The End

I honestly cannot believe that my time in Uganda is done, this has been the fastest summer of my life. Hard to believe that in three months time I made so many new friends, had so many experiences and LIVED IN AFRICA! This has been one of those adventures that will be in memory for the rest of my life.

One of the people that I work with asked me what I would miss about Africa, and when I thought about it, there are only to things that I wont miss. (1) Cold showers and (2) the dust. Everything else in some way made my time here what it was.

The study abroad program at UW is having a photo contest so i went into the neighborhood that I live in and took some pictures with the kids. I also gave them some candy, so I think they had fun.

I will never forget the people here, in the Baganda culture it is customary to give someone a ‘remembrance.’ Although these people have very little they try to share what every they have. Several of the traditional healers gave me food, papaya, mangoes, passion fruit, bananas, I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I cant take it back to the US :( One of the healers also gave me some flowers. 

Some of the staff and the people who live in my neighborhood I’m Kampala gave me some mats, baskets, and a traditional guitar or entongooli. Now the challenge that I'm having is trying to fit everything back into my suitcase…Ive started ditching clothes in favor of the gifts I got.  The 4 year old boy who lives near the forest school and sometimes brings me things brought me some weird fruits that looked like some sort of melon, they were raw cacao pods.

The inside was slimy and full of seeds, but the goop was very sweet and tasted nothing like chocolate.

It is also customary when you make a new friend to give a present to their parents, so I’m bring a couple of baskets and a mat home for Mom and Dad.

My flight leaves Kampala tonight at 10:45 but we need to leave Kawempe at 6 because of traffic. All of the people from the staff and the local interns are escorting me to the airport so it will be nice to see everyone right before I leave. On the way home I will spend a couple of days in Brussels then be back in Maple Valley on the 20^th. Then school. These next few weeks are going to be busy.

This will probably be my last blog, thanks for everyone who has in some way helped me to have this amazing adventure.

Goodbye Uganda

Is it a donkey!?

I’ve met so many great people, both travelers and locals, with amazing stories. This last week I’ve learned so much about the politics and culture of Uganda and the natural wonders that are to behold. Last Thursday and Friday I all have the staff and I went to a conference at the local university. They put us up in a resort, gave up really good food and several supplies to take notes or whatever. The conference was on conversation of medicinal plant species in Uganda, so the topic wasn't that interesting but the conversations that I had with the attendees was. Several of the people were talking about the recent proposition made by the Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni (as a point of fact I haven't met a single Ugandan who has said that they voted for him). He thought it would be a good idea to sell the Mabira National Forest to sugar cane producers from India. There has been a major our cry from all side, but especially the botanists that I was working with from Makerere University at the workshop. When I was talking to one of my staff, Hadijah, about the age you need to be to vote she told me "it depends on the regime, with Museveni even the cattle vote." It is amazing how far behind political corruption can keep a society. Another topic that I talked to some Makerere faculty about was their decision to strike. At the time of the conference the lecturers wanted a pay increase so they were on strike. Some lecturers are given a house, a car and about Shs12,000,000 ($4,200) a month depending on their position; I talked to the head of the biology department. The salary alone is 170 times more than the average Uganda. Currently, the lectures have been on strike for 2 weeks and have forced the university to be closed and it is not closed till mid-October.  When we were walking for the campus cafeteria for lunch during the conference I passed a guy with a Tahoma Little League t-shirt. I was shocked. I'm 9,000 miles away and I still see something from Maple Valley.

