Lake Mburo National Park

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We're back in Kampala. After a very busy 2 weeks in two of Uganda's national parks we have returned to the University of Makerere in Kampala, Uganda for a week at the Uganda SPCA. We had a fantastic time during our travels and there's lots to share so sorry in advance to the length of this note! I’m going to post our experiences at Mburo and Queen Elizabeth separately.

Week 1:
We began our time in Lake Mburo National Park with the third year veterinary students from the University of Makerere and some of their professors. It was a pretty small class of only 23 students- most of whom where male- which is a big shift from what we're used to at OVC! It was really neat talking to the students and learning about their program and the differences between how we learn and how they learn. Their program is 5 years long and they're admitted right from highschool. It's still fairly competitive and the students have to place well in their academic rankings to be accepted into the program. After graduation, vet work is mainly available in the areas of public health and livestock but even within these fields the demand is very low. Many of the students will finish their vet degree and go on to work in completely different fields!

One of the funniest things about our experiences with them is that they have a very different way of analyzing scat. At home we might pick it up with gloves on a put it into a sample container- here they just pick it up with their bare hands and sniff it! It's so funny to see impala poop being passed around and sniffed- we were thoroughly grossed out! Food was also something to get used to. The staple foods in Uganda are Matooke (mat-o-key)- mashed and boiled green bananas- and Posho- mashed maise. It's quite bland and hard to get used to and we were always very excited on the days they served beans! We really enjoyed our time with the students. We spent the days with them learning about mostly ecology and the role of vets in wildlife management. It's really evident here that tourism is a huge source of income and even the professors discussed the need to consider tourism in the management plans of the park. It's a reality that the tourists want to see certain animals and they'll pay big money for the opportunity. It was a really interesting shift in perspectives for us to consider that vets are working in these kinds of roles!

During the week we also became experts at the art of the bucket shower. You never realize how long your hair is until you have to somehow wash it in a bucket! Definitely missing showers 😊 I'm thinking about treating myself to a spa day for my birthday when I return just to get the permadirt from under my finger and toenails and knots from my neck! Camping is still lots of fun though- I don't know what I'm going to do when I don't have to live out of a backpack and sleeping bag!

I could write forever but I want to talk about Queen Elizabeth too... see the next entry for our continued adventure

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