Final

Dear All,

with great delay I wrote the last page of this glob. I left Kalongo in the 20th of August and I’m currently in Milan.

It is hard to express to all of you the meaning of my experience in Kalongo. In order to do that, I’ve to start from the beginning.
When the Foundation came to my university offering a period of internship in Kalongo, I was attracted by the proposal but with a lot of doubts. However, I felt that the “Kalongo” was the best choice for me since the first interview with the Foundation.

And all the doubts disappeared as soon as I landed in Kalongo: I suddenly felt at home.
I could talk about my job there or about the amazing places I have the opportunity to visit. For sure we did a very well job and we had the opportunity to go for a Safari or to see the amazing landscape from the top of Kalongo Mountain.

But the best thing of Kalongo are people and their feelings. In Kalongo, I really understand the importance of some values that, maybe, in our society are not considering so important yet. Gratitude, Family, Love, the Strength of a Smile. People in Kalongo live in a very difficult and problematic environment. However they always smile, they are always available to offer their help and they have a great sense of gratitude in front of who try to help them. I never forget our goodbye party. They said us thanks praying, singing and dancing. In that moment my heart was full of joyful. And I cannot forget when the Kalongo football team decided to give me the shirt n.8 with printed my name. For us is only a shirt. But, maybe, they will not have the chance to buy another one.

I left Kalongo with something of all the people I had the chance to meet inside me.

Today Kalongo is in my heart and will remain forever and ever.

Best

Federico

Pictures....

Pictures....

Only 10 days miss

Dear All,

a lot of time passed from the last time I gave you my news here in Kalongo. As usual, the time run and a lot of thing we have to finish. Specifically, speaking about my job we are going to finalize the budget for the next financial years and we are going to set up a good management for the pharmacy and the stores. It is amazing. I love to work on my desk in front of my computer and also working on the field!!!
Valerian started to work on main store and I work in the Technical Department. I manage 10 people and we started to clean and sort all the items existing in the 14 stores. The problem is that they used to collect everything. The thinking was: maybe an item is useless but could be useful in the future!!!So we need to clean. After collecting all the useless things I'm going to organize a market for the next weekend in which we will sell at a symbolic price all the things that we do not need.
In the meanwhile I'm training every day with my new team: Kalongo United. Yesterday we started the Acholi Summer Tournament. We won 2-0 the first match and we qualified for the quarter finals. Friday, for the first time I will play away. We are going to Pader (40 minutes driving from Kalongo) and we will try to arrive to the Semifinal.
We are going also to try to create a good environment into the hospital. Together with Beatrice and Maria Sole, we are going with some paper and felt-tips to encourage children to draw something. In this away they can enjoy a bit.
Finally, tomorrow we are going for a Safari to Murchison Fall. We will stay there for 3 days. The schedule is: Boat-trip on the Nile to see crocodiles,hippopotamus, elephants and the Falls. Game-drive to see lions, gazel, giraffes and maybe gorillas.

I will try to update some pictures and I promise to you that I will update the blog after the Safari!!!

Ciao

Fede

Kalongo United

Dear All,

here I am for a new post. This post is dedicated to my new Soccer team: Kalongo United.

Yes guys, also here I found a soccer team to enjoy myself in a championship.
Last Wednesday I was jogging and a guy came to me asking if I would like to play soccer with him and his friends. We played a match 11vs11 and at the end they explained to me that they were the Kalongo United team and they asked me to play with them on Sunday.

On Sunday I went to the soccer field for the match against the Technical Institute of Kidgom (a village not too far from Kalongo). The match was amazing..I never see so much people to see a non professional match like here.
I play for 60 minutes, until I finished the oxygene in my body.....
At the end both the team plus all children that went to see the match enjoyed drinking and dancing all together.

For those interested, Kalongo United won 3 to 2....

See you

Fede

Other pictures

Pictures

Before coming back to Kalongo

Hi everyone,

before coming back to Kalongo (I spent five days in Italy) I upload for you some pictures....

See you from Thursday for the second period of my adventure....

You can find all the pictured of the last month on my facebook profile.