After the conference I went to the recording studio of Medie, who both works at my NGO and is a recording artist. It was a pretty cool experience. On the way there the door to the taxi broke and got stuck shut, so as we got to people's stops they had to climb out the window. Everyone laughed when they saw the muzungu climbing out the window. Monday was a workday; I'm basically now just organizing and completing the projects that I started. On Monday night everyone was really happy to go home, when the sun went down it marked the start of Eid al-Fitr, which is the end of the month of fasting Ramadan. I live in an almost entirely Muslim neighborhood and as soon as the sun went down the party started. Eid is a three-day celebration with the most celebration happening on the first day, this year it was August 30th. Because of these there was no work on Tuesday. I spent the day going to Kampala with some people who I work with who are not Muslim and I went to dinner at the family house of someone else I work with who was celebrating the holiday. It was a very fun day. Wednesday was the first time that we needed to go to the field on the same day that we have training, it was exhausting. But training is always very fun and informative so it wasn't a problem. Thursday was a workday in the morning, but I left the office a bit early because I was going to a hostel in the city to stay the night then head out in the morning for a safari. Kato (the office administrator) offered to take me because he had his boda with him that day. There is no other experience quite like riding a boda-boda through Kampala at rush hour.  The hostel was really nice; it is on a very quite 7-acre compound on the outskirts of Western Kampala. So many bazungu (Europeans). We woke up bright and early to head out to Murchison Falls National Park for the weekend. I met some great people from all over. In my car there was a Swiss guy, a German guy and two Belgian girls (which turned out to be great because they gave me several tips on places to go and see when I am going through Belgium on the way home). None of us knew each other, except for the Belgians. In the other car were 8 people and was, as they said it, ‘Africa’s first all Jewish safari.’ 6 of the people in that car were from a Jewish organization that placed volunteers in developing countries, another guy who happened to be Jewish and working in Kampala and the 8^th guy was a Baptist missionary. So the other car was really 7 Jews and a Baptist missionary, we were joking that it sounds like the start of a bad joke. All 8 of them were Americans (Two Floridians, Two New Yorkers, a Virginian and Three Californians). When interacting with them I came to the realization that nobody interacts quite like Americans.

On the was to the rest camp in the biggest national park in Uganda we hiked to the Murchison Falls, and I was able to stand about a yard from the water until the guide decided I was too close. The water was so loud, it was amazing. The guide told us that these were the most powerful falls in the world; the entire Nile River is forced through a 7-meter gap in the rock. Definitely one of those “once in a lifetime” experiences; but this trip was full of them.

The rest camp was nice, we stayed in Safari tents that were basically a hotel room but instead of plaster walls there was plastic coated canvas. When we got to the site they warned us about hippos and warthogs coming to camp, but I thought nothing of it and through it was one of those liability things. We spent the evening just talking and playing cards, it was really fun talking to all of the different people. When night fell you began to see some things moving near our tents. Sure enough the warthogs and a couple of hippos had wondered into out campsite looking for food. During the night I slept pretty well, until I got woken up by what sounded like someone waking through very heavy snow: munch-crunch, munch-crunch. It was very loud, when I looked through the netted window flaps of the tent it turned out that the hippo was about 4 feet from the tent grazing. It was so cool being that close to an animal that weighs about 3,000lbs.

In the morning it turned out that the hippo left a nice gift in front of my tent. Got to love nature.

We needed to be up early to see all of the animals that would be out feeding for our game drive. 

We crossed the Nile on a ferry to the animal reserve and saw so many things I cant even name them all.

I took some 400 pictures of lions, elephants, giraffes, some 15 types of antelope, any of 20 kinds of birds and several kinds of monkeys. As we got off the ferry we saw out first animal, a waterbuck, and the 60year old Jewish woman from New York shouted, “Is it a donkey, why do they have a donkey?” Everyone laughed, it was hilarious. 

The game drive was around 3hrs, in the afternoon we headed back to the camp to get lunch and get ready for the boat cruise on the Nile that we would go on in the evening. The cruise went from out campsite use to the Falls on the Nile. Many more birds, monkeys and hippos. After the cruise everyone was very tired.

This morning we woke up early to head back to Kampala but not before seeing the only rhino in Uganda at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. We saw a mother and calf, which were resting in the heat of the day. These massive animals looked so peaceful. I slept most of the way back to the city; I had a lot of fun over the weekend.

I cannot believe that I only have 10 days left, time is flying!

Pictures, The Nile and My Commute.

This post I a hodge-podge of a bunch of different things, first these are the pictures that I was going to post before. The first few are from my visit from the Kabaka’s palace. This is the building that the King of the Baganda people lives in when he is in Kampala.

