another short, sweet trip to the Sudan
on Random Uganda (Uganda), 12/Feb/2010 13:46, 34 days ago
in the cabin of the 206Torit International AirportTorit, South Sudan, from the airThe Irmatong mountainsOver Lake KyogaFebruary 10thMonday’s hash was in Bugolobi, or Mbuya, or somewhere toward the southeast outskirts of town. We got lost trying to find the starting point at Daytona Bar, so I was playing catch up from the get go. My phone kept going off. I know, you say, how stupid to run with a phone, but on the Kampala Hash getting lost is such a frequent occurrence you never know when you’re going to need to call a friend. On the hash, answering a mobile phone is a punishable offense (punishable by the threat of having to drink extra free beer at the finish…), so naturally I answered it.Tom from transport was looking for a doctor to fly to Arua about seven in the morning to help transfer a patient down to Kampala.So I said sure.Modified phone log:1900hr: Call from Tom. He has just texted me the phone number for the Doctor at the hospital in Arua.1905hr: Call the doctor in Arua. No Answer.1915hr: Call the doctor in Arua. No Answer.1930hr: Call the doctor in Arua. Very bad connection. He’s in the theatre (that means the operating room here, not the cinema) can I call him back in a half an hour.2030hr: Call the doctor (Patrick) in Arua. Ask about the patient.‘Oh, he’s fine.’ Okayyy. He (the patient) just has end-stage liver disease with cirrhosis, portal hypertension and bleeding esophageal varices. He just had an upper GI bleed the other morning with a blood pressure of 70 and required a blood transfusion. I ask him what the patient’s hemoglobin level is now. He says he doesn’t know, but ‘clinically’ the patient is not anemic. I ask about when the last time Dr. Patrick saw the patient was. ‘Oh. I haven’t seen him all day, I’ve been in the Theatre.’ I ask him to go check on the patient and call me with his current status. (no further contact with Patrick.)2045hr: Call our hematology lab to see if we have any O negative (free of the major blood antigens, so you can give it to anyone) they could pack up for me to take on the flight with me.‘No.’ We have no blood, let alone Oneg.2355hr: Tom calls to let me know the time of the flight has been pushed earlier. Can I be at the hospital at 5:30? A.M.? I tell him at 0530 he’s going to have to send a driver to pick me up. He agrees.0500hr: Safari James from transport calls.‘Did Tom tell you about the medevac to Arua?’‘Uhhh… Yes, he did. He said you’d come pick me up at five-thirty.’‘Are you ready to go yet?’‘Is it five-thirty yet?’‘Oh.’0515hr: Safari James calls.‘Can I come pick you now?’‘Is it five-thirty yet?’‘Oh.’‘Come pick me up at five-thirty. I’ll be standing on Kironde Road.’0540hr: (because the accepted behavior here for arriving at a closed gate is to lay on your horn until someone opens it, I have chosen to exit the gate and save my housemates from awakening to the sound of the ambulance horn. I have now been standing in the rain for 10 minutes.) Safari James calls.‘I am leaving now. Are you ready to go?’0620hr: We arrive at the Kajjansi Airfield. Aside from the night watchman that we wake up with our horn, we are the only people there.About 0700hr a couple of people with luggage wander in. I’m thinking, ‘hmmm… what exactly has Tom signed me up for this time.’ Then the guy with the uniform wants to inspect the medical kit.‘Do you have anything dangerous in there?’‘No.’ Unless you consider an oxygen cylinder, a scalpel, and enough diclofenac (an injectable relative of advil that seems to be the preferred pain-killer and anti-pyretic in Uganda) to put the pilot into renal failure. I don’t bother to explain to him that if I was going to hijack anybody anywhere it would be back to my bed…Then Dave, the pilot for MAF, comes in and explains our flight plan. First we’re going to fly to Entebbe to pick up two more passengers and clear immigration (Immigration? I thought Arua was in Uganda?). And then we’re going to fly to Torit. Torit? Torit, as it turns out, is in South Sudan… (you know that imaginary line that VSO has asked us not to cross? Torit is way across the line.) And then we’ll fly to Arua to pick up the guy who’s bleeding from his gut. So much for being back in Kampala for lunch. And I don’t have my passport. (VSO still has my passport—almost 8 month in and no