Article For Peace Corps Uganda Newsletter

I volunteered to write this article for the Peace Corps Uganda Email Newsletter about our swearing in ceremony and some thoughts on how it went and what life will be like... So here it is!  

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   After about nine weeks of moving from city to city, listening to lecture after lecture, participating in demonstrations and activities, living out of our bags, wearing the same clothes over and over, and sleeping in many different beds and houses, WE MADE IT! We made it past what I hope will be the hardest part of our two years here in Uganda – Pre-Service Training.

   On Wednesday, August 6, 2014, 38 Health and Agriculture Trainees and 13 Global Health Services Partnership Trainees swore in at United States Ambassador DeLisi home in Kampala, the weather started out beautiful and bright but during the ceremony it turned windy, with light rain and a chill in the air but as Global Health Services Partnership Trainee David Baure (Mbarara) stated during his speech “the weather must be good luck.”

   Peace Corps director Loucine Hayes, Charge d’affaires, a.i., a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Patricia Mahoney, along with Dr. Jacinto Amandua, a representative from the Ugandan Ministry of Health provided us with words of wisdom, encouraged us to achieve big and plant the seeds of growth but also thanked us for our selflessness in giving up the comforts of home to serve.

Health Volunteer Josh Cruz (Salem Kolonyi – Mbale District) along with Agribusiness Volunteer Tim Walis (Kamuli) provided us with speeches about family and the excitement of the two years to come, with some funny memories of the PST and many thanks to those who helped all of us through the last two months. The only person in Peace Corps Uganda history to achieve an Intermediate High Level on his LPI, Health Volunteer Wayne Wong (Gulu), serenaded us in the Acholi language thanking those around him for their support and training. Baure rounded out the speeches with lots of humor and joy.  

   I thought back to that moment when a group of 40 fresh, bright eyed, exceptionally clean, and jet lagged Americans stepped off the plane and into Uganda. There was much joy and excitement during that time and also during our swearing in but also some nervousness at the realization that we are Peace Corps Volunteers. After almost two years of the application process and preparation since first applying back sometime in 2012 and receiving my invitation in January of 2014 that it was finally happening. Myself and 37 other trainees like so many before us throughout the world took the volunteer oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States, and to faithfully discharge my (our) duties and to serve to the best of our ability. We are official Peace Corps Volunteers and Global Health Services Partnership Volunteers. 

    Over the next two years we will spend our time providing our skills and experiences as far North as in Kitgum, Pader, and Agago Districts where Kate Miller will be working with Mercy Corps as an Agribusiness volunteer providing basic capacity building in the districts with an overall goal of helping the poorest famers through building the capacity of existing input and output providers. Down to Gulu where Health Volunteer Nick Brer will be improving the supply chain management and delivery system for prescription medications and helping end waste and improve the availability of medications to patients in the community. In the Southwest, Emily Brincka will be working with Rural Gender and Development Association and continuing to provide reusable menstrual pads throughout her community of Rukungiri and also providing basic health education to community members. Agribusiness volunteer Danny Mannka will be working with Chemonics International Inc., in conjunction with USAID’s Feed the Future initiative in Bushenyi-town. Mannka will be working both in the office to improve record-keeping, and financial controls and in the field meeting with key members of food-production, value chain, traders and village-agents. To the East in Mbale, where Health Volunteers Holly Duffy will be working with health in her community and Molly Burg will be focusing on hygiene, nutrition, and malaria at St. Kizito Babies’ home in Gangama. To the West, in Masindi, Ray Cohen will be working as an Agribusiness consultant who will be providing education on food security and social media to his community and organization. Lynda Krisowaty who is also in Masindi will be developing, revising, and implementing public health education curriculum and training sessions as a Public Health Education Coordinator.  

     The ceremony was rounded out with some great food which included Ghirardelli chocolates which were well worth the sugar high and later crash. All of the new Health and Agriculture volunteers provided the audience with some entertainment which included dancing and singing to the large group of Peace Corps Trainers, Supervisors and Counterparts, current Peace Corps Volunteers, Peace Corps staff, visitors, expats, and many other supporters of Peace Corps. 