When Idi Amin was in power he had an interesting relationship with many of the world super powers. One of these people was the royalty of the UK, from which Uganda got its independence. As Idi Amin was rising to power he was given a fleet of Rolls Royces and Bentleys from the Queen, these were the first cars of their kind in Africa. All that remains of these cars not are these crumpled chaises and axle sets; they were destroyed in the 70’s in the bombings of the city when Amin was being forced from power.

This is what is left for Amin’s torture chamber; they are in an underground bunker on the grounds of the Kabaka’s palace. Amin would have his victims driven around the palace grounds then taken into the chambers so that they wouldn’t know how close they still were. What a horrific place.

Directly across the city on another hill is the Buganda parliament, the parliament had a wall with all of the 56 clans represented. This is me next to my clan, the crested crane.

This is a new fruit I had never seen, they called it a tree tomato. It was sort of strange, it tasted just like a tomato.

When we were visiting the healers in the field last week one of them knows how much I like passion fruit, so she gave me a whole basket full of them when she had grown and picked from her own garden that morning.

These next few are from my time staying in Buyijja. From the croc farm. This is a man fishing on Lake Victoria; he caught some while we were there.

These crocodiles were brought to the crocodile farm from the National Wildlife Authority. The guide at the croc farm told us that they needed to be removed from their natural area because they had eaten someone...

This little boy is named Mathias; his Dad is the caretaker for the land of the field school. Every morning he would bring me some passion fruit, most of the time they would be under ripe and as hard as a rock, but it was still nice. He also brought me a squash one morning.

This last weekend I went to the source of the Nile in Jinja. It was only about a 2hr taxi ride. I stayed the night at a hostel that is perched above the first set of rapids on the Nile called Bujjagali Falls. This is the view from the bar of the hostel, and my new desktop background. 

This morning I was at a site called the Official Source of the Nile. From this site I took a boat ride around the headwaters from where that funnel out of Lake Victoria. I saw this monitor from the boat.

This concrete pillar is the official “Zero Point” of the Nile, this is the point from which the length of the river is measured, all of the way thought Egypt to the Mediterranean.

These next few pictures are of my commute to work. Part of the reason for me doing a blog is that I don't want to forget my experiences, and my daily walk from my apartment building to the office is definitely something I don't want to forget. Plus, i thought everyone would like a glimpse into my daily activities.

As I leave my building I first pass the armed security guards, but they didn't want their picture taken. Across from my building is this sculpture thing, it is the entry gate to a daycare. Although the kids are on break now, when they were in school some of them would run out and say "Bye Muzungu" to me in the morning.

This is the road on my way out the door.

As I walk, I pass a grocery which is also a stage area for several boda-boda drives. This guy has given me free rides to work a couple of times when he was headed in the same direction. These bodas are the main way to get around the city, they don't need to wait for the traffic. But, because of that they can go pretty fast weaving between cars and other bodas its a new adventure every time you get on one. 

The little girl in this picture waits for me to walk past most mornings, I taught all of the kids on this particular corner my English name, "Tyrah," because I see them so often. Most of the time they run at me with their fists out, and yelling bonga. They make me laugh every morning.

These are just your everyday cow and a few goats, my mornings in Uganda would be complete if I didn't see at least one type of livestock.

This is the primary school which is on the way, I take a left here. 

This is the entrance and sign for the office. Most mornings when i arrive at work about half of the office is there working already, that is when they usually engage in the customary East African greetings which take about 5-10 minutes. 

Introductions are very important here, and a sign of respect for both parties involved. They try and force me into doing it in Luganda, which I can usually struggle through. The staff has told me that being able introduce myself in Luganda is one of the more important things while I'm here. I have also noticed this sort of hum that most Ugandans make as they are talking to someone,  it is almost like a sigh as if they are agreeing with what you are saying. I think I've started doing it. I'm going to miss the introductions when I get home, it makes having a conversation so much easier.

My time here is almost over, less than a month left. This summer is slowly fizzling out, and I am definitely not ready to go back to school yet.