work permit yet). Dave says he’s going to list me as crew,so I won’t need a passport.At Entebbe, Dave checks the fuel to make sure it hasn’t been watered down, loads the luggage of the additional passengers, gives us a safety briefing, and says a prayer. (MAF stands for Missionary Aviation Fellowship) If the only guy standing between me and crash-landing somewhere out in the African bush where the chances of rescue are next to nothing wants to pray, then by god, let him pray. I say a little prayer for Dave’s continued health as he prays for the success of my mission to Arua.We fly north over Lake Kyoga at 10000 feet. The dry season is in full effect up North and the sky is thick with dust and smoke from burning fields. Below, the land is a parched yellow brown. In the haze on the horizon sits the purple line of mountains just north of the Sudanese border.Dave picks out a low point between peaks in the Irmatong mountains to pilot his Cessna 206 through. The mountains are free of trails and cell towers. Red rock with sparse green scrub.A few more nautical miles (why do airplanes measure distance in nautical miles?) and the mountains subside, we cross a dry river bed, a few tracks appear on the plain, and Torit comes into view.My time in Torit didn’t include the city tour, so my impressions were mostly from the air: a large sprawling village with a few rectangular single level buildings, but mostly round huts arrayed in packed dirt compounds set haphazardly on an irregular street grid. A creek or small river meanders southwest of town giving life to a winding swath of greenery and trees. The runway angles away from the east end of town. When the UPDF (Ugandan Peoples Defense Force—the army) chased the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) out of Uganda, the LRA hid in the Irmatong mountains and wreaked havoc on the people of the Toritdistrict. At some point in the conflict, the LRA was reportedly receiving military assistance from the Sudanese government as payback for the Ugandan government’s support of the South Sudanese Liberation Army…A WFP (world food program) plane is getting ready to take off as we land, and the crowd of people surrounding it moves to encircle ours. But we haven’t brought any food, only missionaries. Francis shakes my hand, ‘God bless you Dr. Riley.’ Motorcycles and bicycles criss-cross the runway as a herd of emaciated cattle stagger by in the dusty heat. There are no Sudanese immigration officials checking passports, so I go looking for a tree to pee against (the Torit International airport lacks a tower, terminal, even a latrine). I have to walk quite a ways. The huts line both sides of the runway. Their roofs are more peaked than in the north of Uganda, but otherwise similar.We flew another hour or so west (and a little south) to get to Arua. Arua sits at the northwest corner of Uganda. Supporting aid delivery for a large refugee population from Sudan and the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), as well supplies being shipped by road into South Sudan, has made the Arua Airport the second busiest airport in Uganda next to Entebbe. When we land, however, aside from an Eagle Air LET-410 taxing out, the only other plane at the airport is an Antonov AN-2, a 1940s Russian biplane that the UPDF uses to drop paratroopers.I was expecting an ambulance. But I have learned never to expect too much. I called the contact number for his employer at the UNDP and was told that the patient was at the airport. I notice a sick looking, emaciated man lying by himself on a bench by the small terminal building. Sure enough, that’s my patient. Fortunately, he still has a blood pressure. Fortunately, he was kind enough not to throw up blood all over the back of the Cessna, and we had an uneventful flight home. Naturally we had to drive at breakneck speed back into Kampala with the lights flashing and the sirens blaring.On arrival at Kampala Hospital by the golf course (the patient’s doctor doesn’t come to IHK) we wheeled the patient onto the ward. The nurse asked, ‘Where’s the patient’s family.’ The ambulance driver said the patient was alone. ‘Well. Who is going to make the patients bed?’ Who indeed. I was carrying the patient’s suitcase. I asked him if he had sheets in there. He did. I put the sheets on the bed. And the transfer was completed.for more pictures of the flight