The Emergency Room

Last Wednesday morning we were downtown checking on bus times for the next day. I was planning on traveling to Gulu to teach some professional development material over the weekend. We checked the times and then walked for about 20 minutest to get out of downtown before catching a boda (motorcycle taxi) back to cornerstone. Riding bodas is the single most dangerous activity one can engage in Africa. There are apparently entire hospital wards dedicated to boda accident victims. We have been trying to take them as sparingly as possible but because they're so convenient and because strangely they feel so safe we had lulled ourselves into a false sense of security. We'd been taking them more and more.

Back to Wednesday. We hopped on the back of a motorcycle near the Speke hotel and headed back to Cornerstone. Everything was fine, not too much traffic on the road. When we got to the last round-about that's only a 1/3 of a mile from cornerstone we circled all the way around it and then our boda driver slowed and stopped before merging onto Yusuf road (a major thoroughfare). He stopped because there was a small grey truck flying down at about 50 mph...I'm thankful he didn't pull out in front of this car. So we were stopped there for just a few seconds right against the curb on the inside of the roundabout when I see out of the corner of my eye coming from our left a small corolla-type car coming straight down the roundabout. Turns out he didn't see us, he was looking at the oncoming traffic.

Its impossible to forget the crunch sound as vehicles collide. The car slammed right into the back of our motorcycle while we were stopped. The second that followed is a little fuzzy, but given the pattern of bruising, the bumped of the car hit the back tire of the motorcycle and the back of my left leg all at once. I was wearing sandals, no helmet & short sleeves, Crystal was in slip-on shoes, short sleeves and of course no helmet. The bike lurched forward with the impact and spilled its cargo of humans into the street. I had already been ejected off the bike and was airborne at this point. Crystal toppled down with the bike pretty hard ending up a couple of fee from it sitting down on the tarmac. As soon as I hit the ground I was pretty sure I had broken my leg. My foot was under the bumper at impact and in addition to the lacerations I could see had that unmistakable feeling of nerve-freak out--like fire ants on an ant hill. I found myself sitting in the middle of the road and the moment I hit the street I knew I had to get out of there even if I had to crawl. Ugandan drivers lack a certain politness and caution. Its dangerous to even cross the street much less lay down in it with injuries.

I hit my heel against the ground to see if I felt that patented bone-grind that I am unfortunately too familiar with. I didn't feel broken--damaged yes, broken no. I stood up and put weight on it, yep there is definitely something wrong with it but it would take weight for a few steps even if it was only adrenalin making it possible. I took a full 3 or 4 steps before getting to Crystal she was sitting in the road holding her knees still screaming. I picked her up carried her out of the road across the sidewalk and laid her down in the grass in the middle of the round-about. It was quite obvious that she'd injured her left foot too. There was an unmistakable hole right through the top/inside of her foot that mined deep down in there. It was all white and inside and hadn't started bleeding yet. I moved her ankle around asking her if it was broken and although she was wincing and still screaming, her ankle was also absent of that bone-grinding. Not broken. The puncture had yielded a single stream of yellow fluid that dripped down her arch, no blood yet.

I pulled out my phone to call someone from cornerstone to come pick us up and take us to the ER but before I did, the boda driver who was unharmed since we had graciously absorbed the blow for him picked up Crystal and carried her to a car across the street to a car that was waiting. I limped in pursuit. They drove us the a clinic called, "The Surgery" which is right across the street from cornerstone and is the best clinic in Kampala. We didn't know it at the time, but our chauffeur was actually the man who had slammed into us. We received prompt attention and was focusing on calming down Crystal whose screams had now mixed with tears.

The checked us out and Crystal received three stitches in her foot. Before putting them in, however, the doctor called me to stand up and watch as he dug into the 3/4 inch hole with tweezers to show me that there was no debris still left in there. I could feel the blood draining from my face and my vision starting to tunnel in. I knew I had about 5 seconds to step back and sit down in the chair or I was going to be on the floor.

Crystal ended with a prominent puncture would and a very bruised heel and leg and some auxillary scratches to accent the others. I sprained my ankle and it promptly swelled up to softball size that afternoon complete with a tasteful stripe of purple and blue across my arch. The back and outside of my leg are extremely bruised and my calf feels suspiciously like a broken fibula (yes, I know precisely what a broken fibula feels like). I've speculated whether my leg may have broken if it hadn't had a titanium rob in there to keep intact. My elbow is sprained also and there's a formidable bump on the outside and a nice gash on the inside of my forearm.

We're quite thankful to God that our injuries are not worse...no broken bones, no surgery, no emergency evacuation back to the states. We'll be fine. Our injuries are just not consistent with the physics of the impact. We didn't skid or roll, we both left as though we were quite literally laid down softly on the pavement. We've just been laying low and healing. Crystal cannot put weight on her foot yet so I've been carrying her sometimes in my arms, sometimes on my shoulders for a little bit longer trek. I'm lucky to have such a small wife.