One Month Left...Where has summer gone?

It has so long since I’ve last posted, I’ve been having such an experience here. I’m getting to know the customs, the people and the places so well; I’m going to miss them all when I need to go back home.

In the time since I last posted I saw so much culture and history, they are all amazing sites. Two weeks ago I went to the Kabaka’s palace; the Kabaka is the king of Buganda, the ethnic groups that is around Kampala and about 30% of Uganda’s population. It was the weekend that celebrated his coronation, so the palace had several diplomats from all over Uganda. In the tour the guide said that the palace was used as barracks when Idi Amin took over Uganda, and that he had a distain for the Buganda people; this led to an ethnic cleansing of Uganda. On the palace grounds there are still the torture chambers that were used during the dictatorial regime, I am still constantly amazed when I realize what a lot of these people lived through. On the walls of the chamber there are still bloody hand prints and different messages for help written in blood. When we left the area there the torture chambers were, the guide asked me why I didn’t ‘talk like an American.’ When I asked what he meant he said that most American drop the F-Bomb or say “Shit” in awe of the atrocities that were committed there.

After the palace I went to the cultural parliament building. This was a building in which the cultural affairs of the Buganda people are decided, I learned that Uganda has several cultural legal systems in the national legal system. I also went to the tombs of the previous 4 Kabaka’s, including the one that was exiled in the 1980 when Idi Amin came to power. I learned that the Buganda Kingdom is one of the only ones in the world where the second born son succeeds his father, when the Kabaka has a second son he is then taken and hidden in an obscure village to be raised; this was to protect against the future king from being killed by those who are vying for the throne.

On August first the Muslim holy month of Ramadan started, it is a time of reflection and charity. During this time, Muslims fast, not taking anything to eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. They wake up very early in the morning to take a small meal, then break the fast at around 7pm every night. Most of the people in my neighborhood are Muslim, and several of the people I work with are Muslim also. I feel a bit strange when half of the office is eating while some others are not but they said that they are used to it.

Tuesday we visited several more villages where healers live, I tried this drink that is made from hibiscus flowers called Ribenna, it was delicious and very dark red. I also tried this fruit called a tree tomato, it was strange, it tasted very similar to a tomato but grew like an apple. Several of the healers now know how much I love passion fruit so when we go to visit them, I get baskets full. People here are so generous.

Wednesday was the usual field, except in the fact that the bee hives that are maintained on site needed to be ‘landscaped’ around. When mowing the grass here, they use a machete that is about 3 ft long and has an angled edge. This was very different than at home. Also, we needed to weigh the fish form the fish pond that was just put in, and because all of the kids are on their break they had a lot of fun with that.

Over the weekend a 14 year-old boy from the village next to the field school came into town with us. Geoff He was really fun to have around, and it was only his third time in the city. We did a lot of stuff, I took him bowling with some other people I work with, we went to see a movie, and just explored the city. Two of the people who I work with and are around my age wanted to take him to the beach because he had never seen Lake Victoria. When they said beach, I assumed it would be like American beaches where people go and just relax and lay in the sand, I was wrong. It turned out to be a sort of dance club/resort place. It was really fun, there were people swimming, playing volleyball and everyone was having a good time.

This last week was a usual workweek, but I had decided to stay at the field school from Friday till next Wednesday when the office staff was coming to the field because some people wanted to show me stuff around the district that the field school is in, Mpigi. So Friday afternoon I left the office a bit early to head to the field school with Sadat who volunteers at ProMeTra. It was a two hour taxi ride, but one of the things that Sadat wanted to show me we passed on the way.

About 10 miles from the field school is a crocodile farm and resort on the shores of Lake Victoria, I had no idea how close we were to the Lake. The resort was beautiful, there were some men fishing for tilapia that would be sold in Kampala. The crocodiles farmed there are sold for meat and their skins, which are exported. They had crocs that were 6 months, 2 years and 3 years old; they said that they had almost 300 crocs on the farm. The crocs are killed at 4 years old, other wise their skin is too tough. This farm also has some older crocs that were rescued from poachers. One of them was 60 years old and was 17ft long, and there was a pair named Romeo and Julliet. The tour guide said that Romeo came from the Ugandan Wildlife Authority because he had eaten someone…

So now I will be staying at the field school, it is so quiet here, hopefully I will get a lot of work done.Also, because we are in such a rural area the internet is bad...sorry no pics. Ill post them when we get back to town.

