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Published: January 28th 2022
Some people asked more about where I am staying. I am staying with Hope, the executive director of RWO. She used to live closer to the office in Kitala, but 8 months ago she moved about 10 mins east to Namulanda. We stay off of the main Entebbe Road that connects Entebbe (the old capital) to Kampala (the new capital). I am about a 20 min Boda ride to Entebbe so we spend more time there. Then depending on traffic, I am about a 30-60 min drive to Kampala. There is so much traffic in Kampala that I am not disappointed that I ended up staying farther from there than I expected.
Namulanda is a little quieter that Kitala and offers a second bedroom for her son. Hope is renting a guest house that is on a compound with a main house. Most of the homes here have cement walls and a large gate at the entrance. During the day we will go in and out of the smaller gate. But, at night time we come in the side gate entrance that Hope can lock and unlock herself. The main house is owned by a Ugandan who travels
abroad a lot for work. So mostly it is his wife, 6 month old baby and the maid Joanne who I think is 18/19 years old. I rarely see the wife, but the maid it out in the yard a lot. Every once and awhile we can convince her to come sit with us on the front porch and talk. But, she is always on the lookout if the family needs her. The maid will likely live with the family for a few years and then save up enough money to be able to do something else. While she is on call 24/7 basically it does seem like a decent way for a young women to get ahead.
Irene has a car, but she does not park it at the compound. Instead she leaves it at a 24 hours guarded yard down the block. About a month after Hope moved in people climbed cement fence and broke into her car. It costs about ~$.75 per night for her to park at the guarded lot.
Hope’s home is modest but more than enough. She has a living room, soon to be dining room, and small
kitchen. The oven needs power to work, but Hope can use the burners when the power is off. There is a mini fridge in the dining room that works if we have power. I have started putting water bottles in the little freezer so I can have cold water if we had power that day. Then there are two bedrooms and a bathroom. While the shower shows hot and cold, there is no hot water. But, most of the time it is warm enough that you would not want to take a hot shower anyways so it is not much of a sacrifice. When the power goes out the water usually does too, so sometimes we got several hours without water.
I stay in Robin, her 11yr old son’s room since he left for boarding school the week before I got here. When Robin has time off he usually stays with his grandmother who lives closer to his school, about 2 hours away. When everything was locked down, Robin stayed with the grandmother for well over 6 months before Hope was allowed to retrieve him.
Hope grew up with her mother and 3 siblings
not too far from where she lives now. She was fortunate to be able to go to college and then she spent a few years working in Nairobi before coming back to Uganda and starting RWO with her sister Claire.
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Mari
non-member comment
Sickness
Hi, Sarah! I am really enjoying reading about your experiences, your work there and seeing the pictures! I was wondering after reading about the different foods you've been eating if you've had any trouble with sickness?