jerry cans for a couple of weeks while the big guns organize their more substantial shipments. Our CSB OB's and OG's (alumni) are getting skilled at this now, and sprang into action loading up trucks in Fort Portal which required a fair amount of paperwork to move in a lockdown. They arrived at the camp this morning, so we went to confirm the donation with the camp managers.  Children swarmed around a covered play area and out in the grass. A dozen or so families had cooking fires, but most people were waiting for massive pots of porridge being prepared for all over an outdoor wood-fire range. Laundry was woven through the fences to dry. The shed-like buildings have plastic tarps stretched tightly over wooden fames for walls, and are quite dark inside with little airflow, but provide some shelter from the elements. Not very COVID safe. The latrines were labeled in Swahili with helpful male/female stick figures. We chatted with a group of men watching the trucks unload--they talked of unknown rebels, maybe ADF, attacking their village in Boga. They didn't see any recourse except to flee with their lives. We communicated in Lubwisi because the language groups are similar, but they came from a half dozen different tribes. They said they were hungry. They wanted their own rations, not group meals, but we said we had to respect the leadership established by the governance of the camp. I didn't mention that almost exactly 24 years ago we were attacked by the ADF and fled on foot and depended on the kindness of strangers to feed our kids and get transported to safety. They seemed a lot calmer than I remember feeling at the time. MONUSCO (UN), FARDC (Congo army), and UPDF (Ugandan army) all seem to be involved in trying to protect the border and the population from the ADF, though the men we spoke with only reported seeing the UN blue beret troops. There have been at least three major attacks reported in the news in the last few weeks, with up to a hundred deaths and 6,000 people displaced. We see more reassuring Ugandan military moving up and down our road than we have in quite a long time. So more evil, more war, greed, hunger, violence, loss that needs a response of good. We are not a major relief organisation, but we are grateful for donors who have invested in the emergency fund for quick action. Perhaps sacks of beans and stacks of jerry cans seem paltry, but in God's hands we trust they will do something.

Back to the hospital, in spite of COVID spiralling into crisis and refugees fleeing into the district, babies are still being born. A fourteen year old mom whose baby is dry, febrile, sick. An older mom whose baby is in respiratory distress. And so it goes. Our nurse Kacie has decided to focus in the NICU for now, for which I am grateful, though the indecipherable correlation of babies to moms to names to weights to files just about defeated both of us. Thankfully Scott and the clinical officer had helped out on the Paeds ward, so I just had to consult on a couple of very malnourished kids there. That left the last hour of the day to teach our group of new Medical Interns from Somalia about malaria, which is one of the few things that plagues Uganda MORE than Somalia. It was a reminder of how nice it is to have a group of eager-to-learn trainees, and to try and engage them. We can barely understand each other's English, but sometimes we resort to drawing things, and we seem to connect. The evil of the child mortality in their country, the lack of resource for education and training, and the little step of overcoming that with the good of an hour of investing in these young men. 

Then it's the evening, a visit or two from neighbours, preparing to feed our four university-student Serge summer interns, catching up on some Area work. The good of a local pumpkin, of thick fragrant beans. Of a blowing fan in the heat, and affectionate dogs, and a day wrapping up into quiet.