The whirlwind last week and half in country....

I know it been a really long time, again, since I've updated. Things have been kind of crazy lately and I haven't had time to sit down at an internet cafe and write things out. But, I'm spending my last few hours in Uganda (before we head to the airport) at the hostel relaxing, packing, and getting things together in my mind and my journal. So, as I'm working on that I'll send out one last, long update from Uganda and then patch up what was missed back in the states. So, here we go....

The first thing worth mentioning is that we finished the fence! Our OCA group, the fifth OCA group sent to Mbale to work with FDNC, was teh first to complete thier project - what a great feeling and what a great project to have completed. What none of us really realized at the time was that this fence means so much to the community, particularly to Mai Jessica. The fence is the first step in getting government recognition of the special needs school and government help in keeping the school running. The school is currently running on a deficit budget and needs help from teh government to get up to "code" and fain as much support as necessary to help the children in teh community. By completing the fence we have helped the school make the first step towards government recognition and support.

We had a great, successful safari in Murchison Falls. Ka Tunza was an awesome organization to go with and I'm really happy we went. We spent the first day driving up to Murchison through Kampala after being picked up in Jinja. We made it up to Masindi that night, the major city just outside the park. On the way up to Masindi we stopped at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, a project started to try to reintroduce white rhinos into Uganda after the Ugandan population was poached to extinction during Idi Amin's reign in 1983. We were able to walk within about twenty feet of a mother rhino and her baby with the assistance of three armed (AK-47s) rangers who are with the rhinos 24-hours a day to ensure they are not poached. I took lots of pictures of Kori and Joshua, which I'll happily share when I return home (today :( ). We camped at Masindi the first night at a hotel and headed into Murch early the next morning (early as in 6:30). We drove to (and through) Murchison in a 22-seater truck with a balcony that we could climb on as well as sit on top fo the truck for optimal viewing during game drives.

The second day we drove through a forest just outside the park where we saw baboons (which we later learned to hate) and had a forest walk – pretty boring as there were no animals, only plants to look at for two hours. We drove through the beginning of the park and ferried across in the Nile in a boat that didn’t seem like it would hold anything. We picked up a ranger, Denis, on the other side and he stayed with us until we left the park the next morning – he too was armed with an AK-47. After crossing the Nile we went on a game drive to our camping grounds for the night. Along the game drive we saw some remnants of the LRA occupation of the North – as the UPDF still occupied an airstrip near Lake Albert along the Congolese border with Uganda. We also saw lots of oribi, hartebeest, warthogs, giraffes (about twenty feet from our camp), hippos, and elephants. We camped in the middle of the bush that night along the Nile delta – the border between Uganda and Congo (the Congolese mountains served as the backdrop to our camp).

About nine that night we got a class from the only other campers in the park that their camp – about fifty yards from us – was being disturbed by lions. So, we all got in the truck and took off in search of the lions. Along the way we saw two hippos out of the water and waddling around looking for food, scivet (raccoon-like creatures), field mice, and about fifty feet from the other camp – three leopards (something unprecedented in the park. Leopards are usually hidden in trees and alone not three walking around curiously inspecting camps). We retired to our camp site after seeing the leopards and after much talking, retired to our tents.

About four hours after retiring we were awoken by what our ranger called a monsoon. We had three inches of rain fall on us that night complete with lightning and thunder – and for me, a river about an inch deep underneath my tent causing my tent to fill with small puddles of water.
I was able to talk with the ranger about the upcoming Sudanese elections and he said he thought that the South would most likely vote to succeed but that he wasn’t sure the North would let him. Interesting perspective from a neighboring country that matches pretty well with sentiment in the States.

