What to expect

I don’t really remember how it all started, perhaps back in 2021, but through a chiropractic colleague I was put in contact with Simon Wilobo in northern Uganda.

Simon has worked for various WHO / UN type humanitarian groups, and has his own NGO, the Youth Development Organisation Uganda. Through this he has been able to bring health and social services to a region that has suffered tremendously. He moved back to the village (where we were based) about 2 years ago, when I asked him why, he answered without pausing that he and his wife Juliette wanted to serve the people.

Within chiropractic it is quite common to participate in what we call a mission trip, not in a religious sense, rather more like Doctors Without Borders, where we travel to places that typically have minimal access to medical services, and almost never chiropractic. I’ve already done this twice to India, and once to Panama. In this case, chiropractic has never been present there, we were the very first to offer it. 

We were in a very small rural district called Omoro, about 30km from our hotel base in Gulu. This specific area of Uganda became a war zone several decade ago simply because of politics, and for a long time was essentially a kill zone. The displaced residents were in refugee camps further to the west where conditions were appalling. Sexual and physical abuse was rampant, violence and unsanitary conditions along with a lack of schooling was the norm. The social fabric of life just didn’t exist.

The majority of the people we cared for either experienced all of that horror directly, or were born in the refugee camps. 

When the civil war finally came to a close in 2007 they started returning to their lands to pick up the pieces. There are no obvious physical scars on the land, but you can imagine how that trauma has affected many generations. What was clear to me, more so in the rural than town / city environments was a pride in what they have. Each house or family compound was usually swept clean, bordered by a well kept hedge, and almost always they were wearing bright and happy clothing.

The 30km to Gulu may not sound like much, but the rutted track from the village to the main road is 6km, and the main road is not much better, so that our journey took 1hr 15 each way. Since many do not earn much, everything has to be reached by foot. Even the nearest medical centre which can be seen from the village at 10km away sounds reachable, but in between are 3 rivers, none of which have crossings, making a doctor’s visit an unsurmountable challenge. 

Where we were has no electricity, no running water (except a communal well that Simon organised), and no sewage disposal. Not surprisingly there were very few with mobile phones. 

Simon has built a training room on his property, where women can learn to sew, but they must first complete a course to help them deal with their trauma. I think I heard that Simon may have plans to build a school as well. It really is amazing what they are achieving there. 

A colleague of ours Prisca Rompen (Doctor of Chiropractic) has already practiced in Uganda for around 7 years, has her own NGO but well away from where we were in Jinga in the south. Prisca was our hard working local contact to ensure we complied with local regulations. 

So a total of 4 of us, Mario from Vienna and Romain from Toulouse with our driver set off from Entebbe (the only international airport) and drove the 5 hours to an overnight stay at Ziwa - a rhinoceros sanctuary. Immediately after taking our bags to the room, a rhino wandered into our vicinity. There are no fences and it was our task to keep ourselves safe, the animals have absolute priority. The following morning we set off early to ‘track’ the other rhinos, and since they are monitored 24 hours to ward off poaching, we were thrilled to see many as we followed them on foot. 

The afternoon was then the second half of the trip to get to Gulu, and it has to be said the roads got really bad for about an hour, during which we missed a large bump and broke the alternator when we bottomed out. Fortunately that only affected the battery recharging and was fixed later in Gulu.