Blogs from Kampala, Central Region, Uganda, Africa - page 8

Its 30 degrees in the UK and 23 degrees and raining in Uganda? what is going on? I am supposed to be the one boasting about the weather not you guys :) lots of noise from the bar outside the hotel so my room was moved on Monday night, I thought great I will finally get a decent nights sleep, I put the lock on the door and someone tried forcing the door open at 1am, the reception had not logged my room change and the room was given to someone else. At 2am I recieved a call, the call was to ask me why I was in the room!?! after grumpily explaining the situation, I fell back to sleep and awoke at 6am groggy and not at all ready for the day. But last night ... read more

First aiders that are being trained this week, I am so proud of them Lisa x... read more

hello, I made it safe to Kampala on our tiny prop plane that made even me eeek a few times, Mike laughed at me and said "I thought you was a flying hero" I explained that I liked flying, I just wasnt keen on prop planes... We arrived at Dar airport and my suitcase went through the scanner, not something that we do at Heathrow airport but through it went, the customs officer approached me rather brash "open your bag" I fiddled with the lock, "I said open it" she pushed, I thought blimey what is this all about? forgetting about Annie. She forced my bag up and open and rummaged through it and opened Annies bag and I smiled she then stopped, confused, and looked at it "What is this?" I explained that it was ... read more

So the election process is now over and as a neutral(ish) observer it was an intriguing time to be in the country. During the run-up to the elections I would frequently have my assumptions challenged in conversations with people, and it was fascinating to feel the atmosphere change suddenly and then back again almost as quickly. It felt at times like everyone had a stake in politics. I could not understand it. Nearly everyone I had met, even those with seemingly no interest in politics, suddenly became obsessed supporting one candidate or another or even standing for one of the infinite positions in local government. Finally, in a conversation with Nicholas in Mbale I discovered what might be behind it. He was fervently supporting his cousin in his quest to be an MP, rushing around places ... read more

After such a successful reduction of the AIDS prevalence rate for the best part of a decade, ridding the country of the disease completely was always going to be a harder challenge to overcome. So it has proved. Uganda’s HIV/AIDS rate has stabilised between 6 and 7% for most of the past decade and most studies now point to a slight increase. As our counselling tutor pointed out in his introduction seemingly small upward trends, such as the estimated rise from 6.4% to 6.7% between 2005 and 2008 have a huge human impact as it translates to an extra 45,000 with the virus. In part, the rise can be explained simply by the fact that more people are staying alive. The rollout of ARVs in 2004 has kept many people alive who would have otherwise reduced ... read more