The third day we had an early morning game drive where we were able to see a lioness and her two cubs feeding off a newly killed oribi. We also saw patas monkeys (lots of them), giraffes, water buffalos, elephants, and two more leopards. After the morning game drive we packed up camp and headed back to the Nile crossing – along the way we passed through some oil inspections as there is suspected to be a heavy and deep oil reserve just under the national park. If it proves feasible the Ugandan government is getting ready to start drilling and drawing out the oil to sell on the international market – a move that has me worried for environmental and economic reasons and has many in the tourist industry both nervous and excited at the possibility (destruction of the forest accounts for the nerves but a spike in foreigners initially causes excitement). When we reached the Nile we took a launch cruise up the Nile about 30 kilometers to the base of Murichson Falls, a spot where the Nile crunches into a waterfall only nine meters wide and crashes through – a great site. We got off the boat at the base of the falls and hiked tot eh top, where we camped for the night. The fourth day we spent riding back to Jinja – a trip that took about six to eight hours from Murchison Falls.
When we got back to Mbale we learned that the little boy who lives on the compound had caught malaria – again. After recovering from bronchitis he ended up with malaria – luckily he was able to medication relatively quickly after contracting the illness. A few days after returning we said our goodbyes to the compound and the people we had all come to love – a very tearful goodbye – and headed back to Jinja.

We went white water rafting down the Nile this past Sunday – an experience I enjoyed for the most part. We went down twelve rapids – four grade five, the rest grade three or four. I was finished after the eighth rapid, so the end of the rafting wasn’t as enjoyable as the beginning. That being said, it was a cool experience and the Nile is awesome river (very warm). We, of course, managed to flip out boat six or seven time along the ride and I probably inhaled tons of water. When I washed my hair afterwards, the shampoo rinsed out brown with all the dirt/mud in the Nile. Not cool.

We spent yesterday wandering our Kampala and looking through the craft markets. It was really cool to see, but the prices were definitely much greater here (for Uganda) than in cities farther away from the capital, which surprised me a bit. We found a bookstore in one of the malls and I was really impressed with the number of books on African politics. I find it extremely interesting that books about African relations, development, and needs are more plentiful in Africa than outside. This surprises me because the audience the books are written for doesn’t’ seem, to me at least, to be an internal audience but rather an external audience (particularly where aid books are concerned). I managed to spend about an hour in the book store taking in everything they had (and the fact that most of the books were half the price they are in the states). I settled on a book by a journalist who set out to find Joseph Kony while he was still in Uganda.

To kill time before a “jam session” we wanted to attend last night we saw a movie called The Silent Army about child soldiers. It was definitely a gut-wrenching movie but proved to be true in every aspect. I highly encourage everyone to see it if/when it becomes available in the states – it was about the war that was pre-Alice Lakwena (the reason Joseph Kony rose to power in the North). It’s a hard movie to watch, but worth it. It’s one thing to read about child soldiers and get statistics but it’s quite another to actually see it in front of you on the big screen.

I’m going to sign off for now, there’s someone else waiting behind me and I have a journal to update before the plane. I’ll be back in about twenty-four hours (eight and a half hours to Amsterdam, ten hour lay-over, and eight and a half hours to New York). See you soon!

I know it's been a while....

I know that it's been a really long time since I've updated the blog, but believe it or not I had written a post and before I was able to hit the "publish post" button the page reloaded on me and lost the entry. At that point the computer and I needed to have some time apart before I tried posting again - and it's been kind of hectic (in a good way) lately so I haven't a lot of time to update. But, that means this post will be quite long - assuming I can stay up and keep writing (it's after midnight here and the roosters come by around 6:30am).

The first thing I want to mention is that we decided as a group to help that little boy who lives on the compound with a cough. We gave his mother money to take him to the doctor - it was a good thing too because it turned out he had bronchitis and needed two liquid medications, one round of pills, and two injections to get healthy again. Not too long after we treated the boy, one of the gatekeepers brought another boy to our attention who had been very badly burned. He'd been burned with hot coals from a fire and hadn't been seen by a physician for at least four days. We cleaned out his wound and took him to the doctor where the burn was dressed properly. We have been cleaning and re-dressing teh burn for a week now and it seems to be healing nicely. The boy was burned on the inside of his arm, about half the distance from his wrist to his elbow. He's five years old. We also ended up taking his younger brother to the hospital for malaria treatment - where he was admitted for a day - due to a very high fever and low blood count. I am a little concerned about the repercussion of this treatment we are offering - not that I would have denied the treatment, but what happens when too many people ask for help in teh form of doctors fees or when we leave? It's a question we are pondering, but as our trip comes to and end the former seems the pressing question.

