Blogs from Kampala, Central Region, Uganda, Africa - page 21

We have begun doing field visits to different non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that work within the country. For our first visit, our group was split up into two different subdivisions. My group visited a HIV/AIDS support organization. The other went to a nutrition unit that deals with malnourished children. At TASO, the HIV/AIDS NGO, we were introduced to the activities as the organization. The organization has about seven sites around the country. We visited the one in Kampala. They said that they have over 32,000 people in their databases who have tested HIV positive and have sought help at the Kampala site. We were informed that some of their other satellite sites have surpassed the Kampala numbers. The organization mainly deals with supporting people who have already contracted the virus—offering them counseling, medicine, education, etc. However, they ... read more

So I am finally able to sit down and write. I guess I’ll start from the beginning: To begin the trip, I arrived at SeaTac airport (after spending the day in Seattle with my housemates and meeting Colin for lunch) only to find out that my flight to London had been canceled. I was able to get on another flight, but had about six hours to kill. Luckily, two of my friends (love ya'll!) who had dropped me off at the airport ended up coming back. We went to Dennys, where we ended up spending far too much time. Getting off the flight in London I met a guy in my program who is from Olympia, WA. We spent the next five hours hanging out in Heathrow until meeting up with the rest of the students ... read more

So I wake up just about every morning around 6am when the Muslim call for prayer starts. Its really kind of a pleasant way to wake up, listening to a quasi-singsongy voice floating up from down the hill. However, just a few moments later, normally I have some thought along the lines of Holy Freaking Cow! or Holy Rusted Metal! Or what the!- I'm in Freaking Africa! Then the next thought is - there it is again- this high pitch screeching type sound that I have yet to identify. I think it comes from some sort of bug outside my window. As far as I know, it is not coming from Taylor or Jack Jack. But it might be coming from Lenny- My new lizard roommate. Lizards here are considered a blessing to have in your ... read more

Half of the time for our stay in Uganda is over and half is left :-) All our interviews and the transcriptions of them are completed which is nice and gives a feeling of progress. We plan to go to back for a field study at the hospital one day before we go back but now the coming week we will just be home and start to analyse the work. we wanted to upload some nice pictures but internet is not really working today ,so we will be back with the pictures soon. Last Sunday we went for a half-day nature walk at Mabira rainforest some miles outside Kampala. It was beautiful and although the pictures don’t capture the real thing, we still hope you can get a feeling of the colours and the rich flora ... read more

Well, maybe only some of you may have been asking that question…like my mom. If you haven’t, then, I just don’t know what to say. I find it somewhat interesting how I can so easily become “comfortable” with my surroundings that I am not as likely to run home at the end of the day and tell you just about every small detail that I can think of. I was debating to myself how to entitle this blog entry. I wanted to name it “This blog was brought to you by the phrase ‘Oh no!’” in light of my experiences from riding on the bodas (which are motorcycles). But, I don’t think that it would have warranted an entire blog entry. Instead, you just get what I have been up to. I just returned a day ... read more