The Marabou Stork Flies Again: The Italians at Lacor

Lacor hospital was founded by Catholic Comboni missionaries in 1959. Two years later, a husband and wife team, Drs Piero Corti (an Italian paediatrician) and Lucille Teasdale Corti (a Canadian surgeon), arrived in Gulu where they spent the rest of their lives developing the hospital into the amazing health care facility it is today (For more on the history: http://www.lacorhospital.org/). In honor of their life work, a Corti foundation was set up in Italy to continue funding the hospital along with the Catholic Archdiocese in Gulu. As a result, lots of Italians come to Lacor to volunteer their services. Currently at the hospital, there are 2 pediatricians, a pathologist, an oncologist, a radiologist, and a number of administrators and technical staff all from Italy. They were all so welcoming and friendly, only adding to our pleasant experience there.

Besides overhearing the occasional "Ciao, Ciao" exchange throughout the wards, one of the other most obvious examples of the Italian presence at Lacor is the food. Throughout the week, our lunchtime meals would range from the classic Acholi malakwang (a peanut sauce mixed with cabbage and greens) poured over sweet potatoes to gnocchi in a Bolognese sauce. For our last evening, Carlo (a Comboni Brother-radiologist and the guy in a white t-shirt sitting next to Dewan in the picture above) made a traditional Italian meal for us, which included an antipasti of grilled eggplant smothered in oil and garlic (which he prepared on a pannini press a day in advance), homemade cheese, sausage from the market, and rosemary focaccia. After carving out avocados and chopping up potatoes for a salad earlier that evening, Carlo assigned me to plucking the rosemary like pine needles from a stem. The kitchen was filled with the aroma of the baking focaccia, an odor that seemed so exotic in this place.