    Congratulations to all the new Peace Corps Volunteers and the Global Health Services Partnership Volunteers and again a big thank you to all the Peace Corps staff, trainers, language trainers, and Supervisors and Counterparts.

One Month In!

Written On September 3, 2014

What to write! So much has been happening here it is amazing to think I have been at my organization a month already and in Uganda for four months! My organization Kibale Forest Schools Program works with 14 different schools around the Kibale Forest working on enrichment, environment conservation, health, and many other programs for the pupils. I am helping Eve, a 21-year-old just out of Nursing School who is the Schools Nurse and my counterpart and in case you are wondering – I tower over her and I am just 5’7”

Our Great Awkward Shot

I tower over everyone here in the West... I miss being with my tall friends and being the short one. Eve and I work in seven of the 14 schools providing basic care, health education, and distribution of sanitary pads and other activities. I am helping with the health program going to the different schools and talking with them about health issues and educating them. Eve is a real chatter box when it is just her and I but when other people are around she is quiet and sometimes I cannot hear anything she is saying but every other Ugandan can. Ugandans will answer your questions sometimes by raising both of their eyebrows and she loves doing that to me. “So have you done this?” Eyebrow raise “Are we going to be doing this?” Eyebrow raise “Do you have brothers and sisters” Eyebrow raise. I have started doing that to answer people’s questions now and sometimes I just start laughing because it is so not the norm in America. The school year here runs February to December so right now on Monday we will be starting the 3^rd term. We start on Monday! I am so excited to see the kids come back to school. It will be a busy couple of weeks starting next week. Lots of meetings and activities - so exciting.

I received my first care package from my mother and father on Saturday! It was nice having some junk food that I can’t get here in country. After eating organic somewhat healthy food my body had an interesting sugar high and crash eating that stuff. FYI I LOVE Peanut M&Ms so if you want to send me something send me Peanut M&Ms!

Yesterday, I got to travel into the Kibale Forest heading to one of the Makarere University’s Field Station in Kabarole to have dinner with some of the Board of Directors, Staff members and some of the people I will be working with for the next two years. The FOOD WAS AMAZING! I had the most amazing chicken since getting here in country. Oh and I guess the company was good too. We arrived just as it started to rain… now this is not normal rain this is African forest rainy season rain which comes down in buckets full. We again had some lightening high very close We met the director’s son David and his new wife Martha, they were on their honeymoon returning to where he spent much of his childhood with his parents doing research on the Chimps in the forest. They both are wonderful and heard some amazing his stories about growing up at the field station with his family. To grow up spending eight to ten months a year in Uganda in the forest explore their greatness, living with monkeys, and being chased by forest elephants… okay not fun but still I never thought of doing something like that but when I heard about the forest elephants in the Kibale Forest, I was like okay dropping everything we are going to go track them! I hope to go with some of the researchers on a chimp trek or elephant trek. Looking back on my life wow my childhood was boring. I found another library at the field station and raided it and took a massive stack of books back with me to read. I was worried I would not be able to find books here to read well, I have a legit library in Fort Portal and other small libraries around the communities usually where white people are or have been. One good thing we have done for Africa – we brought books with us. 

I finally got a gas stove which is amazing! And seem to be pretty much moved in minus needing a desk, and a small table and chairs for my kitchen to eat on but I am surviving and really enjoying my home. Here are a few photos of my living situation. I live with currently four other volunteers (Max, Jim, Oliver, and Sarah) that will change in a couple months as they move out and go back to America. Max is here for a year as a Princeton in Africa volunteer and my roommate on my side of the house, Jim is the new Field Director from Canada, Oliver is doing odd jobs, and Sarah is doing research on Bees and Elephants and is a crazy bug nerd. The freezer is full of dead bugs she has collected and is going to bring back to the United States. She is doing research on the bees here by the Kibale Forest and possibly using them at the edge of the forest to keep people out and animals in as well as producing honey. (Side Note from 9/17) I went with Sarah the other day to a local honey producer in Kiko and went out to his bee apiary and received a nice kiss from a bee on my cheek. I'll post photos soon! 

