By Dorothy Tushemereirwe
Not all adventures are created equal. Ask me – or maybe query a dozen Uganda Christian University (UCU) School of Dentistry students who recently traveled with me by boat to a remote island.
The moment I was carried, yes, carried, and plopped into a handmade boat fashioned of steel and wood, I was in for a ride and experience of a lifetime. Identically attired in orange life jackets, the students, instructors, representatives of the UCU Directorate of Research Partnerships and Innovations, and others traveled with me across a not-so-calm Lake Victoria towards Koome Island, remotely located within central Uganda’s Mukono District.
More than 19,000 residents from as far as Western Uganda make the island their home. In the early 1900s, there were fewer occupants because many fled or succumbed to a parasite-causing African “sleeping sickness.”
Today, cultures that include Baganda, Banyankole, Bakiga, Acholi, Langi, the Iteso and Lugbara gravitate here, with the lure of free land but little else. Houses are scattered with a church, one government health center and a primary and a secondary school on 3,000, mostly mosquito-free acres. Hand-crafted canoes and nets, scattered about the shoreline, tell the tale of meager economic support through catches of Nile perch and tilapia.
In short, and to help facilitate a dentistry school project of free services to economically-poor residents, I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. Tourists and citizens find other nearby land masses like Ngamba-Chimpanzee Island for orphaned chimpanzees more familiar and attractive, and even livable with restaurant food and electricity. Koome, part of Kyaggwe Saza in the Buganda Kingdom, uses solar energy and sketchy generators.
A group of polished urban dwellers and office-type urban colleagues, we arrived near Entebbe, 22 miles from Koome, with an expectation of a somewhat modern Packwach or Kalangala-like ferry, the kind you see in the honeymoon movies, replete with a roof, and wind sails. I imagined the one I used at Kazinga Channel and pineapple bay, but Koome’s ferry, we were told, got stuck somewhere. The Uganda government, noticing no sustainable commercial benefit from it, was reportedly not thinking of reviving it, but local government officials said that revival plans are underway.
The lessons of obstacles to accomplishment were just starting, albeit untimely and harsh.
Yet, zealous for our (worthy) dental mission among the island’s most vulnerable population, we felt nothing was going to hinder us. The first shock was getting loaded (and I mean physically ) onto a boat. Along with a group of University students and Dr. Arabat Kasangaki, a dentist and teacher, we allowed the rugged hands of a fisherman to carry us to the unstable swinging vessel.
After about 30 of us were nervously hauled onto the seemingly fragile, open-air wooden transport, we navigated the June winds and the gale. The message that we would arrive “soon” was followed by more than two hours of a hair-and-clothing-wet journey of life jacket-tightening and, for some, nausea.
As people from a Christian university would do and as waves hit the transport’s outsides and splashed inside, we sang. Led by Dr. Arabat, there were the words of “Tukutendereze Yesu” as well as the UCU theme song, “To God be the Glory” and other melodies of Zion.
It seemed we were on a trek to a foreign land. Our heavenly home seemed nearer than before. Jonah’s biblical account of every guy in the boat praying to his own god seemed more real, except that in our case, unlike Jonah, we had no hope of a Nile perch spitting us out.
Responses among passengers were both varied and similar. As faith followers, thoughts went to empathy for the Lord’s disciples seeing Jesus sleep through such sea turmoil as did a baby among us on this 2024 journey.
“Service learning is very essential in our training,” Dr. Arabat, a seasoned medical professional said. “Taking our students to remote areas like this one is of value to our students to help those who have been urban all their lives appreciate the need within our communities. We believe this helps them nurture compassion later after graduation. “
I am a mobilizer experienced in Human Resource practice. But no human in this boat seemed either resourced, or emotionally mobilized enough for what we were facing. At that, some, like my neighbor enroute, could still afford a nap.
I had spent a better part of my life familiar with facing discouraged employees, not sailors, so I may have been ready for a pounding boss all my office days, but not a pounding wave. What seemed like an ordinary day quickly turned out dramatic, as engine failure rounded up the early drama at mid-lake when no mainland was in sight.
One of our rowers looked so baffled and clueless, too, to which someone in the boat remarked “He must be an intern.” I am not sure we laughed as well at that joke as we should have. Alas, does anybody banter when the smell of uncertainty is near?
To be precise, it was 2.5 hours later that we had an island in view. You could almost hear the loud sighs, arriving around 4:30 p.m. By sheer grace, we touched land feeling weary, beaten, hungry and emotionally spent.
I wondered: Must fixing teeth be this hard?
Initially, we were to have stayed at the remarkable Ngamba island, (renowned for its chimpanzee tourism) but it was flooded, which meant we eventually had to be booked at Walindi Point, another island about 20 minutes away from the service area and by antiquated boat transport.
The first night on the day we arrived at Walindi point, we were exhausted. We crashed but were awakened by a fierce storm that raged and shook our cabins from Midnight to 3 a.m. Preceded by another boat trip, Koome was waiting for us the next day.
By 7 a.m., my group and our captain, Geoffrey, were enroute to Koome, where dentistry students had spent the night and were already receiving patients – the start of helping roughly 400 men, women and children with cavities, gum diseases and tumors during four days. For ongoing wellness practices, toothpaste and toothbrushes, compliments of Henry-Schein dental supplies, were left behind.
The service there as well as in Mukono was sponsored by the UCU Directorate of Research Partnership and Innovation in collaboration with Uganda Partners, Koome Sub-county Local government and the Uganda Wildlife Conservation and Education Centre (UWEC).
Part of my role, arranged by Uganda Partners, was to support the person recording demographic information. As with many low-income populations, the number of teenage mothers was high, with one particular embedded in my memory. The young woman arrived with her two children, seething with tooth pain and in need of fillings and extractions. I wondered what would have happened if we hadn’t come.
Such is the dire plight of many Koome Island residents that have never seen a dentist. Every mission UCU undertakes on this island is a healing affair, for such who never get a chance to have teeth checked, let alone use a toothbrush.
Would we go again?
“Yes,” Dr. Arabat readily responded. “We would appreciate any support to keep the light shining. We believe this as an entry for other university programmes to improve the livelihoods of the island communities.”
Will I go again? Yes, for the same reasons.