Since the last time I have updated we have been given new guidelines for the fencing project. The anglebars were FINALLY! completed early last week and had to be given two coats of paint. We then had to dig a trench all the way around the perimeter of the fence to ensure the fence was secured in the ground. The good news is that as of today we only have one more section of chainlink to put up and tighten before we can add the barbed wire and be finished! Our Ugandan counterpart thinks that if we put in two more full days we will be finished with the work by the end of the day Wednesday - just in time for our safari - which we leave for on Thursday morning! I can't believe that time has flown by so quickly, we only have two weeks left in country, six of those days will be spent on teh compound where we have been living since arriving and the rest will be spent as tourists - a final treat before we leave the country.

I was coerced into climbing the mountain/hill I mentioned a while ago to watch the sunset. A few people convinced me to go up - with the admonition that if I went up they would have to help me a lot to get back down. And they did, everyone was very patient with me and helped me the whole way. While the view was nice from the top, I'm not sure I'll go back up before we leave - once was enough for me. There's another spot I'd like to stop and see the sunset from a little farther the quarry/mine from the "big" rock I climbed.

We have decided that in our travel plans we are going to go white water rafting: and yes, after some convincing from my group members and mom and dad (along with financial help) I'll be going white water rafting too (at least I will be going as of right now. I still reserve the right to back out when it all comes down to it - there's another person in the same boat I am and one who has completely opted out of going). We'll see what happens. We are slated to raft on August 8, and spend the 9 and 10 in Kampala before leaving late the night of August 10. The safari will begin on Friday morning (7am) and last until August 2, at which point we will return to the compound until August 7. These last few weeks will fly by - which we are all grateful for and quite sad about. We're definitely ready to get back to the states: running water, indoor plumbing, plumbing in general, meat, non-beans/rice dishes, good electricity, lack of mosquitoes, no red dirt everywhere, no more DEET. But, I know I'll miss a lot from here, particularly the people and the children. I'll definitely miss them the most. I can't believe we only have seven days left here.

I realized that I haven't really illustrated the price differences between here and the US yet. So, let me illustrate what the prices are like. The exchange rate is just over 2000 Ugandan Schillings to one USD. Pineapples are 1000 Schillings, internet rates (more expensive rates) are 25 Schillings per minutes, tailored shirts are 8000 Schillings plus the price of fabric (between 12000 and 25000 depending on the material), public transport into town is 1000 Schillings. We are eating and transporting ourselves with eight people for seven weeks on 1600 USD and it looks like we'll have money to spare at the end. Our first two days of food here cost 13 USD per day for eight people. We joke all the time that when we get back to the states we're going to have issues adjusting to the prices - everything will seem so expensive to us when we can spend so little and have it seem expensive here. For instance, I am having a blouse and a pair of pants made by a local woman who only wants us to pay for the materials she must buy in order to make the clothes - 5000 Schillings. That's a bit less than 2.50 USD (when you take into account the exact rate). Can you believe it?

We've been lucky so far concerning malaria and mosquitoes - no one in our group has suffered from malaria yet. We are becoming more aware of the mosquitoes because the rain is increasing drastically which means there are more bugs and because of the safari. We will be in Murchison Falls along the Nile and at the lowest elevation in the country. That means we will be in mosquito central for four days - lots of bug spray will be necessary. And I have just learned that we are entering the primary season for malaria - we know a lot of locals from around where we are who are suffering or have been suffering recently from malaria. That being said, we are careful after dark and are good about taking our meds - we just need to be better about the spray when we are on safari because we can't retreat indoors then (we're camping).

It's getting late and I need to head to bed - I still have a few things to update you on, but it'll have to wait until I'm more awake and it's not so late. Hope all is well in the states - see you very, very soon!

