St Joseph's Hospital, Kagondo

At last we have arrived and been welcomed by the sisters and staff at Kagondo. The hospital is just off the main road down south from Bukoba. It was founded by the White Fathers in 1912 and has undergone renovation so it is bright and airy and very clean. It is staffed partly by nuns and partly by lay staff. It has the usual wards and though it can hold 150 patients, it is only half full. It has Xray, a simple laboratory, physiotherapy and last month connected to the internet through an excruciatingly slow line
Rupert has been set to work in their relatively new HIV/AIDS clinic and there is a surprisingly good attendance and adherence to clinic appointments and drug taking. Annie is working in the Maternal and Child Health clinic also with a brief to work with HIV positive mothers to try to reduce maternal to child transmission.
The Lake is about 4 miles away and we hope to walk down one weekend. It rains almost every day for 2-4 hours then clears in the afternoon. The nights are cool and in the evenings we reach for an extra T shirt or fleece to warm up. The view down the back road shows the blue roof of the hospital in the distance. Our house is in a cluster just to the right and the new secondary school is in front.