Joseph Buckley Bradshaw
I am a graduate student at The George Washington University studying public health with a concentration in global health. I am going to be taking part in an internship with TASO (The AIDS Support Organization) located in Kampala, Uganda from January to May. I don't know what I want to do with my degree just yet but am considering trying to work with USAID or World Vision. Well, that's enough about me.buckinuganda
Travel Blog Posts
April 28th 2009
I hope that you understood there to be some sarcasm in the title. I just recently returned from spending a little time in Western Kenya. I went with a friend to visit some people from her church who were in town to work with a church. The place we went to originally was Kitale, Kenya. The ride there was long and bumpy at times. First of all we didn’t leave for 30 minutes past when we were supposed to. I guess I can understand that, but by the time we left we were stuck in the daily traffic jam the entire way out of Kampala and beyond. It took almost 6 hours to get to the Kenyan border and it was night by that time. The whole border crossing process is interesting. We had to check ... read more
Lions, Tigers, and Bears...minus the tigers and bears but plus other things
Published: April 28th 2009Africa » Uganda » Northern Region » Murchison Falls NP
April 21st 2009
There I am with the ridiculous blog titles again. Somebody has to put an end to this. It doesn’t even give you a good idea of what I’m about to talk about other than it potentially involving animals. I had the opportunity to travel upcountry to Murchison Falls National Park (MFNP, for short) this past weekend. MFNP is the largest national park in Uganda, but I don’t know if it receives the most visitors each year or not. Certainly it is up there though. We left Friday morning around 7 to go and pick up Valerie’s uncle who was coming with us. So, we had to travel down to Entebbe which is about 45 minutes to an hour away depending on Kampala traffic. After we picked him up we stopped for a nice breakfast at this ... read more
April 12th 2009
Okay, so I still have about 5 weeks remaining in my fellowship here in Uganda, but I don’t think the title would have sounded good if it was something to the effect of ‘11 down, 6 to go.’ Am I right? Well, it has been an extraordinarily long time since I have provided an update. My last update had something to do with my time in Jinja on vacation. Since then, I have been back to Jinja, met with people at major international health organizations, and…well…work. Having 3 projects really is quite difficult. I think that I do have enough time to tend to each one of them with good attention, but maybe I haven’t quite done that. I have had the opportunity to visit people at the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control ... read more
March 6th 2009
As I am writing this blog entry, I am sitting on the patio of a nice “resort” called “Gately On the Nile” in Jinja. I think that’s the name of it. Anyways, the sun has just gone over the covered portion of the patio and I am no longer getting blinded by it (okay, it wasn’t that bad, only slightly annoying). The weather is not too hot yet and birds are chirping. I think that I am able to discern about 15 or more distinct bird calls. My table is facing Lake Victoria. Although slightly blocked by some large trees, it is nonetheless a great view. The view is also slightly deceiving because the way it is set up right now, the lake seems to come to the very edge of the resort’s property. I went ... read more
February 21st 2009
As I was writing this, there was music going on in the background. Every so often they have a group come and play drums and do some dancing. Its kind of cool. If I ever get bored or need a break, I can always just take a peak outside. The group is actually pretty amazing. Many of them have HIV/AIDS, but they help so much to embody the mission and objectives that TASO wants to get across not only to those people who are living with HIV/AIDS but also to the rest of the world that you can live positively with HIV/AIDS. As most of you may know, getting HIV and then progressing to AIDS was almost certainly a death sentence before the advent of antiretroviral medicine. But not through that alone do they intend to ... read more
January 29th 2009
Well, maybe only some of you may have been asking that question…like my mom. If you haven’t, then, I just don’t know what to say. I find it somewhat interesting how I can so easily become “comfortable” with my surroundings that I am not as likely to run home at the end of the day and tell you just about every small detail that I can think of. I was debating to myself how to entitle this blog entry. I wanted to name it “This blog was brought to you by the phrase ‘Oh no!’” in light of my experiences from riding on the bodas (which are motorcycles). But, I don’t think that it would have warranted an entire blog entry. Instead, you just get what I have been up to. I just returned a day ... read more
January 17th 2009
I hope that you all picked up on the movie title hinted at in the title of this blog entry and shame on you if you didn’t. Okay, well, you don’t have to feel ashamed. Anyways: So I have been in Kampala now for almost 4 days and I figured it was time to talk a little bit more about my experience thus far. To get some more menial observations out of the way, the nightlife is booming. I haven’t actually been out and don’t necessarily plan on it anytime soon but I have noticed that the party continues much of the night. There are at least 2 clubs in proximity to the hotel at which Val and I are staying. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning 2 nights ago and still heard music ... read more
January 16th 2009
So the title might have been written with a slightly deceitful intent yet it is true. The first day I arrived in Uganda I was able to meet the President…the Ghetto President, as he is named. The backstory to this potentially still confusing intro is this: I got a link from a friend at school to a website that plays underground/alternative music. The link was about this rapper (?) from Kampala whose name is Boochaman (a.k.a. the Vice President). The link was only sent to me because the guy is from Kampala, however I soon found out something really interesting about him through the video clip series I watched. Boochaman and the rest of the Firebase Crew (the group he’s apart of) actually work with the government and other organizations in the area to educate and ... read more
January 16th 2009
It’s come and past already, but I just didn’t have the time to sit down and write anything. Okay, maybe that is not exactly it, but I just didn’t feel like it and haven’t had much time to myself. Moving on… The weather was pretty much dreary the entire time Valerie and I were in London. I think I saw the sun once (slight exaggeration, but you get the point). We ended up couch surfing with this guy named Adam who was in the IT field and was not currently on a contract so was taking some time off. He was a great host, and he was also a bastian of knowledge about, well, just about everything, particularly those things relating to culture (art, music, etc.). His place was south of London in a town called ... read more
January 16th 2009
Traveling is tiring. As my title indicates (well, partially) getting to London was an ordeal. First of all I started off in Greenville at home. Oh, and let me tell you about what happened. I accidentally chose the wrong date (2 days too late) for my departure flight out of the Charlotte airport to get to DC and so I had to get the ticket changed. It was going to cost me $105ish to do such a thing but I actually found a ticket that cost less than that so I got that one. Anyways, so my mom drove me to Charlotte to catch my plane up to BWI. From BWI I had to hop on the MARC train to get to Union Station. Once in DC I only had a brief window of time in ... read more
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