Tourists for a Day: Sipi Falls

Saturday we were tourists and travelled to Sipi Falls - about two hours from where we are staying. Sipi Falls is a popular tourist location where you hike (and I really mean hike) to each of three waterfalls. The first waterfalls, that you must hike down to, is a 99 meter drop down a cliff face - we hiked to the bottom of the waterfall, but it was too rocky/clippery to go behind the fall or swim at the bottom. We then hiked back up the mountain - took quite a lot of doing (I'm still sore from going up) and were able to go into some caves near the top of the mountain. Once we reached the top we made our journey to the next fall, where we were able to make our way behind the falls and then underneath - quick shower as our guide called it. It was getting late by the time we made it down and back to the second fall, so we decided to hike up to a spot where you could see all three falls and the surrounding area very nicely. The spot was very picturesque and I was able to take a lot of photos (unfortunately the internet isn't good enough to upload those photos from here, so I'll post some when I get home). Sipi Falls was a great daytrip destination and I had a great time climbing with my group, some of whom had to help pretty often to ensure I made it all the way up the mountain.

This week marks our last full week of work. Next week we have three days of activities off the compound - little euthreprenurial (I know that's spelled wrong) projects in the local community that we'll visit. Thursday we leave for Jinja and Friday begins our four day safari. I cannot believe how much the time flies.

The AU summit began July 18, yesterday, and security is definitely hiked, even so far from Kampala - where the summit takes place. We've been checking emails quite often, and have gotten many alerts from the state department - but only when the power grid allows us to do so. We're frequently without power or without enough power to power a computer. We're being cautious - don't get me wrong - but we're also pretty isolated right now. We're not going to be in Kampala until after the AU summit is over and then it's only to make sure we make our flight.

There's a line for the computer and breakfast has made it onto the table. I'm not sure when I'll update again, depending on what happens this week it may not be until the weekend. Once we leave for the safari there may not be anymore updates until I return to teh states - unless we get access to an internet cafe, we shall see.

Halfway Mark (almost)

Today marks our (almost) halfway point in the trip: we've been here for exactly three weeks now and we have three weeks and five days left in country (not that I'm counting or anything). The last three weeks, we all know, are going to fly by. Tomorrow we are going to attend a music competition one of the schools we visited last week is participating in, Saturday we are visiting Sipi Falls - an amazing waterfall about two hours from where we are staying via car, and Sunday we will attend Church with the woman who has been helping us cook and clean - she wants to introduce us to her friends. Next week we are working on the fence, which should be finished either next week or the first few days of the following week. Next weekend we are attending a traditional introduction ceremony and spending some time in town - we have to get funds for the safari. Then we are going to safari for four days and we're back here for a week. We are currently slated, the last weekend we are here, to attend a circumcision ceremony, but we may decide not to attend depending on security concerns. We'd all love to go, it's a traditional ceremony that draws thousands of people, but it depends on what our host feels is safe or not. I can't believe it. Sometimes it feels like we've been here for months, other times it feels like we arrived yesterday.

One of the little boys on the compound - the two year old I wrote about earlier - has developed a terrible cough. He's taking medicine but he doesn't seem to be getting better and the cough seems to be getting deeper - he so young. He's at the house playing with us on the front porch all the time and we love spending time with him. We were talking with mother the other day and she said she can't afford more medicine for her, so we're all chipping in a little bit of money to take him to visit the doctor. A doctor's visit here costs about 30,000-40,000 Ugandan shillings (approximately 13-17 USD) - split between eight people is the least we can do for him.

Today was an off-day at work: our "manager" was in a boda-boda (motorcycle - public transportation) accident on his way in yesterday and it's feeling well enough to make the journey yesterday. We were planning on going for a hike and climbing the "mountain" again to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, the (larger) mountain and Mother Nature conspired against us - it's been raining all afternoon and prevented such trips. While I recognize we're in the tropics, it rains here just about everyday - not what I expected for the dry season. I don't think there have been a total of four days yet that it hasn't rained.