Already only one month left, see everyone soon.  

Photo Updates

The internet was really fast tonight, so here are some pics that i had needed to leave out because of their data size. This is one of the woman named Hajati, she is the one who started calling herself my mother. haha, I later found out that Hajati is a title given to Ugandan Muslims who have been to Mecca, so my Ugandan Mother must be pretty well off.

 These next  two pictures are of the night that the Americans shared s'mores with the Ugandans. They look so happy, these pictures are so funny. The two in the first picture are Emma and David, they are both interns from the local university. The second picture is of Kato who is one of the care takers of the field school site. I laughed so hard at these pics.

 This is a picture of the kids that live in my neighborhood, they were catching ensua (aka ants) which emerge right after the rains.

This is just a picture of a random fruit stall at Nakasero Market, there are about 400 more stalls that look very similar to this one within about 250ft

 This is the Gaddafi Mosque, what an amazing building.

I'm am officially half way done with my internship, time is really flying. There is so much that I want to do still and time is fleeting. But I guess it my only problem is that I wont be here long enough I don't really have problems. What a great summer!

Grasshoppers, ants and Hangover II

Last Friday was work as usual, I worked on my project with the clinic and check up on some grant applications.

Saturday I headed into Kampala by myself, but I had my phone so I couldn’t get too lost. J I went and saw Hangover II, it was pretty funny. It felt like most of the day was spent on a taxi, the traffic here is crazy. I suppose that is why boda-bodas are so popular, they don’t need to wait for the traffic to go, they just dodge and weave through the traffic.

Sunday Ishmael and I went to an area of Kampala called Old Kampala, this was the origional center of the city when it was colonized. Now the main building there is the Gaddafi Mosque…yes that Gaddafi. There was a mosque that had been there for several decades, but in 2007 Muammar Gaddafi supplied the funds to build a new one. It was open about a year later. The building is huge, definitely the largest open space that I have been in whilst here. We went on the guided tour of the building, and I was good to go with a Muslim because there was a lot of information that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. With the tour we got to go to the top of the minaret, from which you can see most of the city. In the afternoon we walked through another near by market.

Monday was a work day, I am getting pretty far on my project and am excited to start the next one. We got a visit from some people who work for an organization called Shanti-Uganda. It is a Canadian organization that focuses on natural birthing methods. The offer nearly free pregnancy care for mother, from conception to 6wks post-natal, near the city of Luwero. They are relatively new to Uganda, but already have a great care network built.

Tuesday and Wednesday were both at the field school, as per usual. On the way we stopped by a natural forest area maintained by the National Forest Authority to harvest seedlings for the nursery project. Mpanga forest is more or less of an eco-tourism sit with a guest-house and several other sleeping areas. They site is home to many species that are only found in Uganda, we saw several monkeys there. While walking though the forest we came to this grove area, which looked like a plantation. I was following one of the staff members and she just walked over a pick the plant. It turned out that they were peanuts. I found out that peanuts are call G-Nuts here, I had been offered G-Nuts several times but didn’t connect the dots that they were in fact just peanuts.

Wednesday I observed class two, it was day two of “head problems and in the afternoon went to the clinic to observe the patients that came to visit. There are several returning patients, so some of them remember me. Several of the kids walk over to me and try to give me a high-five or take my pen and start to draw in their notebooks like they’re taking notes.

Thursday and Friday were both work days. On Friday afternoon Medi took me to a nearby town and bought tangela. They are shoes that are made from tires…they seem very durable. The only problem was that most Ugandans don’t have feet as big as mine, so it took a while to find a pair that fit. I am still amazed at how resourceful Ugandans are; I guess you make due with what you have.