Ciao

Fede

Trip on the Kaolongo Mountain

Ciao friends,

as usual I'm sorry for the delay but I think that now you expect it from me....Today I upload for you the picture of the trip to the Kalongo mountain that me and Valerian climbed last week end.
I would like to thank to all people that answered to the post of the last week. It would be very important to go ahead with the great job that the missionaries did in the past and that they do today.
For this reason, I decided to show you each different ward of the hospital in the next posts. You will realize how much is important the job of the missionary around the developing country.

Enjoy with the pictures.

Ciao!

Fede

Children Ward and Nutrition unit picture

4th week in Kalongo

Ciao a tutti,
I know, also this week I missed my daily appointment with blog but I couldn’t miss my weekly appointment for describing my 4th week in Kalongo.
I would like to welcome to Cristina from Fondazione4Africa. I do not know you, but I appreciate a lot that other people join the blog. It is an opportunity to understand how the life in Kalongo and the particular conditions of the environment is.
This was a particular week for me. For the first time I approached to the children and nutrition ward with perspective of a doctor. The Ambrosoli Foundation asked to us some information about the children and nutrition ward. I already knew that the condition was not so good in that part of the hospital. But sometimes, when you look at the things with the eyes of an accountant, you are too much concentrate on numbers.
Therefore, with this message I would like to make aware your attention on the situation of children here in Kalongo. It is not common for me doing something like these, but every night and every day I hear children crying and if you think to an Italian child crying and multiple the emotions for 10 times, it is not enough to describe how children feel here. While I write to you there is a child in the surgical world that cannot stop to cry. They are doing to clean his arm injured but the disinfectant cause a lot of burning and there are no sedative for pain.
Children ward needs absolutely to be restructured. When you approach to the ward there are a lot of mother, father and children outside the ward because there is not enough places inside. Most of them lay down under the trees in order to avoid the sun. During the hour in which doctors used to examine children, there is a long line of people because there is only a clinic office inside the ward. The space is very very limited.
The mosquito nets are broken for the most part. It is a big issue because here the malaria is one of the most common illnesses.
In the nutrition part of the children ward, the situation is almost worst. Children are placed in two inside room where they used to sleep only on mattresses because there are no beds. The same situation happens in the outside room built under an awning.
This is an overview of the situation of the ward. Surely people here need to develop some rules of how to live in a healthy way, particularly with reference to the personal hygiene. It is not possible seeing children without any clothes and shoes moving around the hospital, sitting down in the ground and eating with hands. However, every one of us could do something in order to improve the situation that I described and to contribute to save the life of children.
I will upload some picture (they will arrive later because of the lower download) to clarify better what I look at here every day. In addition, if someone is interested to do something for Kalongo can contact me and I will give all the information needed.

Ciao Ciao
Fede

Third week in Kalongo.....

Ciao a tutti,
Yesterday someone of you complaint to me because I didn’t update the blog yet. I’m very sorry but the last week was very busy. However, from tomorrow I will try to describe my experience day by day. Taking into consideration that I stay in the office the most part of my week, someone of you will be interested to my work project I’m going to report while someone of you will be more interested to my “soccer weekend”.
As I already said my week was very busy. After a first assessment of the administration department of the Dr. Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital, I started to develop my job. I stated three main priorities:
• Building the budget for the next year;
• Assessing the current cash flow situation;
• Developing a new accounting system using a SW called Pastel.
In order to build the budget for the next Financial Year (starting from July 1,2010) I decided to organize a visit to every wards of the hospital and to the 4 stores. The aim was to understand how the IT department registered the attendance of patients in each departments (for revenues side) and how the inflows and outflows of stocks are managed in the stores (for the cost of sold side).
This kind of job was very cool. Me and Valerian went through the wards and the stores of the hospital every day asking to employees how they used to register the patients attending the wards, how the procedures of inflow and outflow of drugs and medical sundries work and how the hospital collect money from patients. It was very funny because in each ward we supposed to be patients coming to the ward and we asked to nurses and doctors to show us what they used to do. I have also the opportunity to meet some doctors that explained to me their experience in Kalongo. One of those is Dr. Patient. He has the perfect name for a doctor!
In addition, outside of the hospital, there is a technical department. It is in charge of the maintenance of the hospital but there are some problems within it. The main issue is the lack of trust between the technical department and the hospital. We are going to develop a plan to sole this kind of a problem trying to rebuild a good relationship between the management of the hospital and the manager of the technical department.
During the free time I try to increase every day my friend relationship with people living here. Next Saturday I went to visit a high school not far from here where they performed some athletic competitions.
I was impressed by the performances of some guys in the high jump. They are able to jump 1.70 meters using an old technique that in Italy we called “sforbiciata”. In addition, I went the town with Didier, a young Congolese priest who is in Kalongo in order to learn the local language. We went to a bar to see a soccer match and to drink a beer. I also learnt few expressions in the local language. “Atchumabee” is good morning, “Irimabee” is good evening.
If I finished to work not too late and during the week end, I go to the football field for jogging. A lot of child, around 10-12 years old, used ask to run with me. I usually tell them to run before me. The problem is that after 10 minutes I’m not able to follow them. Here I realized why the athletic competitions are dominated by black people!!!
Finally, I think that someone of you want to know about soccer. Yesterday I played again 3 hours and today I cannot move my neck. What can I say? Only that I’m almost 30…;)… So I decided to organize a world cup. Until now there are 6 team willing to participate. I hope to add more team…
And today….. Forza Italia!!!!!

