They say we never cease to learn - well today, I learned that if it looks nothing like any sunburn you ever had, doesn't feel like any sunburn you ever had, and makes you cry in pain every morning, then it's probably not sunburn. It might, however, be a mean infection of the deeper tissue caused by even meaner bacteria which happened to be let in by the mean sunburn. It might be cellulitis. And no, that's not your doctor's way of telling you you should do more sport - it's your body's way of telling you it's under attack, and [View Full Entry]

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I'm usually not a big fan of expressions a la 'you haven't lived when you haven't done this or you haven't done that...'. 'You haven't lived if you haven't hurtled yourself down a mountain at breakneck speed, killing a few innocent passersby on the way'. 'You haven't lived if haven't gone hitchhiking around the planet and almost killed by some Congolese soldiers high on heroin'. And you think: 'I lived plenty, thank you very much, just last week I engaged all of my Facebook-friends in a gigantic vampire battle!'. But, guys, I have to admit, YOU HAVEN'T LIVED IF YOU HAVEN'T [View Full Entry]

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Now, you haven't heard from me in a while, and for good reason: I've been sick. Not home-style, take a few Ibuprofen, give me a chance to secretly catch up on Grey's Anatomy sick. No no. Uganda-style sick. Does this country never do anything half-way? Apparently not, since I spent the last 2 days alternatively sweating and shivering in my bed from what? From malaria? Dengue? The swine flu? NO, from a cold - the common cold, you know, the one where you take a few Ibuprofens and watch... but I'm repeating myself. Anyhow, Monday afternoon I started coughing, Monday evening [View Full Entry]

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Actually, it should be the week with all the party, meaning last week. Now, I know I'm not the biggest party animal in the world, there are people going out a lot more and longer than I do, especially with a little help from their chemical friends. But I think Ugandans could give even them a run for their money. Take my friend Lulu: I met her last week, just when I was despairing of ever discovering the mythological Kampalan nightlife. When I phoned her up, she said my life was going to change quite a lot - I didn't realize [View Full Entry]

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Ok, so I know Ugandans are polite. So much so that I usually feel like a badly dressed potato around them. But the amount of messages I got after arriving me to Kabale, asking if I was alright, seemed kind of extreme, even for Ugandan standards. But then my colleague Paul told that people weren't just polite, they were asking quite literally if I had survived the trip. Looking at Ugandan road statistics, actually not a surprising question. I know I'm a spoiled European and all that, and that I cannot expect the same level of comfort than at home, blablabla. [View Full Entry]

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Blog Entry: October 28, 2009/ Nov. 2nd It’s been ages since I last wrote! Things have really picked up here at work. Lindsey and I have had the opportunity to go out into the field more and we’ve expanded our health communication project. I think one of my favorite trips was visiting the beneficiaries of TASO’s “Trickle Up” program, which funds agri-business start-ups for HIV positive patients. We met one woman who had been given money to begin selling fruit at a roadside stand. She showed us how she invested her monthly profits back into her business because o [View Full Entry]

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yes mom and dad, i went to Uganda this weekend. =) and i'm now back in kenya safe and sound! but seriously, this weekend was probably one of the coolest things i've ever done. i went white water rafting on the Nile! i can't even begin to describe how amazing it was. first of all, we were in Jinja, Uganda and it was soo beautiful! ...huge hills, so much green, trees and flowers! we went through this company called the nile river explorers and there were quite a few people going rafting on saturday and also lots of kayakers . we [View Full Entry]

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I arrived at the Ugandan border with Rwanda and spotted three other white girls traveling in a group. They turned out to be canadian and, as a respite from being the only white person in sight, I decided to travel onward with them. In Kisoro we booked a shared taxi to the next (slightly larger) town, Kabale. On the 2+ hour ride to Kabale the three girls were irritable, impatient, angry, and frustrated (they had booked this taxi because they had not wanted to wait a few hours for the bus all the way to Kampala and thought - I have [View Full Entry]

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Here we are now, 2 weeks in. I’ve started to settle in, and got over some of the first time hurdle that await you in this city - find a room, drive a boda, get anywhere within a certain frame of time... My room is in Munyenga-Bukassa, which I’ve learned since moving there is not considered Kampala anymore. But at least it’s close to work, and I value my sleep in the morning! It’s a nice place, although it’s the first kitchen with an earth-floor I’ve ever had! The place is locked up like Fort Knox, even though there aren’t any [View Full Entry]

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The joy and excitement of being home with family and friends was all too quickly replaced with loneliness and exhaustion as I stepped off the third plane in 24 hours and finally set foot back in Uganda. I was thankful to have had the time at home with family and dear friends, and especially to have had time with my father during his recovery from surgery. Even though I was home for over a month, it went VERY FAST. Thank you to everyone who made my trip home such a blessing! The trip back to Uganda was relatively uneventful. However, the [View Full Entry]

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