Perhaps My Last Post From Uganda

Things are coming to a close this week at the Health Alert office. We are writing our final reports and starting to say goodbye to people we think we might not see again. There is a lot of work still to do; mostly dealing with debriefing, planning for next year, and making sure follow-ups are conducted for our projects by the HAU staff. We have worked on our memorandum of understanding and among the interns been talking a great deal about our plans for GlobeMed for the upcoming year. As the GROW team head next year, I’ve been talking a lot to Francis and December to see what their opinions have been, where there is room for improvement, and how to best make the partnership long-lasting, sustainable and efficient for both organizations. I think that simply now having five people including Bianca who came last year, that can share their experiences will in itself make a huge impact on the university community.
Last week I finished with the goat project and distributed all of the goats that we had purchased to the two caretakers groups in Alero and Pece. Both groups were very enthusiastic and appreciative of the loan. Because of the fewer goats that we were able to obtain, we restructured some of the loans to be for a series of four. Nevertheless, because we were able to obtain some pregnant goats, the loan cycle will hopefully not exceed the desired three years. Unfortunately, this week we have already had one of the caretakers come searching for a vet because one of the goats has some inflammation in her utter and an eye infection. We required each group to group themselves according to location and then had them draw numbers to pick their order in the group and which goat they would be receiving. This system proved very effective in both Alero and Pece and handing the goats over to the caretakers of the first household in each subgroup went down without a hitch. There were many handshakes, shrill cries (a sign of appreciation) and sayings of “afoyo matek” (meaning, thank you very much).
Last Tuesday was the Day of the African Child and it was quite an enjoyable day for everyone. We spent the day marching around town and ended up in Kaunda grounds where there was a great deal of dancing and general enjoyment. At one point Save the Children was distributing biscuits and they ran out and there was several children who began fighting over the few that remained. It was sad to see such debauchery at an event that was meant to mark the very children who were fighting. The next day there was a meeting between HAU staff and Save the Children. The staff came back with mixed expressions and there was talk of HAU needing to begin to find its own funding. Regardless HAU did receive a new computer and a pair of motorcycles and there was much excitement over those acquisitions. That evening we gathered for an “informal meeting” which wound up being a sort of on-the-lawn cocktail party for the staff. It was extremely enjoyable to spend some informal time with the staff and talk to them about their plans, our lack of desire to be married at twenty and our impressions of Gulu/plans to come back.
In some ways its inevitable that you fall into the expatriate NGO crowd when working in a place like Gulu. For the first few weeks we prided ourselves in eating almost exclusively at local restaurants and not frequenting the highly NGO populated hotspots on weekends. However, I think because the tendency to feel insulated in a group of four we’ve found ourselves increasingly frequenting places where there are more NGO workers. Another cause is that as the summer goes on there are simply a greater number of people coming in just to do short-term volunteer work, mostly in the form of mission trips and Gulu is simply more populated with westerners than when we arrived. Nevertheless, we’ve sought out some company and made a few great friends. Thursday nights are trivia nights at a bar owned by an old British guy and the night always proves entertaining. I’ve made good friends with a young guy who works at Visions in Action and have come to really enjoy the company of the Concordia students. The past few weekends we have been going to a place called Havana Pub and Green Valley for late night dancing and drinking.
On Friday, we went to the Acholi Inn for a pool party followed by a night out at Havana. I left my swimsuit at the hotel and also made the mistake of leaving my key as well. When we arrived at our hotel significantly later that night, we realized we had lost our key, and wound up sleeping on the floor of the girl’s rooms. To top it all off, I made the very poor choice of taking my malaria medication without water and in exchange have been blessed with an agonizing ulcer in my esophagus that makes everything from eating to breathing rather painful. Perhaps the most aggravating part of it all is that I haven’t gotten sick from the water or any of the food I’ve been eating and then I make a stupid mistake in taking the pill improperly. The doctor at HAU recommended that I take a magnesium trisilicate solution which doesn’t seem to have helped much at all, but will hopefully clear things up quick. Regardless its by no means a life threatening affliction and it should be healed soon I guess.
On Saturday, Aurelien and I were put in charge of the bead-making event. We varnished all the beads we had made the previous weekend and enjoyed the time with all the kids that came to participate. We spent the early afternoon with the children playing football and taking penalty kicks on one another as we waited for the beads to dry. All the kids that came were so energetic and really made the afternoon (despite the lack of sleep and burning esophagus) very entertaining. Unfortunately there were some hiccups the next day in obtaining locks and the project still is unfinished with three days to go. Hopefully with some creativity the project can get done one evening this week.
This weekend I went to Murchison Falls with the Concordia students, whose program finished last Friday. We travelled to the park on Sunday and stayed until yesterday evening. The park was spectacular; we went on a game drive and a river cruise up to the falls. Murchison falls are the most powerful in the world and sends water through a six-meter gap that plummets maybe a hundred meters into a misty abyss. We later went to the base of the falls by boat and saw its awesome power from beneath. There was also a great deal of wildlife in the park and I got as close as ten meters from giraffes and fifty meters from elephants. We saw hippos along the bank of the Nile as well as crocodiles. We also saw water buffalo, Jacksons, antelope, warthogs and a plethora of species of birds. Watching all of the animals and the grace of their existence as they elegantly wandered around the park was a refreshing break from the dusty and loud life in Gulu. The Jacksons were particularly beautiful, almost horse like with horns, with long narrow face and strong agile bodies.
Over the last week I had become close friends with quite a few of the Concordia students and it was great to spend more time with them. The night before leaving, and their last night in Gulu, we stayed up until four only to wake up at six to depart for the park. While I was definitely lacking sleep, I had made close friends with one of the girls, and against better judgment didn’t sleep on the trip to Murchison, but instead just chatted with her. We arrived at the park in the early afternoon and made our way across the Nile via ferry to see the top of the falls on the southern side of the park. At night on Sunday I stayed up late watching the stars on top of a water tower at the small place where we were staying. After the generators went off at ten there was only one light on the horizon, a campsite more than 50km away. With no lights to obscure the sky, the stars shone with such brilliance and magnificence. It was truly mesmerizing and I stayed up there until late into the night, again against my better judgment, but fully enjoying the conversation and company with Ana and Gavin. The sounds at night in the park were also unforgettable, with insects, bullfrogs and mammals singing in chorus. It was one of the most unforgettable nights of my time in Uganda and I realized that there is very little that trumps serenity, pristine nature, and company willing to share the experience with you.
The next day we woke up at five thirty to embark on our game drive. The previous day we had seen a lot of wildlife as we entered the park, but during the game drive we were able to get closer to the animals and really get to see a great deal more of them. Then after lunch, we embarked on the cruise up the river. One of the most fascinating things that I saw on the cruise was the carcass of a dead hippo, which had apparently been killed in a fight with another hippo. Seeing a three-ton carcass might not seem particularly enjoyable, but it was very interesting to see death in the wild and how nature runs its course in such an event.
This week is going to be bittersweet; we will be finished with our projects and say goodbyes, but we also have a great deal to look forward to since we will be traveling to southern Uganda and to Rwanda. I fear this may be my last blog from Uganda since I might leave my computer at a hotel in Kampala while I travel around in Rwanda.