In the DRC, internet connectivity was rarely available and my Rwandan phone didn’t work. So when I learned that the doctor at our next destination had a last minute schedule change, we had a bit of a problem. Given the communications difficulty, we decided to head back to Kigali to get our feet under us again.

After reviewing the options, we decided to pull our trip forward and go to Masaka, Uganda, to visit Dr. Maura Lynch at Kitovu hospital. I first heard about Kitovu at the April meetings in Accra, where I met Dr. Maura and she told me about the wonderful work she and her team were doing in Uganda. Kitovu is Uganda’s leading fistula hospital and was right in the middle of one of its four annual treatment camps. We were very excited to visit, but when we called Dr. Maura to let her know about our schedule change, she was clearly very busy and less than enthusiastic about our revised agenda. Her style on the phone was far from the warm Maura Lynch that I met fourth months earlier in Ghana. I attributed her less-than-inviting-tone to Maura’s shear busyness and tried not to take it personally. Shannon and I boarded another bus back to Uganda where I told her all I knew about Kitovu and Dr. Maura Lynch over the roar of the African road.

For over 70 years, Sisters from the Medical Missionaries of Mary have been committed cost-effective healing and development in some of the most desperate parts of the developing world. In 1951, the Sisters came to Kitovu Hospital and have since grown the hospital to well over 200 beds with an outpatient clinic and community-based HIV program. Dr. Maura Lynch, an Irish surgeon and Sister, started the fistula program in 1990 and has since grown it from nothing into one of the leading fistula treatment centers in the world treating over 250 of the regions worst cases every year. The hospital built a dedicated fistula ward in 2005 and these facilities attract leading surgeons from around the world to come and operate and train. Dr. Maura used to do roughly 8 surgeries a month until she permanently lost sight in one eye in the middle of a VVF (fistula) surgery. Now she serves more of an administrative function, coordinating the expatriate surgeons who come to work at one of the four training and treatment camps. I hoped and expected this to be one of the most productive and important legs of our journey and I was really excited to be there during the camp.

When we finally arrived into the dusty roadside bus stop in Masaka, dusk was falling and we were immediately accosted by the bodaboda drivers trying to grab our bags and takeus for a ride on the back of their motorcycles. For safety purposes, I am completely opposed to riding on the back of motorcycles in Africa, especially when carrying a big bag (it totally throws off the balance). After several calls to Maura, we threatened to take a bodaboda and ultimately convinced her to send a hospital pick-up to rescue us from the dusty roadside. When we finally saw her, Maura was nice enough, but she had no place for us to stay and sent us to a hotel. We went to a local hotel and spent our Fourth of July eating samosas and wondering if this leg of the trip could possibly deliver on earlier hopes. To top it all off, the ATM wasn’t working and we were very quickly running out of cash. Life was not good on America’s birthday and I was real grumpy about it.

The next morning we hopped in an expensive taxi and road over to Kitovu’s hill not sure of what we would find. Neither Shannon nor I was feeling particularly good about how the morning would turn out, especially when Maura was no where to be found. As we walked into the compound, Shannon wanted to go back and try to get cash as it was a Saturday and our last hope till Monday. I convinced her to stay but she was not particularly happy about it and sort of went off in a different direction. I went to find John Kelly, the fistula legend and my good friend who I hoped would somehow give us out mojo back. After changing into scrubs, I wandered into the operating theatre where I immediately saw John Kelly and managed to catch his light-up-the-room smile with my camera. There was an hectic energy in the room, but amidst the excitement and my confusion, John greeted me warmly and I knew would be fine in Kitovu. Shortly thereafter, Maura tugged on my sleeve saying she had a place for us to stay and was sorry she didn’t have more time to welcome us, but that she was very glad we were here. Maura also said we needed to move right away in order to avoid excess hotel charges and my smile beamed as I went to find Shannon.

I caught up with Shannon in the courtyard of the ward and excitedly attempted to tell her about the turn around. Shannon beat me to it when she said, “You are not gonna believe the stories I am hearing here. This place is fantastic!” I silently nodded in agreement as we hustled off to check out.