Gulu

I just got back from an absolutely amazing weekend in Gulu. On Friday I took a bus up with Catie and another volunteer named Dan. The bus ride was super long, but we got there just fine and got settled in. Then we met up with Aurelien, Madelynn, Eliot, and Hanna from the UNC GlobeMed Chapter. We hung out with them the whole weekend and it was a blast. We even got to go to the office of Health Alert, the organization they are working with, to make paper beads with some of the children they worked with. I totally sucked at making the beads, but it was really fun all the same.

Sunday was a very interesting day. We wondered around for most of the day and went and had coffee at a small cafe. The owners of the cafe literally just left their life in the US to open up a coffee shop in Gulu and send the proceeds to an orphanage. They had a little boy and were raising him there. It was such an interesting life story and I was very glad to meet some people like that. Later on on Sunday, Catie, Dan, and I, decided to go to Baker's Fort. Baker's Fort is an old slave trading post. It used to be ran by the Arabs, but then a British man by the name of Baker ran them out and took it over. To get there we took a 1 hour boda ride down a very bad road, but we didn't mind because the countryside was absolutely beautiful. We drove past a ton of different villages all with clusters of identical huts with thatched roofs. I was so glad to see a bit more of the village areas. Baker's Fort itself was located in a very beautiful area, but the whole thing was quite cold and creepy. There were huge stone slabs everywhere and we had a tour guide who told us about what each building and each stone was for. At one point he took us to the execution area. When slaves were too old, too weak, or too ugly to sell, they would simply execute them. They killed them by either a firing squad or beheading with an ax. He took us to the beheading area, where you could still see ax marks cut out of the stone. I left that place with a lot to think about. We took a boda home in the dark, which was pretty sketchy, but once again it was beautiful because of the stars. I was feeling quite calm and at peace.

On Monday morning we got up and went to the World Health Organization headquarters in Gulu to meet with the director of operations to discuss a bunch of different things. Dan is studying psychology with an emphasis in addiction and so he had a ton of questions for the director. All throughout Uganda, but especially in Gulu, there is a problem with alcoholism. Also, many people in Gulu have war trauma and need mental health services. Most of the NGOs are tailored to children and do not do much from adults. After speaking with the WHO director, we found out that there is not a single NGO working in Gulu in drug addiction or alcohol addiction. Furthermore, there are few mental health services being offered. It was quite disgusting to hear since there are TONS of NGOs operating in Gulu. On the way to the bus park after the meeting we ran into two people who looked like ex-LRA soldiers, were already drunk and completely messed up, and just wondering around the streets. All the more reason to offer them some mental health and addiction services. I think Dan is actually going to try to start something up in Gulu, which would be really cool.

Overall, Gulu was a very interesting experience. We saw a ton of work being done to build up the city again and to really help people. And some of it definitely seems to be effective. But, there is still so much work to be done and so many areas that are being overlooked. It will be very interesting to see what happens in Gulu and throughout Uganda as many NGOs start going under from the credit crunch. I had a great weekend, and I am super glad that I was able to go up to Gulu. Plus, we got to hang out with the GlobeMeders and I think they are coming to Jinja this weekend to hang out with us! Until next time.

All Alone!

My volunteer partner left on Monday and now I am at my placement all alone and no other volunteer will be coming for the duration of my stay. I seriously feel like I am going through culture shock for the first time here since Noreen left. It is hard to have no one to talk to about little problems and PE is definitely more difficult alone. On Tuesday and Wednesday P1, P2, and P3 all combined for PE. I had about 90 kids to deal with and it was quite overwhelming. The worst part is when I try to hand out the jump ropes and every kid is grabbing for them. I literally had to run up the stairs and tell everyone to stay at the bottom so I could hand them out one at a time. And of course every kid is yelling "Me Madam, Me Madam!". It is absolutely insane. At least the teachers have been really nice and are trying to help me out. Another interesting development was that Tuesday morning one of the students showed up at my house really early and told me that she was hungry because she hadn't eaten dinner the night before. I had no clue what to do so I gave her one of the NutriGrain bars that Noreen had left. She showed up the next day and again this morning. I haven't given her any more food, but I feel really bad. It is hard to ignore when a small child is telling you that they are hungry and you have food sitting in the house. But I know it is dangerous ground to walk to give one kid food because then every kid will be asking for it so I must resist! I am sure that I will eventually get used to being on my own and I have definitely had enough to do. There is always someone to hang out with if you look.

This weekend I am heading up to Gulu since I wound up not going last weekend...instead I hung out with all of the volunteers who were leaving on Monday. We had a crazy time in Kampala on Saturday and I wound up staying out until 6:00 am. But now I am finally making it up to the north and I am super excited. I will let you all know how it goes!

I am an aunt!!!

I just thought I would announce to everyone that I am officially an aunt now. My brother and his wife had a baby boy on June 11th. They named him Carter and he is absolutely adorable. He definitely looks like an Armstrong! So sad I am not there!

Home Visits

Wow I haven't written in a while. I will catch you up on last week first. Well I had an extremely insightful week just talking with many different people and doing home visits for the Mpoma HIV/AIDS initiative.

While talking with my friend Moses, he told me that the problem with Ugandans is that they are job seekers instead of job creators. It was so interesting to think of the economic problems in Uganda as that. I have already seen many things on the economic side that I just don't understand. For example, there are entire malls of just car parts or just electrical parts or just fabric stores. It seems so counterintuitive to me to open up a fabric store right next to a fabric store, and yet that is what they do here. I was glad to talk with Moses, who plans on opening his own business, to be able to see that people like him do exist in this country and will eventually bring change.

