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

A Peace Corps Volunteer!

38 Health and Agriculture Trainees and 13 Global Health Services Partnership Trainees swore in at United States Ambassador DeLisi home in Kampala on Wednesday 6, 2014.

If you cannot spot me... I am third row down far left second/third in. 

Tech Training

Date Written: August 2, 2014

Now the Fun Part

This past week, we had what is called Tech Immersion. Four volunteers and myself traveled about an hour east of Kampala to a town called Mukono where we spent the week with two fellow health volunteers. The volunteers house we stayed at had a beautiful view of the countryside and town. Only down side of it was it was right next to a bar which played music until three in the morning and a couple really annoying guard dogs that would go crazy whenever people or other animals walked by their compound. Let us just say we did not get a lot of sleep and by the time we left for Jinja on Friday, we were very happy to have some peace and quiet in Jinja. Sadly we lost one of our volunteers back to Kampala for some serious medical issues at the start of the week which throw everything off a little but he/she is okay! We spent the rest of the week traveling around Mukono presenting information to actual Ugandans and using translators. I presented a WASH demonstration on hand washing and other volunteers presented on HIV, Malaria, and Mother Child Health Nutrition.
On Sunday, we thankfully didn’t have to get up at 5AM to travel to Arua like other volunteers did because we were only about an hour away by taxi we went to Kampala and spent a couple hours wondering around eating, and being lazy. We ran into Sam Childers also known as the Machine Gun Preacher (they made a movie about his life with Gerard Butler) we chatted with him about his life, organizations, and his new documentary about his life is coming out. Pretty cool guy and some awesome tattoos on his arms. We arrived in Mukono around dinner and we officially had street food – Rolex and chips… Rolex’s are the best thing under the sun. Chapatti a thick tortilla and a Spanish omelet rolled together. Monday, we thankfully did not have to do anything so we sat around all day in our pajamas being lazy and started planning for the week. We took a walk into town and got another yummy rolex.  The main reason we didn’t do anything was because it was the end of Ramadan and it was national holiday for the Muslims so of course every other Ugandan took advantage of it and closed up shop and schools - which happens a lot with holidays. So we had a much needed day off. Tuesday, we had an awesome day traveling to a fishing landing site on Lake Victoria where the fishermen who fish the waters of Lake Victoria live with their families. We did HIV testing and outreach there. They tested 40 people only four had HIV which was a good number for a fishing village. We spent most of the afternoon playing games with the children and one of our volunteers gave a presentation on HIV.

My Favorite Moment Thus Far Has Been Making Her Smile

My Little Buddy

The Fishing Village On Lake Victoria

On Wednesday we did the classic Ugandan thing and sat around. We arrived at 8:30AM for a morning presentation we sat around until 11AM. I will be getting lots of reading done – I read through The Color Of Water by James McBride in two days (good book check it out) and I am reading War Child by Emmanuel Jal. Finally, the group arrived and a volunteer presented on mother child health nutrition to a group of teen moms after we finished the group taught us how to make paper beads. Later in the afternoon, another volunteer talked about malaria and did grass roots soccer with some staff members (the group we were supposed to be at was cancelled so we presented to our hosts co-workers). The staff members got really into freeze tag which was hilarious.

The Group Answering Questions About WASH

Thursday, I presented my WASH presentation on basic hand washing to a group of children they rounded up on the street as the school I was going to present at had been canceled (this is pretty normal so we just rolled with it). We had about 35 children showed up and it was a blast to show them how to wash their hands. Many did not know the proper way to wash their hands.  It was amazing how dirty hands can become.

Washing Their Hands

Friday rolled around and we made our way to Jinja early since our fifth person was just being discharged from the hospital, We arrived just outside Jinja and did a presentation on Goal setting and self esteem to a group of hip-hop dancers in their late teens. It was a lot of fun and the kids are great dancers. We spent the night along the Nile in Jinja at a rafting camp site which was pretty cool to be around people from across the world. Jinja itself is okay. It’s extremely expensive and everything is so so. Lots of white people live there and none of them were friendly. Also always ask for half the amount because if you are white they will charge you extra. The East side of the country is pretty cool but I am very excited to get back to my site. One thing cool about coming to this side is I have gotten to experience what it is like to live in a hostel which it is kind of cool. So tomorrow, we head back to Kampala for a final couple days of training and we swear in on Wednesday! I cannot wait! It is odd as it finally becoming real to officially become a Peace Corps Volunteer.

News Update

After much consideration Peace Corps Kenya has closed due to fighting and security concerns with its volunteers. Peace Corps Uganda thought we would get a few of the volunteers who wanted to continue their service but sadly we did not. I know Peace Corps and many other people hope to be able to return to Kenya but it might be a while before they do. It is kind of a bummer as I had always wanted to travel to Kenya and there is a travel ban on PCV’s to go there. I will get there one of these days. We also just found out they evacuated all PCV’s in Western Africa because of the Ebola there. It is a bummer but safety first and I am glad they finally removed them. I hope they can get back there soon. As for now there is no concern of Ebola here in East Africa.

A Group Of Goofy Boys