Blogs from Uganda, Africa - page 7

Today was my first day at RWO. Sorry for the long post feel free to skim. If nothing else I think this will help me to remember my time here. Fortunately, last night I was able to get a good night’s rest so I was ready to take on the day. It was cool enough at night that I could sleep under a sheet and I also have the bug net up around my bed. That said, I still have quite a few bug bites. I am going to need to be better at keeping up with my bug spray. Contracting malaria is not on my bucket list for this trip. Though everyone that lives here has had it a few times and they are very good at treating it naturally or at the hospital. Power ... read more

It's 1:00am in Uganda, but I have made it! It was a pretty uneventful day when it comes to travel. I had a 6.5 hour flight to Amsterdam, a 2 hour lay over and then a 7.5 hour flight to Rwanda. When I arrived in Rwanda I stayed on the plane while other passengers got off and on the plane. Then it was just a short 30 min flight into Entebbe, Uganda. Upon arrival there was the normal customs and immigration as well as an additional PCR test requirement. Overall it took about an hour to go through the process and get my bags. My personal bag as well as all my donation bags successfully made it to my final destination. I was picked up by a private taxi and had a short drive to the ... read more

I thought I would start the blog with some information about the primary organization I will be working with. I hope to make additional non-profit connections while I am there but Resilient Women's Organization is who I will be with on a daily basis. More than 34% of girls are married before their 18th birthday every year in Uganda, 1 in 10 are married before turning 15 years old. There are warning signs that the rate of child marriage in the county is rising due to school closures, food insecurity, and economic uncertainty triggered by COVID-19. The founders of Resilient Women's Organization (Hope and Clare) grew up around poverty in the early 1990s when HIV/AIDS and children dropping out of school was the norm. Priority in receiving an education was given to boys over girls. They ... read more

We had to get up early to go and head to the Bwindi National park head office to meet our guides for visiting the Gorillas. Unfortunately Dan could not be persuaded that the cost was worth it so he very valiantly stayed as our driver whilst we went off to hunt for them. There were probably about 25 other people wanting to do the same but the numbers are very limited and we ended up in a group of 5 with 2 Spanish ladies. We also seemed to end up in the group that was destined to walk the furthest to find Gorillas but I guess that means we got better value for money. The trackers and rangers are constantly monitoring where the Gorilla groups are and the ones tracking our Group took about 2 hours ... read more

We had to get up early for a big drive to make our way in the direction of the impenetrable forest on the other side of Uganda to see the Gorillas. We started by driving around Kampala and onto Entebbe (the former colonial capital) where we had to pick up our passes to go and see the Gorillas. Ludicrously expensive but no choice so we hope it will be worth it. On leaving Entebbe we followed Google maps and sometimes Google tries hard to get you the right place and sometimes it takes you on what might be described as a less travelled route. On this occasion Google directed us toward a ferry, not just any ferry – a proper local ferry taking 8 cars an hour and about 1 million people. We were luckily car ... read more