Saturday I went to some more of the places I wanted to see in Kampala with Hamdiah, She needed to visit some family members before we went to the city, so we went to a smaller village on the outskirts of the city. I got to see the city dump. I learned that Uganda is starting to use their refuse to make biogas, they collect the rain water that has filtered through the garbage which is often acidic. This “water’ is then subjected to several other chemicals and bio-gas results. From what I understand, this is still a new project but sounds promising in the long run. We also went to the National Museum of Uganda, which is the oldest in East Africa. I really enjoyed the exhibit on human evolution…anthropology is definitely the best field. They had several fossil casts and many examples of atl-atl (look it up). After the museum we went to Nakasero, the biggest fruit/food market in Uganda. They had just about everything you could imagine, so many spices and new kinds of fruit. Every stand that we passed tried to get me to buy their vanilla, I guess that most foreigners go there looking for it. Oh yeah, I also tried grasshoppers. They are a delicacy here. I also found out that they eat ants here, fried with just a bit of salt, and just my luck the season for them is just starting but the market was out that day.

Sunday I went to Kampala in the morning, nothing too unusual happened. It is just funny how many looks I get when I order food or talk to a taxi driver in Luganda, its usually good for a laugh. In the evening I went to dinner with David, one of the Makerere interns. He wanted to take my to the next borough, it was fun to go out at night as I hadn’t done that before.

Today we went on an exchange visit with Shanti Uganda, it was only about an hour and a half car ride to their compound. I enjoyed looking at all of the things that they had put in place, it was also good to get the view of another organization in Uganda that had similar goals to PROMETRA.

On my way some I was walking in from of my apartment building to see a bunch of kids jumping around trying to catch thing that seemed to emerging from the ground. When I asked what they were catching they told me ensue, which is the name for the ants that they cook then eat. It turns out that they only eat the ants that fly…more meat I guess. Hahah

Sorry about there being no pics, the internet is super slow today.
I’m about half way already, I cant believe how fast time is going.
 

1/3rd gone.

A month gone already!

It doesn’t even seem like summer and it is already a third of the way gone.

This week was a lot of neat sights and a lot of work in the field, which is okay with me because I always discover new thing when in the field.

Saturday I went to one of the first “western” buildings built in Uganda. The first Anglican missionaries to Uganda built Namirembe Cathedral in 1915. When I was there they had two weddings going on, so I couldn’t go all of the way inside, but everything look amazing, especially for being built ~100 years ago. The cathedral was built on the site of an old cemetery where some of the first explorers are buried; some grave sites that I saw were as old as the 1880s. After the cathedral, i went to Owino Market. This is the biggest market in Uganda, and it was crazy. So many people pushing and shoving to buy just about any thing you every wanted. The section with all of the spices smelled so good.

Sunday one of the Makerere University interns, Emma, invited me to the zoo. When thinking of going to a zoo in a developing country I though the worst, you know, animals in cages that are too small, no open space and all that stuff. But, in reality, it was the total opposite. It turns out that what the locals call a zoo is actually a rehabilitation and recovery park for animals that, for what ever reason, cannot live in the wild. The Ugandan Wildlife Education Center is sponsored by several international NGOs and has many of the animals that are threatened or endangered in Uganda. It was good to see all of the things that I wont be able to see, even when I go on a safari.

This zoo was also very different in the fact that it had several of the, more or less, harmless animals just roaming around that park.

Emma is a forestry/agriculture student and knows most of the plants that grow in Uganda, and their unique attributes. I, as an anthropology student, know a lot about primates. So when we got to the various primate exhibits we would sort of exchange facts about the things in the enclosure, him the plants and me the animals. It was really fun to learn about the various floras that were in each of the enclosures and why the zoo decided to include them in the enclosure.