p.s. I’m sorry if I didn’t upload more pictures but the speed of internet connection is quite low.

Here I am!!!

Ciao a tutti!!!

First of all I saw that supporters of my blog are going to increase. For this reason I would like to thanks everybody.
Second, I'm sorry with you if I update the blog only now, but I was quite busy during the last few days.
After a first period of knowledge of the hospital and of the people, we have been starting to plan our job project. It will be very tough and for this reason the last days was very busy for me.

After two weeks alone, yesterday Valerian landed here. I appreciate a lot to have someone with sharing this experience. He was very active from the beginning in trying to help me to develop the project. I think we are a great team!
Here everything go ahead very well. I usually wake up at 6, go to run a bit, shower, if time mass, breakfast and at 8 I am in my office starting to work.

I finish around 18, and at 7 we have the dinner. I appreciate a lot this kind of schedule.
After that, I used to go to visit the students of midwifery school. They are always very kind with me and sometimes they entertain me with African Music...It is amazing...

But I used to stop everthing at 21.30, when I'm ready for the WORLD CUP. However, yesterday night was not so good....

FORZA AZZURRI!!!!

Ciao Ciao

Fede

Some pictures

After one week in Kalongo

Dear everybody,

Yesterday I "celebrate" my first week here in Kalongo and, therefore, today is public holiday ;)...
I appreciate how things work here: one day of vacation every two days of work. However, my colleagues said to me that happen only in the first ten days of May.
Here is going very well for me. The work project is very interesting and all the people put a lot of effort in order to improve the efficient of the hospital.
I'm feeling very well here also because I'm a guest in the mission of the Combonian priests and they are very kind with me.
Two days ago I spent part of the evening with the students of the Midwifery school and it was very nice.
And, of course, I don' miss every day to play football. Two days ago I bought a ball and I went to the public football field. Suddenly a lot of guys came to me asking to organize a match. We played 1 hour and a half under the sun of Uganda. I cannot say how I felt at the end. The problem was that when I was coming back to my room I met the students of the high school. When they saw me, they came everybody to me and start to say:
"We have a problem."
"Which problem?" I asked
"We have just finished an exam; we would like to relax a bit"
"And so?" I said
They answer "We would like to play but..."
"But???"
"We do not have the ball!!!"
So I restart to play for another 1 hour and a half and I went to sleep at 8.30 p.m. completely finished.

See you soon

Fede

p.s. I will upload for you some pictures

I'm sorry...

but today after 4 hours playing soccer I'm too tired to describe my day here...

See you next days...

First day of work

Ciao a tutti,
Yesterday was my first day of full work in Kalongo and I’m satisfy. People here are very kind with me and I was impressed by their willingness to follow our project and to help me to realize it.
We started with a welcome meeting organized by Sr. Vincentina, the director of the hospital, in order to introduce to me all the employees working in the administration department.
After the day of work I went to pray with the girls of the midwifery school. It was nice because it was in English (usually the mass is in the local language). At the end I was very surprise because all the students called me and came to thank me for praying with them and they invite also me for dinner. Unfortunately, I cannot attend the dinner.
As you can understand, my first days here were good. Of course, it is necessary to adapt to the environment and to the way of life (at 7.30 in the evening here is dark). However, I hope that my satisfaction about this experience could continue to increase.
I upload a picture about children.

