Last Thoughts

Today is my last full day in Kampala and I was able to accomplish one last major task - getting a table built for a computer workstation in the apartment. It looks great. The apartment is all spruced up and ready for next batch up volunteers in 2008. So, my first experience in Africa was pretty good. There are several things that I won't miss, such as the breathing in of exhaust every day, the power outages (I couldn't make breakfast this morning because we had no power) and the treacherous pediastrian walkways (and I use the term walkways very losely).

On the other hand there are many things that I will miss - like watching the monkeys play on our roof with their babies, seeing the beautiful diversity of plants and wildlife and also learning from the people here, especially at the hospital. These people do amazing things every day with very little. It's truly incredible that they wake up every morning and go to work and just not give up.

I am also going to miss the wonderful billboards thare are all over the city. Such as "There is Life after CHOGM, Don't Drive After Drinking" or "A Real Man Love and Respects a Woman, It's Not Just About Sex - So, Be a Real Man." There is also this great one about Sugar Daddies, which I can't remember the exact wording but it is basically trying to decrease the number of "sugar daddies" out there. Apparently, it's a problem here. I am hoping to get a photo of that one before I leave.

In any case, I hope you all enjoyed my Uganda Blog. Thanks for all the comments, I really enjoyed reading them. I hope to see many of you upon my return to the states. Hopefully, I will make my connection in London and will actually make it home.

Winding Down

Well, I have reached the end of my time in Uganda. It has been very interesting and I think we got a lot of good things accomplished. One great thing about Uganda is the wondeful bird life that is present. It is soo diverse. Now, I am no bird watcher and I couldn't tell you any of names of birds I've seen however, it is truly amazing to see the variety of birdlife that exist, even in a busy city like Kampala.

I am starting to wrap things up. I went down to the National Theater for a last minute shopping trip. There were many more stalls open than my first visit, probably because it wasn't raining. This town is certainly get itself ready for CHOGM (The Common wealth Head of Government Meeting). Starting next week 53 heads of state will be descending on to Kampala. So, the have tried to spruce the place up. However, they still need a lot more work, even the "sidewalk" (read dirt path) that I use to get down to Garden City got fixed up with a tarmac path instead of dirt. It's all very interesting to see what is getting fixed up. The one thing that is nice is that the traffic has lightened up a bit, so it's not too crazy anymore. I hope that my ride back to Entebbe goes smoothly.

Alright, I will try to make one more post before I take off for my long journey back to the states. Hope everyone is well.

A Connection To the Outside World

THE HVO APARTMENT IS NOW CONNECTED TO THE WORLD WIDE WEB!!!!!

It only took me a little over a week in Kampala, months of pre-planning and a lot of ranting and raving but we have it - the internet is here. Hurray! I am soo excited all my hard work finally paid off. Now it's time to get some wine and beer to celebrate.

So, I apologize to you all for not posting in awhile. We had no internet connection in Mbarara and since I have been back I have been sitting at the HVO apartment waiting for the internet guys to arrive so I hadn't had a chance to go to an internet cafe. But now we are all sitting here on the internet in the apartment and it is so great.

So, let me catch you up. Since my posting about Mbarara, we returned to Kampala on Sunday. On the way we visited a national park where we saw Zebras, Warthogs, Baboons, Crested Cranes, Topi, Impalas, Hippos, Waterbucks and Long-horn Cattle. I am sure I am forgetting some animals but in anycase it was sooo cool to see them all in their natural habitat. Much better than in a zoo. We also stopped at the equator, which is really not that exciting it is just a marker where I took a picture of me in both hemispheres.

Since returning to Kampala like I said earlier I have been keeping post at the HVO apartment waiting for Uganda Telcom to install our ethernet modem. They were suppose to install Monday morning but obviously that didn't happen. We also got all the HVO volunteers together for dinner on Monday night, where we went to the only Thai restaurant in town - which was excellent. It was nice to hang out with everyone.

