This adventure starts in SW Uganda where the Bwindi Community Hospital (BCH) will be celebrating the ground-breaking of the new Dental/Vision Clinic on January 15, 2024. Mark and I will be joining our local, Nevada County team for the ceremony and a few days of fun. The hospital, referred to as BCH, just celebrated its 20th anniversary since Dr. Scott and Carol Kellermann started helping the Batwa people with malaria and other common ailments. Then, a large ficus tree served as the hospital ward. Today the facility is a fully staffed 155 bed hospital serving an area of 120,000 people including the Batwa, who were driven out of their home in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in 1992 to protect the mountain gorilla. Our team for this event consists of Dr. Scott Kellerman, Dr. Jean Creasey, Dr. Sarah Warner, Mark and myself. There are no dental or vision facilities for hundreds of miles, so this will add major services for the population.
Some of you may know Scott and Carol and the work that they have done in Bwindi during the last 20 years. Please bear with me as I bring those of you who are not familiar up to speed. Scott was invited to do a study of the Batwa in the late 90’s and learned of the desperate straights the Batwa were in when they were driven from the forest, where they had lived as hunter-gatherers for millennia and had their own techniques for securing and preparing food, for creating cover from the elements, for using forest herbs for medical needs, and especially for enjoying life through singing and dancing in the forest. Scott and Carol really connected with the people through singing and dancing. They made the decision to move to Uganda, live among the Batwa and minister to the people, especially their health needs. They sold their practice in Nevada City, left their home and went to live in Uganda in 2001. Once there, they built a small house for themselves, bought a white Range Rover, painted a blue cross on it, filled it with medical supplies and headed out into the countryside. Wherever they stopped people would come out of the forest to get help. I know this because Mark and I went to visit them in 2002 and traveled around with them in the ambulance.
It was quite an eye opener to see a couple hundred people appear out of nowhere and wait patiently to be seen and helped. Carol’s job was to provide wound care for anyone with cuts or sores, while Scott tended to more complex problems like malaria, HIV and other diseases. He used a huge ficus tree as shade cover and hooks to hang the IV’s on. That tree has since become famous for being Scott’s first hospital ward.
Below is a gorilla we saw along the trail. Below that is a group of Batwa dancing to drum beating and singing in the forest.
In 2004 we went back again to visit Scott and Carol and the scene was pretty much the same, except their local language skills had improved, and they were dispensing medicines more effectively, solving medical problems more readily, and dancing and praying a lot with the locals. They had also managed to get enough money donated to build a small clinic for anyone who needed help and could get there.
Years went by before Mark and I would get back to Uganda. We missed much activity. Scott had raised a lot of money through his rotary connections, and several structures had been built and many people from around the world came and continued to come to assist Scott and Carol. A hospital grew out of the ground as doctors, nurses and volunteers came to work and improve the services. A guest house was built as well as housing for staff and volunteers. A maternity ward was funded and built, as was a nursing school, an operating theater and wards for recovering patients. Even a chapel was built. We learned that a ward to provide improved accommodation for recovering surgery patients was needed, so Mark and I donated funds and arrived in Bwindi in 2016 in time to dedicate what was named the Primary Ward. There was only one floor however and it was hoped that a second floor would be added. The left photo is the unfinished first floor. The right photo shows the finished 2 story Premium Ward. In the center, is the leveled ground in preparation for the Intensive Care Unit.
Two years later, in 2018, Mark and I were back at BCH with Scott, Jean Creasey, Mimi Simmons, Phil Rubble, Michael and Amy Shane, Al and Lynne Dover and Larry Faller and his daughter Marleen Becker.
We had been in Bwindi a few days and on the last day we were standing on a hillside overlooking the hospital and discussing Scott’s dreams. He wanted to see the Premium Ward finished and the ICU designed and built on the sight where we were standing. Scott is a very persuasive fellow. Mimi and Phil surprised us all by agreeing to pay for the second floor of the Primary Ward. Shortly thereafter, everyone in the group made a commitment for whatever they could toward building the ICU. As a group we finished funding the construction in 2021. The left photo is the front entrance to the ICU and the right photo shows the bulk of the building with the popular outdoor dining area upstairs.
Five years later, we are finally getting back to Bwindi to see the finished and fully utilized ICU and to do the ground-breaking for another facility, the Bwindi Dental/Vision Clinic. A dental clinic has been the dream of Jean Creasey’s for many years so it is wonderful that she will be with us for the ceremony. The vision clinic is the dream of Stacey Lippert, who heads up Hope Alliance, an organization that provides basic vision care at the BCH. She is from Park CIty, Utah, but unable to attend. Mark and I are thrilled to be able to bring this vision of theirs, and the whole Bwindi community, to fruition.
Here are a collection of photos from our 2018 trip.
The girl in the photo with Mark and me is our godchild, Juliana. The girl just above with me is a Batwa Mark and I are sponsoring through school. Her name is Anivious. The large group is the staff in prayer at the beginning of the work day.
We leave home Tuesday, January 9, and we are very much looking forward to the adventure. Below is a map of Africa. The Bwindi Community Hospital is in a small town called Bahoma in the far south west corner of Uganda. It is just north of Rwanda and east of the DRC. The continental USA would fit comfortable in West Africa.
The image above is a closeup of the area where the dense forest is located and the gorillas dwell. Next to the forest is the village of Buhoma with the Bwindi Community Hospital nearby. The populated and cultivated area north and west of Buhoma is clear. The line indicates the border of Uganda with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Adventures with Julia 