The zoo also has a huge beach that is on Lake Victoria. Lake Victoria is the largest body of fresh water I’ve seen, absolutely huge. When Emma and I headed to the beach we walked out to the dock, which apparently is usually used for weddings. As we were standing there talking we watch to kids from the neighboring house swim under the protective fence that encloses the Wildlife Education Center and swim under the dock. When we walked to the platform that goes underneath the dock we saw that they were fishing. Emma talked to them in Luganda, it turned out that the park was protected and therefore has the best fishing.  These boys would catch that fish with a fishing line that had a hook on one end and was attached to an empty plastic water bottle that was tucked into their waistband. The water bottle serves two purposes, if a fish is on the line they will be able to feel it and if the park authority sees them they can make a speedy escape with the fish and the line secured to them. Its amazing, the things that are born out of necessity. 

After the zoo, Emma and I went to the National Botanical Garden, which is where the first Tarzan movie was filmed, to go geo-caching.  He had never hear of it before and seemed to have a lot of fun, on the ride back to Kampala he told he three or four times that he wanted to do more.

Monday at work I did another grant proposal, they staff at the NGO told me I was good at it…we’ll see if we get the money.  On Monday afternoon we decided that we would head out to the field early on Tuesday and not return to Kampala until late Thursday or Friday.

Tuesday was the usual field visits, we had some visitors from Kenya who are in-charge of the branch of PROMETRA from the country. They wanted to see how PROMETRA Uganda worked, as it has been established for much longer than PROMETRA Kenya. In talking to them, they said that they would be willing to show me around Nairobi, so a trip to Kenya maybe in my future. At one of the villages the kids told me that I looked like a soccer player from Manchester United, Wayne Rooney…(I had to look him up) I think the only characteristic that we have in common is that we are both white. Hahaha

Wednesday was the healers training, I sat in class two again. Today’s topic was ‘head problems’ like meningitis, encephalitis and the like. After lunch I headed up to the clinic to observe the patient visits and the documentation some more.

Thursday and Friday were tiresome. Thursday we visited a healer who everyone called Mama Nakate, she goes to the Prometra training every Wednesday. We were at her house to collect seedlings for the new nursery so that the healers could harvest their herbs from the PROMETRA nursery, thereby preserving the forest ecology. Mama Nakate owned a lot of land; she had several people working for her to grow the various crops for market. Was we were walking back to the car, she started talking to me in Luganda, David was there to interpret. I turned out that she offered me some land and a wife if I wanted to stay in Uganda, this was the third time I’ve been offered a wife, but never land. I was shocked; in Uganda land owning is a big deal. I turned her down though…

Thursday evening I got a chapatti lesson. Chapattis are an import from India, and the most delicious street food in Uganda. Its basically just toasted flat bread, but it tastes so good. Geoff, a 14 year-old kid who works at the forest school, taught me how to make them. All you need is some flour, water and oil; I was shocked when he told me that because it they taste so good for just being flour. Geoff and I took the 15 minute walk to the closest village to buy the supplies. Earlier in the week Geoff started calling me his brother, but on the walk he tried to convince me that we were twins…I wasn’t buying it. Haha All you do for the chapatti is make the simple dough, roll it out and toast it on a flat pan…crazy that its so simple, definitely a skill I will take home.

Friday we spent most of the day down by the nursery, finalizing the structure and working on the next project, a demonstration orchard. We needed to measure a lattice so that the trees would be planted in rows; here we planted most of the seedlings that we collected on Thursday.

This week seemed to go by the fastest yet, and I am already not wanting to go back to school. 

Oh well, new experiences, new adventures.

Yogurt

I have learned so much about Uganda.

Sunday I went to the Baha’i temple in Uganda. It is called the Mother Temple of Africa. The Baha’i religion has one temple on each continent and Africa’s happens to be in Kampala. When I was there, it was during a service, they had readings from the Koran, Old Testament, New Testament, Buddha’s writing and form the word of their prophet, Bahá'u'lláh. The compound was beautiful, and it was a huge area in the middle of the city. It was so quiet. I spent more of the day there.