I have a few more things to wrap up here and I think I will be ready to return to the states. Overall I have really enjoyed my time here and would want to come back some time soon. I will keep you posted with anecdotes from the rest of the week.

November 9th – A multi-sensory Taste Bud Experience

Today, I tried a Doritos Fusion flavor that is not available in the States. It was peppercorn, Italian cheeses and herbs. It claimed to provide a "multi-sensory taste bud experience." I don’t think it lived up to its claim, in fact I felt a little ill after eating them. However, my day did feel like a multi-sensory taste bud experience as we headed down to Mbarara. The journey took about four hours and during that time I got splashed by rain, breathed in a lot of exhaust and took in the many sites of the road including huge termite hills, big bundles of plantains transported by bicycle and gorgeous rolling hills. We also saw fields of what looked like huge green dandelions – like when they are in the white fluffy stage where you can blow on them and spread their seeds. It was really beautiful.

We also had the opportunity to partake in traditional Ugandan food. We had fried fish, matuke (this is mashed plantains that don't have much of a taste, not my favorite), chips (really good) and a vegetable stew. The food was overall very good. Now, the hotel on the other hand is a bit more on the rustic side of things. We have no hot water – so only bone-chilling showers for us. And we found ants all up in one of our cookie packets. We only have one more night here so I am certain it will be fine – I just might have really greasy hair.

Today, we also meet with the Dermatology program peeps. Dr. Grace and Francis are great! I really wish we could do more for them. Their biggest problem is actually attracted residents to their dermatology program. They have no new candidates for next year. Despite this they are both thirsty for knowledge and we can aim our training efforts on continuing education for these two physicians as well as their 2 dedicated nurses and one clinical officer.

My initial thoughts of Mbarara is that it’s very country, which is to be expected - a stark difference from Kampala. As a super city girl at heart I am very much missing the city-ness of Kampala. Oh, and I didn’t mention the tremendous amount of bats that are living in the trees above our Inn. Holy Batman there are hundreds of bats up there, which slightly freaks me out.

I am not too keen on the whole bat thing. Alright time to go to sleep, if possible. I am a little skidish about this place. But I need to sleep as we have much work to do tomorrow.

The Chocolate Bar Incident

Alright, I have to relay this crazy story to you all that happened to Clare and I at the Shoprite (which is a South African grocery store chain). We arrived a the Shoprite around 6pm, which is about the time I get really hungry from not eating much all day. So, to help this hungry situation Clare and I decided to share a chocolate bar so we would be able to make it until dinner. We found the candy aisle that had a large variety of chocolate bars from nestle and Cadbury. The Chocolate Dream Bar called out to us - it had dark chocolate outside and milk chocolate truffle center. I mean, how could you go wrong - it sounded heavenly. So, we picked it up and headed off to the cashier. She went to scan or chocolate dream bar and then her scanner wouldn't pick up the price. The cashier turned to the bagger to go and find the price although I informed her I didn't see a price listed. She sent the bagger anyway - who after a long time came back to report there was no price. However, he also stated that we must leave the chocolate bar behind as we couldn't purchase it because they didn't know the price. What??? I couldn't believe my ears - I was hungry and the only thing I wanted was this Chocolate Dream Bar. So, I suggested (calmly) that they could ring up another chocolate bar of similar size and brand in order to get a price but then give me my chocolate dream bar. Oh, no they proclaimed this was not possible because the two bars were different. I couldn't understand what the big deal was - so, I tried again with the scanning another bar tactic. Finally the bagger grabbed a random chocolate bar and gave it to the cashier to scan. I thought yes - success! But I was wrong they would only give me the random bar they scanned or I could talk with a manager about the situation.

Finally, I decided to give up and went to grab a different chocolate bar that has the price listed and was the same price as the random one the bag boy grabbed. However, they couldn't just give this to me they had to remove the random bar from the receipt and then ring up this new bar. And this involved calling over a manager. I finally got to pay for my chocolate and to add insult to injury she gave me a roll of 200 shilling coins that equaled a 1000 shillings instead of 1000 shilling bill. How Rude! I guess that is what I get for pissing off the cashier. But really all I wanted was my Chocolate Dream Bar was that really too much to ask. I just couldn't understand why they wouldn't sell me what I wanted.