SOOOOO...AS IF WE HADN'T HAD ENOUGH OF THE EMERGENCY ROOM, on Friday evening we went to Ethiopian food with some friends. We hired a car to drive us and it was so good to get off house-arrest for a bit. The food was delicious, cooked in a hole in the wall by an ethiopian refugee--it was legit. After dinner Crystal wasn't feeling that well and so she rested in bed and I watched part of a movie in the little common area of the guesthouse with some other expats. About an hour into it, crystal hops to the door and calls for me. I came over and she said she'd been trying to puke for half an hour and felt awful. She was also starting to break out in hives and a rash on her hips and behind her knees. We decided to give it 15 mins to see if it got worse--and worse it got. In 10 mins here legs were covered in welts all over. I've never seen anything like it. It was 1:30 in the morning and so I put crystal on my shoulders and walked across the street to The Surgery again. She had some sort of alergic reaction to the food and they gave her a shot of hydrocortisone which solicited another round of shaking & near-hyperventilation (Crystal's not so fond of needles, or blood or anything of the sort). It cleared up and she's fine.

She took her first steps today with the help of a 9-iron as a cane. Thank you for your prayers.

Life in Kampala

Hi! This is Crystal, jumping in to write some too! We are enjoying daily life in Kampala. It is a great gift to be living in such a central location where people are often coming by. We love talking with people who stop in to say 'hi' or rest for a few hours, and offering guidance for those seeking help with business ideas. As we were reminded by a friend yesterday, daily life in Uganda seems to include more of 'just being', rather than 'doing' and aiming for ultimate productivity. It is nice to have a bit more time to read, cook and talk with people instead of having each day rigorously scheduled as we are used to. It does take patience, however, when things like grocery shopping, sending a few e-mails, and traveling across to town to meet with someone take the whole day. : )

On Sunday we traveled up to the Ranch to meet with a Ugandan man who runs a corner market there. We had a great time talking and reviewing his financial records with him. He keeps excellent records of his sales, inventory, accounts receivable, etc., but he had not been introduced to how to organize that information for better assessing his profitability. Ryan walked him through completing an income statement and balance sheet.

I miss you and hope you all are well! Have a great week!

Professor & Mentor

Last Saturday I (Ryan--I'm sure you assumed this though since Crystal is a little shy when it comes to blogging ;) attended a African Youth Leadership breakfast at Kyamboya (pronounced Cham-booya) University. It was a gathering of University students in the Kampala area that talk about servant-leadership and leadership based on the principles of Jesus. I enjoyed interacting with a group of young people that want to change their nation by a becoming a new breed of leaders. Some will do it through politics, some through business, some through other ways. After the meeting I met with three of the leaders that will be graduating soon and we talked about setting up a workshop in June about job seeking skills--interviewing, resume writing, networking, etc. The job market is brutally competitive in Kampala, being the only professional and industrial hub in the entire country, there are not enough jobs to go around--espeicially if you don't know someone who knows someone.

On Saturday afternoon I got to play professor at the Business Forum. The Biz Forum is a gathering of cornerstone graduates that are either entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs. The come once a month to hear someone speak and to support an encourage each other. So after a short interduction I was handed to floor. I reviewed a dozen business plans the week before and all had deplorable financials, that is if in fact there were any financials at all. Many of the plans had completely left out any evidence that profitability or loan repayment had even crossed their mind. So I set about to correct this grevious thing! I had prepared a mock business that I was going to start and we went line by line though a start-up budget, loan amortization and terms, a projected income statement and balance sheet and lastly a few basic financial analysis ratios. I counted on it taking an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Over three hours later the Biz Forum Chairperson finally intervened and called it when he looked over at Crystal and saw her looking pale and dozing. There must have been 10-15 questions per line through each financial statement and then a dozen or so questions on financial theory or marketing etc before moving to the next line item.

It was actually extremely encouraging that there were so many questions, they really dove in to the information and were all right there with me. At the end I sent them all home to add financials to their business plans and bring them back. I had a blast teaching. I loved making something so complex and downright scary into something simple and understandable.

On Wednesday, I again go to dig my teeth into some great business interaction. Crystal & I headed to work with the Ugandan gentleman that is the Chairperson for the Business Forum. He is the operations manager of a property management & maintenance company that was started by a businessman from Texas that has recently stepped back to let it run on its own. The business is growing rapidly and had a great group of employees. We spend a few hours meeting with some of the employees learning about their work and what their frustrations or challenges are and brainstorming for solutions. Every business if filled with little inefficiencies and ineffectives but often everyone inside the business is either to busy to look for them or to close to be able to notice them. An outsider simply asking questions can sometimes open a lot of doors. I loved, loved, LOVED getting to do this. Solving complex business problems with very limited resources is thrilling (perhaps you think I'm crazy now). But I feel like its a stategy boardgame like Risk, or Settlers, or something except infinately more complex and much more rewarding too. We hope to spend more time with this company learning about it and then presenting a more formal analysis with proposed solutions and implementation in the coming weeks.

Tomorrow we are planning on heading up to the Cornerstone Ranch to help with some financial things...we really have no idea what it is, but we'll find out tomorrow!

We're also going to be heading up to Gulu on Thursday to teach some professional development curriculum to the teachers of Restore Academy who will then teach the material to the kids next term. Things like: Business writing, public speaking, resume's, networking, etc.

Happy Mother's Day, Margot & Carolyn! We miss you and love you!