in northern uganda - lira

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well i'm up north right now - we leave tomarrow morning. it's been pretty intense. traveling to different ngo's in the region and visiting villages and sites that were internally displaced people's camps before. there was talk of the lra being 6 km from the northern border of uganda (in sudan) and someone just told me that they heard that they have entered uganda. the people we talked to we super scared that they were coming back. all of the places i visited personally were camps in the past - in two out of three there were offical massacres, and in one the lra burned half of the camp. there is some speculatiobn that it might not have been the lra and it might have been the ugganda people's defense force (updf) - in one place a woman said that the lra came in soldiers uniforms before they killed over 100 people. everywhere we went people we very happy and glad to see us, but they needed so much help. it's very striking how different the south (and kampala) and the north are. the north is very rural and you can see the socioeconomic differences super well. it can be very sad. we had some really great translator that came with us that were super nice and so helpful. we go back to kampala tomorrow and then leave on sunday for rwanda... we're driving there and i really hope the roads are better. i literally have had dreams where i felt like i was still bouncing around on the bad roads... we only have a few more days in our homestays also and i need to find much better gifts for them - i feel bad - they've been so nice and welcoming. i'm a bit less nervous for the homestay in rwanda, but i'm nervous that no one will speak much english there. what else? i had an apparent allergic reaction to what the doctor said was the soap i used. i've never been allergic to anything before... my right hand was huge and gross - like club hand style. i thought it was a bug bite, but i guess not. yesterday i was worried because it just got bigger after i started the medication that the doctor told me to get, but today it was much better and almost back to normal - only a little sore. what else... let's see there are 22 of us on this trip and two weeks into it so far 5 have gotten malaria (all are fine). i'm offically pretty sick of eating rice and beans... haven't really seen another cockroach...
okay - must go times running out again...
hope everyone's doing well there
love ya

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