Now, I know some of you reading this might think - wow that Maria is darn stubborn, which is true that is a family trait. But was I really being that demanding. I was hungry and I wanted this particular chocolate bar. Oh well, maybe another time. Just not at Shoprite.

training success

I just finished giving my training on the know-net and i think it went very well. only about 6 people attended but it worked well. we are now taking advantage of the computer room that has reliable internet. however, the keyboard is super sticky and hard to use so this post will be short. to catch you all up we have been very busy sprucing up the hvo apartment and the main guest house. it has been good so far and i am almost finished with my inventory. i have also spent a lot of time driving around kampala, which has a rush hour that is much like the belt way - crazy busy. we have been also hanging out with a friend of kate's (katrina) who has been living here with her family (husband and two children) for the last three years. they have been super nice to us and it has been great to have some "locals" here to show us around. We went to this great thai restaurant last night that was off the beaten path in this beautiful garden. the seating area is located outside under a big straw tent. it was very cool and the food was really good. in fact, i have yet to have a bad meal. the food has been really great. tonight we might go over to katrina's house and have a bbq. they also have a great internet connection that they said we can use at anytime. maybe i will try to include some pictures when i am at there place. so far i've only been going to internet cafes and unable to upload any photos besides it would probably take forever.

that is all from kampala. will try to post again tonight.

Slowest Internet Connection of My Life

I am on the slowest internet connection in the world so I am going to keep this short. Okay, Uganda has such great food. We went to have indian last night and had a european style dinner tonight. It was all really, really good. Of course, I haven't really had time to eat during the day so Kate and I are on the one meal a day plan but we try to make that meal really good. So far so good.

So, the baboons attacked the dogs last night and I think the dogs lost the fight. It wasn't sounding good from my bedroom in the middle of the night. Apparently this battle happens often.

Last comment - Uganda is definitely on a different time schedule. I waited around for 3 hours this morning to get my day started. i did get a lot of things done eventually.

Until next time and I won't be ever coming to this internet cafe again!!!

Bambons At Play

Watch out Uganda because Kate and I have arrived. After a 14 hour plane journey and a 12 hour layover in London we are finally here. And let me tell you I think I slept maybe 5 hours in the last 3 days. I finally got a good night's sleep last night of about 12 hours.

We have already seen a lot. We went to an international fair yesterday and I think I saw all the foreigners who live in Kampala there, stopped by the grocery store and had a wonderful dinner with Josephine last night.

This morning we woke up to a day-full of rain and super cute bambons at play in front of our guest house. The bambons have super cute babies with them too, although I am not trying to get too close to them after my whole monkey attack incident in Japan. We also saw some huge, birds that hang out on the trash piles - I have now called them the trash birds.

The Trash Bird - Fighting it out for the best Trash

Later this afternoon we are going to the National Theater for more shopping. There is tons of great stuff to buy.

Tomorrow, Monday will be the offical start of our work here. So, its been nice to spend the last few days just relaxing and gettin our barrings. The guest house we are staying at is very nice. I only have one outlet in the entire room, which will makes things difficult once I need to power stuff up. I do however, have my own bathroom, although it lacks any real water pressure and not all the lights work. Oh well things will work out just fine.

I should end this post and get back to the shopping. Until the next post...

It's D-Day

Well folks it's time for me to get on that plane to Uganda. I think I am actually all packed and ready to go. I'm pretty impressed with myself. I don't think I overpacked this time. It has only taken me how many overseas trip to learn how to pack light? Anyway, I finally picked up a Lonely Planet book on East Africa, which has made me more excited about this trip. If I have time I think there will be a lot of cool things to see. There also seems to be a lot of good places to eat, some of the best Indian food outside of India. How can you go wrong? I will let you know how it turns out. Alright, everyone wish me luck and my next post will be from Uganda. I am sooo excited!