Tuesday a few people rode into town in the afternoon and picked up some Nutella and Peanut Butter. For dinner we had nutella, peanut butter, banana chipati - it was amazing. If I remember on the way back to Entebbe I'm going to pick up some chipati mix and possibly some peanut butter - locally made with only peanuts, sugar, and salt - tastes great!

That's really all that's been happening here lately - been a pretty boring couple of days aside from working. Next week will probably be the same, so don't be surprised if I don't update more than once next week - particularly with the power situation - we lost power again earlier today for much of the morning. Hope all is well!

I'm OK - I'm not in Kampala

First of all I just want to let you all know that I'm OK - I'm not staying in Kampala (yet) - we're about five hours outside of the capital. That being said, there were somem tense moments on Monday when we found out what had happened and tried to figure out what that meant for us. I'm thinking it may have something to do with the African Union (AU) meeting next week and Uganda's support for the Somali government troops via the AU. We're getting ready to watch the local news story about the blasts in Kampala.

I'm sorry it took so long to let you know that I'm OK, we've been without power since midday Monday, so I haven't been able to get online. We're hopeful that everything will work out and no one has to leave early due to violence or instability.

In the past few days we have been working on erecting the fence at the special needs school. We have gotten the angle bars almost fully erected - we have about one more side to finish and then we start adding the chainlink (when it comes). We have been working on mixing cement, carrying the cement along the fenceline via wheelbarrows (with flat tires) and cementing the anglebars/ fence posts into the ground.

It's been really hot here lately, so aside from working we haven't been doing much - particularly because we've had no power. There are people waiting to use the computer to notify friends and family they haven't reached everything's OK, so I'm going to sign off now. I'll post again - a much longer blog - in a few days.

And the illnesses set in...

Well, I've managed to contract my first (and hopefully only) case of travellers' diahhrea - not a fun experience. Thursday evening my stomach started acting up and by Friday morning I was out of commission. However, the antibiotics the doctors perscribed for me before I left did their job and I felt much better by Friday night - save for the short bouts of severe naucea, I think it was a side effect of the antibiotic (cure the diahhrea, make you want to vomit).

Friday our supplies FINALLY arrived as well - which means we can finally really start working. We recieved the gravel, sand, and cement for the concrete mixture (which I'm becoming relatively familiar with), barbed wire, and angle bars/fence posts. We are just waiting on the chain link to come, but that probably won't happen until we get the posts - hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday. We're hopeful that this project will be finished before we go on safari so that we can start helping with other odd jobs around the compound and the school.

Thursday we were taken to two of the local primary schools near us and were able to see the students and the classrooms. What I saw astounded me - I'm still trying to process everything four days after the fact! The primary schools run from P1 to P7, with many more students in the lower grades than in the upper grades. In both schools many of the class sizes were well over 100, close to 130/150 students for one or two teachers. Can you imagine such a high student to teacher ratio? I couldn't believe it. Not only were many of the classrooms themselves overcrowded, but many of them were also lacking supplies - one school didn't have any desks for the younger children, they sat on the floor all day (8-5 with no lunch). At the same school, government funded, the older students were given desks but they were learning in unfinished buildings.

Relatively recently the government mandated that all primary education is free for all students. While this a good idea in theory, the reality of what has happened doesn't seem good at all. many schools are running on little to no supplies, they cannot provide lunches for the students (and the parents will not send the students with lunches from home), students have very long workdays, and the schools are severely overcrowded. It's hard to imagine that students learn adequately in these conditions - perhaps it speaks to the high drop-out rate as the grades progress.... My thoughts on the school system are still too jumbled to really say any more about right now, the pictures, when I get back, can speak for themselves.

A few people were also given the opportunity to visit the local public hospital. When they came back I couldn't believe what they saw - I've seen one of the hospitals here but didn't realize how private it was until they talked about what they'd seen. What really stuck out to me was the conditions of the actual wards: chickens running loose throughout. Can you imagine? A pedatrics ward of 120 patients with only four nurses. Highly infectious patients nearest the doors into other hospital areas. Overcrowded beds and wards. Lack of mosquito nets. Make you feel really lucky with US facilities no matter how long the wait may be....

