My mom has informed me that my blog entries are overly negative (or always end on a bad note) so I've resolved that this one will be only good...which is easy because I can't think of anything bad that has happened in the last week. In Kampala I stayed with a young Rwandan man who grew up in Uganda and had strangely worked on the film crew of Last King of Scotland and so had pictures with all the stars. He seemed to hang out mostly with ex-pats though so I got a very ex-paty view of Kampala, going to a [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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Tanzania seems like a million years ago, I made friends with an immigration officer and a conservationist for the Jane Goodall Foundation (her park was right near by but with exorbitant entry fees) and stayed in a guest house populated mainly by congolese refugees. I ate at a restaurant decorated like "Mexico" for no apparent reason (they made no pretense to offering Mexican food). Having been kicked out of my guesthouse for staying past checkout time I lolled the afternoon away on the open "Mexican" patio. I had been told the previous day that a boat would leave at 18 [View Full Entry]

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My trip began luckily, just before buying a bus ticket I learned of a friend traveling to Mpika (about 3/4 of the way to Mpulungu) on Monday morning. She, kindly, agreed to give me a ride and so for the first time I traveled without waking at some horrible hour of morning, no legs pressed against my legs, no shoulders invading my shoulders' territory, no babies being changed on my lap (actually happened the last time I went to Mpika) and instead rode in a spacious leather seat with air-conditioning comfortably (and free!) to the North. As we drove the season [View Full Entry]

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So, life has come to a bit of a standstill for various reasons and I've decided to head off to see a little more of the continent for a while. I haven't really done any tourist stuff in Africa except for one weekend in Livingstone so this should be a serious (and much needed) change of pace for me. Certain things about living here were getting a tad too heavy for me (I've never been very good with heavy). I'm leaving tomorrow morning towards the northern border of Zambia to spend a few days on Lake Tanganyika...if anyone wants postcards they [View Full Entry]

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All the crazy things that have happened recently... So, not too long ago a young female patient died...it was sudden. She had come into the clinic recently and been in (relatively) good health. She was absolutely adorable and sweet and good mannered and smart...and just a really delightful child. I took a picture of her with our social worker, Fernando, the last time she came. Our Clinical Officer (basically a PA) told me while I was sitting in the backseat of a car, he and another CO were sitting in the front seats. Once it sunk in I started crying. I [View Full Entry]

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My computer is not working so wonderfully at the moment...which is sad...makes me think it may be near death. But for the moment I will not worry about it because I am at "home" and have internet! The joy of the situation is almost hard to believe. I have attached some photos of Mpika and Shiwa where I traveled last month. I went up to learn about a project intended to curb poaching in the North Luangwa. The idea was to teach villagers about farming and eco-tourism in order to convince them of a better way of life then selling ivory [View Full Entry]

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We arrived on Monday morning for our scheduled outreach only to be told they had printed the advertising posters with Wednesday’s date. There were a number of people present (it is a large, busy clinic, simply lacking in HIV care) but they asked us to come back on Wednesday, assuring a far greater turnout. We returned, defeated, to clinic, but as our numbers are currently large enough to support unscheduled outreaches, we agreed to return. Amazingly, on Wednesday, we were exactly on time, 9:00 AM, as the posters read in bold. I considered it an exceptional good sign (I don’t think [View Full Entry]

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So…for once I haven’t written for a while, not because I couldn’t think of anything to write, but because I’ve been too busy! Hard to believe isn’t it, that a volunteer job could capitalize so much of my time? Well…not all of it was work. Yesterday I spent all day cooking Thanksgiving dinner. And then I spent all evening awkwardly playing hostess while too tired to actually realize what was going on around me. You know how after thanksgiving you’re supposed to have stuffing and mashed potatoes for breakfast the next day? Well…there weren&rsquo [View Full Entry]

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(this was written a few days ago but I didn’t feel like posting two at once) My mom wanted to know what an ordinary day in my life is like. I’m afraid I can’t actually oblige because ordinary has come to mean something entirely different. Living here you become used to everything being strange. While at the beginning everything seems worth mentioning (peacocks in the front yard, chameleons on the ceilings at night, sleeping under mosquito nets, being followed by cab drivers, 3-4 daily marriage proposals from strangers) at this point even the strangest occurrences pass into [View Full Entry]

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