Monday morning I went to the office as usual, when I got there I found out that one of the healers had passed on during the weekend. I did not know her, but was invited to the funeral as part of the invitation that the NGO got. I later found out that PROMETRA helped with the funeral costs. The woman who dies was only 35, and died from an infected cavity that eventually caused a systematic infection. The funeral was very different from any American funeral that I had been to. There were some 200+ people there and many conversations going on as the pastor was saying the eulogy. In Uganda, burial happen either a 2pm or 4pm; when I asked why the only answer that I could get was that there was a spiritual reason but nobody knew entirely why. When the funeral party went to the gravesite, which was in the middle of a banana plantation, all of the women began sobbing very loudly, this is in extreme contrast to the way burials happen at home, and I was a bit startled. All in all, the funeral was a good cultural experience.This was my dinner on Monday night.

Tuesday we headed to the field school in Mpigi District and stopped by 6 traditional healer groups on the way. One of the other interns had a group of friends visiting from Oregon; it was good to talk to other muzungus. Hahaha. We ended up needing to cram 17 people into a land cruiser that was built for 13. All of the villages that we visit also give ups tons of fruit, as usual. One of the villages, where was a woman who let the healers use her land for production of fruit for sale and for growing traditional medical plants. This woman ended up calling me her ‘muzungu son.’ I though it was hilarious, her name was Hajati and it turns out that she owns 100+ acres that are productive. One of the things that I found interesting was a passion fruit plantation, I had never seen a fresh passion fruit before and they turned out to be super sweet. It was almost like eating candy. 

Hajati also grows bananas, plantains, avocados, mangos and jackfruit for sale in Uganda and coffee for export. Before we left her house she gave me a big hug, a bunch of bananas (~75), some papaya, some passion fruit and a packet of dried and ground ginger. The ginger smelled so fresh, not like any powered ginger I’ve seen at home.

We got to the field school at about 8pm that night; little did I know my night was only beginning. The visitors from Oregon wanted to make an American meal, so naturally they made Mexican food. We had tacos. The tortillas were made with corn flour fortified with soy so they were a challenge for the chefs but all of the food was so good. The mango salsa was definitely the best I’ve had. Best part, they brought stuff for s’mores. They were delicious, and it was fun to share a uniquely American thing with the Ugandans. They loved them. It was a great meal.

            Once a month there is an all night ‘spiritual class.’ I went to it at about 10 and didn’t get to bed till 5 the next morning. In the class there were three other interns who’s first time it also was, and 10 Ugandans. During the course of the night there was a lot of drumming, dancing and singing. I saw 4 different people possessed by 6 different spirits. One of the spirits told me that I was indecisive, like last time, another one old me that one of my friends would soon cross me…so watch it people, I know something’s up! Haha

            After maybe 3hrs of sleep I started my day with the usual field school training that happens on Wednesdays. I ended up observing Class 2, in which the trainees learn about 40 diseases, the signs to look for and the care that is needed for the patients who are affected with the disease. They were talking about embiro or diarrhea. Only someone interested in public health can enjoy a 2hr conversation about diarrhea prevention and treatment with 40 East Africans. After class some of the healers brought me and the other PROMETRA staff members lunch. Then I headed up to the clinic with Umar. One of the patients was an HIV+ woman and another was a 7 year-old boy who had sickle cell disease. They both were using a combination of traditional and western treatments for the respective diseases. Also, I found out that Vivian is a boy’s name, and Kevin is a girls name here. I could only stay for 4 patients; I needed to sleep. So, I went back and took a nap.

            After my nap I went to see how far the Ugandan interns were on their nursery/green house project. They had been working on a piped irrigation system. I am still amazed at how fast the whole thing came together without any heavy machinery. After they had hooked up the irrigation system, we headed out. All 17 of us piled back into the land cruiser for out ride back to Kampala.

Earlier in the week I found out that the Ugandans have an equivalent to the American ‘Pound it.’ Its Bonga, but when I said it in the car everyone laughed. I turned out that I was saying Bongo, which is the Luganda word for yogurt. So to them, I stuck my fist out and said ‘Yogurt.’ Simple mistake, Right? We ended up getting back pretty late Wednesday, so Thursday ended up being a pretty lax day. Most of the people who work in the office didn’t come and ended the day early.

I’m having such a fun time here, learning new things, and finding perspective.