We also went into town for the weekend and stayed a local hotel. We were able to walk around and really see Mbale Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of the time this weekend poolside. What a great way to combat todays heat (and, of course, replace the healed sunburn with a newer, larger one). But, the best part about it, was that we could eat food that we knew was safe just fine: cheese, butter, unboiled water (bottled), juices, cheese, meat, chocolate. It was amazing - I had GOOD pizza and gnocci and sausage and chocolate pudding. Now, I'm ready to go back for another two weeks of rice and beans - then we may need to take another trip to the hotel for the afternoon for the sake of eating some food and swimming for an afternoon (or getting an hour massage - a good one - for $25).

Dinner's out, so I'm going to end for tonight. I'll post as soon as I can.

Oh - and don't forget to watch the World Cup tonight, the final match: Netherlands versus Spain is on!

The work is underway

This will be a quick blog entry because dinner is almost ready and this is the first time in a week that I'm actually hungry enough to eat a decent meal.

The work has finally begun, albeit slowly (for Americans at least, for Africans we are right on task). We have finished clearing and digging holes (two feet deep and nine inches in diameter) for the fence posts. The boys cleared most of the fence line, as they wanted to use their new toys - pangas (a.k.a. machetes) and we dug holes with a vertical pole that was jammed in the ground to loosen dirt while someone laid/sat/sprawled on the ground to dig out the loosened dirt from the newly created hole. Believe it or not, this was only terribly difficult when the hole was next to a bunch of bramble bushes (hard to scoop out the dirt) or when the dirt was actually a layer of sunbaked brick that had to be pounded on until the makeshift tool broke through. We are currently waiting on supplies to build the actual fence - supposedly they are coming this week, but we have learned that that actually means they will be here near the end of next week, but only if the funding comes through.

Today we worked on finishing the culverts with a 'technical' person from Uganda. I'm not sure if I've mentioned before or not, but when one enters the compound from the road, the vehicle one travels in must drive through a 1.5-2 foot ditch the reach the driveway (the ditch has been created to catch and funnel water during the wet season. Since this slowly but surely degrades vehicles and, quite possibly, may/will cause a vehicle to tip over. We bought four culverts that we transported from town in a school bus and FDNC bought three truckloads of dirt (we'll need one more now) and another culvert to complete the project. Today we began putting the finishing touches on the culvert ends by adding stones and cement to prevent the dirt from being washed away and ensure cars/trucks don't damage the culverts too much. We are waiting to complete the sides as we ran out of cement, hopefully we'll have more tomorrow. In order to work on the culverts, we had to carry 20-40 pound rocks/stones from the back of the compound to the end of the driveway as well as bricks, water (in 5L increments), and sand (via a wheelbourgh with a flat tire that necessitated one person to push and another to pull with a string). I don't think I've been this dirty....

I took a shower earlier and realized that because of how we shower, I don't think I'll be clean until we hit either a hotel for a night (hopefully this weekend) or the hostel in Kampala where I fully intend to take a shower before the two plane rides. In order to shower, someone lugs a 5L jug of water into the bathroom, you pour out enough water for yourself into a basin, and scoop water over you to clean/rinse off. All water is cold - washing ones hair and face are the worst parts.

We have booked our adventure safari for July30-August2 through Murchison Falls National Park including a boat trip along the Nile, game drives, camping in the park, possible night game drives, as well as, if wanted, chimpanzee walks/tracking and a rhino walk. I'm not sure what extras we'll do, but we're all very excited. We are doing a private safari with just our group, so the organizers have said they are willing to cater to our desires for the four days in the national park. We're all very, very excited - gives us something to look forward to as the days begin to drag out.

Food is out, so I'm signing off. I'm sure the next time I post we'll all be suffering from some degrees of culture shock, as we are drifting (some of us, soon all of us) down the slope.