Ciao

First two days in Kalongo

Hi everybody! Ciao a tutti!

Fortunally yesterday I arrived here in Kalongo after a long trip. I got my flight in Milan at 6.55 on June 1st, and I landed in Entebbe at 19.30. I spent one night in a beautiful Hotel in Entebbe and yesterday at 7.30 a.m. I flighted to Kalongo with a private airplane.
The place is beautiful, we are in the middle of Africa with a lot of nature around and everybody are very kind with me. I've already organized my room and put in order all my staff.
Yesterday, in the afternoon, I had a first good approach with my "new colleague" for this months and I visit all the hospital. It is incredible to see how important was the work of the missionaries today and in the past, aiming at giving a better future to a huge number of people.

I also visited some school and I was impressed by the attention keeping by the students. I never see something similar (maybe because I'm not a good student ;)). The best thing of yesterday was the visit of a nursery in which a lot of children start to sing to say welcome to me... Suddenly I will update the pictures

Today is a public holiday. It is good for me. So I can have an additional day to adapt myself expecially to the climate.The sun is very hot here, as I understood this morning after my first soccer match in Uganda.......

See you soon

Ciao

Federico

Message from Professor Alberto Grando

Hi everybody, I attached below the message sent by the SDA Bocconi Dean, Professor Alberto Grando, to all SDA Bocconi MBAs 35. I would like to thank personally Professor Grando who promoted the internship opportunity at Kalongo.

Dear Federico,
dear MBAs 35, given my age, I'm not particularly accustom with
blogs, but I would like to express my personal gratitude for the
choice Federico made. I know that others among you all, had the
desire to follow him, but unfortunately it is an option for a few. I
really think that the MBA must be a transforming experience and not
just from a professional point of view. Building the leader of
tomorrow is our goal. But the issue of leadership addresses the
question: “leadership to what end”? It is hard to mention leadership
without invoking a question about values. Being leader in the
society means serving people, companies, institutions - in a word -
the large community of the outside society in which you are asked to
behave as professionals, as you are, as well as civil servants, as
I’m sure all of you will be. Thank'you very much for making us proud.
I'll follow the bolg in the next months, but if you can, please
insert my message in it.
Take care and all the best.
Alberto Grando

Only few days miss...

Only few days miss and the 1st of June I will take my flight from Milan to Entebbe. I cannot hide that I'm excited and I can't wait to start my experience but I'm continually wondering how will be there.
I deicided to start this blog with a description of the hospital and I hope everybody could understand better where I will go without being too much boring.
The hospital is very close to a little village called Kalongo in the middle of a rural area, isolated and extremely under developed.
The hospital was founded in 1957 by Father Joseph Ambrosoli, a surgeon belonging to the Catholic Comboni order, who turned a small dispensary into one of the most important health care organization in Northern Uganda. After his death in 1987 the hospital remained closed for a while as a consequence of rebels’ fightings in the area. Yet in 1989 another Combonian doctor, Father Egidio Tocalli, restarted the hospital and managed it till very recently. Now a Catholic surgeon, Sr. Vincentina Achora, is in charge of the hospital.
Today, Dr. Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital is a private not for profit hospital with 345 beds capacity, managed by a totally Ugandan staff, employing 300 people.
The hospital is made up of many wards : surgery, delivery, HIV special unit, malnutrition, pediatrics, infective diseases and outpatients department.
The Hospital treats about 60.000 persons per year including outpatients.
The leading diseases in terms of years of life lost are malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhoeal diseases, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, acute respiratory diseases, traumas, complications of pregnancy and prenatal conditions.
Right aside the hospital, St.Mary’s Midwifery School was founded in 1959 by Fr. Joseph Ambrosoli with the purpose of training girls to help pregnant women and babies, the most vulnerable in society, in order to reduce maternal and prematures’ deaths.
It aims to supply to students a qualified midwifery’s training so promoting also a long-term sustainability for the hospital.
From its beginning the school has qualified more than 1200 students who are considered as very qualified in the many different health structures in Uganda and in other African countries.
Now the school has developed three different courses and has a capacity of 120 students per year.
The school is very well managed under the leadership of Sr. Carmel