Blogs from Eastern Region, Uganda, Africa - page 9

A Medical Elective: Ibulanku - East Uganda. Saturday 28th August 2010. Week 1 of a 6 wk medical elective in rural Eastern Uganda complete and life couldn’t be better. Amanda and I were picked up last Friday morning from our backpackers hostel in Kampala by Sula - the administrator of the health clinic we are working at and we drove the 4 hours out to Ibulanku - a sub-district of Iganga( a town in east Uganda) with a population of about 400,000 people. We stopped for lunch on the banks of the River Nile and sat under the shade of a big old African tree drinking Passion juice (juice made entirely out of passionfruit,) eating fresh Telipia (a local fish caught that morning from the waters of the Nile) and watching the beautiful local women dressed ... read more

Thank you to everyone for your feedback and encouraging words. I am definitely not a writer, so I hope my blogs begin to help you live this experience with me. I know I would not be here if it weren't for all of you. I am so grateful to have a community and family that accepts and supports me. It is what we all need. I am now at the Uganda Women COncern Ministry, and will basically spend my last month here. I am very happy to be here. It feels like my home. My host mom, Edith, is so nurturing and welcoming, and I feel like I get to live with my mentor in her home and place of work/passion/ministry. How amazing is that? She is constantly teaching me and sharing her life experiences with ... read more

I took a bus from Nairobi to Jinja, Uganda, a town world renown for white water rafting. When I got off the bus I was greeted by about a half dozen guys on motorcycles asking me "Town? Town?" I told them I had my big pack with me that was stowed under the bus as I scanned around for a cab, finding nothing. They just nodded and persisted saying "Town? Town?" I shrugged assuming they came across this situation quite often, and handed one my pack to see exactly what his plan was for getting me anywhere. He just threw it on top of his handlebars and told me to get on. I obliged and told him to take me to Explorers' Backpackers, the hostel owned and operated by the rafting company, and we sped away ... read more

Hello from Uganda! After three + weeks here by myself, I am finally feeling like I'm getting the hang of life in Uganda. I am continued to be amazed at the ways we are the same, and the ways that we are different. I guess the point is, we are all human. We have families, friends, hopes and dreams, disappointments and failures, life lessons to learn, and things to be grateful for. At this point I think the biggest difference is the opportunities that we have. Here, the chance of getting a job is slim (of an annual 360,000 college graduates, there are only 80,000 jobs available). So even if you are educated, good luck putting your skills to use. And the people that get jobs don't want to ever give them up, especially in politics. ... read more

I today I met up with Thanasis and Rachel to hop on a taxi and go to the town of Jinja. Jinja is a small town about 1.5-2 hours away from Kampala along Lake Victoria where they say the Nile River starts. Most of the interns had already been there when they went white water rafting so we thought that we should just go on our own and see it. We went to the taxi park and finally found one that was leaving for Jinja. It was a little bit harder bargaining for such a large distance. After a while the lowest price that they would finally accept was 4,000 shillings. We got on the taxi and headed out. In the beginning there were only a couple of us in the taxi so I was able ... read more