Nyinambuga Crater Lake

   On Saturday, Max (a Princeton in Africa fellow who works at the organization), myself, my friend Alison (a nurse at Fort Portal Hospital) met up with two volunteers from Kasese, Alex and Chiara. Alex is volunteering at a local hospital and in the schools in Kasese and Chiara is a Global Health Core Volunteer. We also met up with a woman, Ena from South Korea who was doing South Korea’s equivalent of the Peace Corps in Fort Portal. 

    After spending a delightful lunch at Duchess getting to know each other and chatting about life. We traveled up to see some of the Crater Lakes. There are about 30 different craters South of where I live and along the Kibale Forest all varying in size and location. We visited Nyinambuga Crater Lake which is one of the biggest ones just a 20 minute drive South East from where I live in Kasiisi Village. The crater is also on the back of the 20,000 shilling Ugandan note. 

Nyinambuga Crater Lake

20,000 Shilling Ugandan Note

View From The Dock

   After about two weeks of crappy weather, rain, wind, fog, typical rainy season weather the clouds finally broke and it ended up being a very beautiful day with lots of sun and a light breeze, it felt like a Minnesota fall day right after the summer has ended and the fall is just starting – still warm but also a cool hint to it. To be honest everyday here in Fort Portal feels like a Minnesota fall day but without any change of the trees and having to wear a massive parka. Anyways, we traveled by small car up the winding road through countryside’s and villages to the Nyinambuga Crater Lake, we passed three smaller craters on the way. In this small part of western Uganda, they dot the landscape like villages.  Nyinambuga Crater Lake is I am guessing a mile across and around .5 to a mile wide – Don’t quote me on that as I am just guessing but here in Uganda how far away we think something is we are usually dead wrong and it ends up being three or four times as far. But I do know it is 135 meters deep or about 443 feet deep, thanks to one of the managers at the lodge. Sound like something out of a horror movie? – yea I didn’t go swimming. We hiked down from the edge which was a massive workout both ways. The two volunteers from Kasese swam but the other two and I stayed on the dock with one of the dogs that had followed us down. It was beautiful sitting on the dock just chilling listening to the sounds of the lake and the nature around us.

View From The Dock At The Lush Trees

    We did see a King Fisher Bird, which come down and get a small bug off the water. We also saw something we guessed was either gas or oil bubbles that did not come to the surface of the lake but would burst right before the surface. It was really interesting and the lodge managers did not know what it was.  Along the edge of the Nyinambuga is a lodge called Ndali Lodge that overlooks the lake and also looks out over the countryside on the opposite side. We hung around chatting with a couple of the managers and some of the people who worked there. One of the managers shared her experience jumping out of a helicopter and into the Nyinambuga. The helicopter belonged to some world champion kit boarding champion or something like that – the clientele at the lodge is a mix of people from the Netherlands, UK, India, USA, Germany, France, and so on, some of which have helicopters to bring them up to the lodge. They have a landing pad which is a local field up to the road. Oh the life…

View From The Lodge

Another Amazing View Of The Lake

   That day at the lodge was a slow day so there was only one room taken for the night and we ended up having drinks and sitting eating crisps while watching the sun set behind the wall of clouds that had been overhead earlier in the day. It was the first real sunset since arriving three months ago. It hit me again that I was in Africa, watching the sun go down and the moon almost at full, rising right behind it. Being at the equator you see some pretty amazing things regarding nature and the environment that you don’t see in America. Again a wonderful “wow” moment at how lucky I am in to be Uganda and also in the Western part. I shared with the group that I could do this every night for the rest of my life, we all laughed and agreed but we also all agreed we would have to be very rich and famous to do this every night. It was an amazing end to what had been a wonderful day of shopping, eating, traveling, talking, friendship, adventure, but most of all, Ugandan Beauty.  

Sunset