The next conversation that I had that I found to be extremely interesting was with Leslie, the director of the Real Uganda. I told her about the program that Peter (one of the community members) and I are trying to start to work on marital satisfaction since 46% of new infections are occuring within married couples who do not remain faithful. She started to tell me about how the problem is very cultural. She said that remaining faithful is almost a joke here and that pretty much everyone cheats and thinks nothing of it. Another thing she talked about was the sugar daddy problem. Girls here want sugar daddies to buy them things like clothes, DVDs, jewelary, etc and many of them have no say in using protection. Also, many girls who can't afford college get sugar daddies to help them pay for it. Hearing all of this just blew me away and it started to become more clear as to why there is a problem of HIV/AIDS here. Shortly after our chat, I went into the village to actually see the effects of HIV/AIDS.

We did two home visits, one with a woman named Rebecca and another with a man named Livingston. Rebecca was living with her two elderly parents and her newphew. She got married to a man without knowing that he was positive and contracted HIV. The government pays for everyone here to get ARVs and she has a coouncelor who comes and brings her the medicine. She gets horrible headaches and dizziness from the ARVs, but at least she isn't getting sick all of the time. Her mom talked about the struggle to take care of her daughter. Since Rebecca is on ARVs, she needs to eat really well, but her family struggles to get enough good quality good. It was quite a sad situation to see. She said that the thing that she needed more than anything was a way to generate income to buy food. I actually doubted going into public health for a second and thought about switching to being an economist...I snapped out of it though after realizing that if there had been effective public health within Uganda, there wouldn't be the huge HIV problem that there is today. Rebecca also mentioned the need for an educational seminar within her village. I think that Moses and I may try to put on a theater production with some of the children at the school to present in her village. The next home visit that we did was to a man named Livingston. He made me extremely sad. His house literally was a mud hut made out of mud and sticks and covered with a thatched roof of fronds. It was utter poverty. Livingston himself was freakishly thin and it looked like he had several wounds on his leg. Everything about him looked unhealthy. To make money he tried to cultivate plants and sell woven mats, but he talked about how he just doesn't have the energy any more to be able to produce much. I have done research on how HIV reduces productivity and income, but Livingston actually showed me the reality of it and the reality is much more impactful than the statistics. It is my dream to one day be able to help these people, but the problem is absolutely huge. The roots are often times cultural and culture is nearly impossible to change. I hope to do more home visits to really begin understanding the issue at hand and try to formulate some way of helping them.

Rafting the Nile River

I just got back from one of the most amazing weekends of my life! On Saturday I rafted the Nile River with four other volunteers. It was seriously fun. We went over a bunch of different classes of rapids from class 2 to class 5. We started out at the top of the Nile River and rafted for 5 straight hours with a short snack break in the middle. The first couple of rapids weren't that bad and then we hit the class 5s. It was intense, but absolutely awesome. I got thrown out of the raft about 3 different times. The first time wasn't that bad, but the second time was on a class 4 and I totally thought that I was going to die. Of course that didn't happen, but it is amazing how your mind races when you are underwater waiting to surface. We also fell out on the very last rapid of the day, which was actually a class 6 rapid, but we entered it about half way down. We did a very slow flip and me and two other people were the last ones holding on for dear life. When we flipped I got continually pummeled by waves and then finally hit calm water where I was picked up by a kayak. Overall I had an absolute blast and would love to do it again. That night after rafting we hung out at a campsite that looked out over the Nile. It was beautiful! We had a great night and met up with a few more volunteers. Also, they showed a video of our rafting trip. Seeing the video showed me just how crazy the day was. I bought a copy and will definitely have to show everyone when I get back. After such a great weekend, I am ready to go back to teaching tomorrow. This is my volunteer partner's last week. Then I am going to be on my own! I am heading up to Gulu this weekend to meet up with the GlobeMed students from UNC that I met in Ethiopia. It should be great. I will keep you posted.

Safari

So I just got back from an exciting weekend of going on a safari to Murchison Falls. On Friday night we drove into Kampala and stayed at the Red Chili Backpackers Hostel. A few of us went out clubbing that night and it was a load of fun. I definitely want to go clubbing again here! The next day we got into a van for an 8 hour bus ride to Murchison Falls. On the way there we passed an area of 200 consecutive speed bumps that were placed about 15 feet apart. It was so annoying! I don't really know what the purpose of it was. It just comes to show just how inefficient and illogical some things are here, but it is just one obstacle to overcome.

We finally arrived at the camp site and everyone went to bed early. The next day we got up before sunrise and headed out on Safari. I got to watch the sun rise of the Nile River, which was pretty incredible. We headed out through the national park and saw tons of different animals. There were a million different types of deer and I couldn't tell half of them apart. I also saw many giraffes and we got super close to some elephants. We also saw a lot of hippos, a monitor, warthogs, baboons, and various other creatures. In the afternoon we took a boat ride down the Nile to go see Murchison Falls. I saw a bunch of different birds, water buffalo, crocodiles, and tons and tons of hippos. Overall it was a really good time and it was pretty amazing to see all of the animals in their natural habitat. The next day we got up a bit later and set out to hike up to Murchison Falls. It was absolutely beautiful looking out over the falls and the water looked freakishly powerful. In spots there were full rainbows.

I am really glad that I did the safari, but I am definitely looking forward to getting back to the village and back to teaching. I feel like I haven't gotten much done in the two weeks that I have been here and so I will be glad to actually have a full week of teaching and interacting with people. I also hope to be able to start doing some HIV/AIDS outreach work. I am starting to feel like no matter how much I do, it will never be enough. I guess the only thing I really can do is just make a difference in a few people's lives. I can already tell that this trip is going to give me a very interesting perspective on education and grassroots movements. We will see if I still feel that way by the end! Until next time!