I'm heading to Lake Mburo with some other volunteers this weekend. A past blog post about the National Park from a couple of the people (there are 8 in total) that I am going with: http://volunteersabroad.blogspot.com/2008/09/lake-mburo-revisited.html
There are zebras there!
Things have been crazy busy here lately. Was in kampala for a week to work on the website (www.ankolewestern.com) and it became a lesson in patience and professional culture differences. I did have a wonderful time staying with my friend Justine and got to spend tons of time with Pete also.
There was a wild full moon beach party in a suburb of Kampala (Bugolobi). Of course on the compound where the party was there was no water or beach... so someone just trucked it in (the sand, not the water)! Dj's, fire breathers, pool tables, bikinis, free beer.... It was like nothing I've ever seen before. Ex-pats who had lived in kampala for year and years and years were just staring open-mouthed at this total madness: they had never seen anything like it in Kampala. One lovely Belgian gentleman remarked to me that he was going to move to Kigali "because this place is ruined now."
The crazy-ness has mostly been work related though. Waiting on the district government to approve our budget for World AIDS Day. Found out today it is a go! Soooo now... we have 15 days to plan a huge event. And as I mentioned earlier, I'm going away for the weekend. Hey! I started trying to plan this event 3 months ago! If people want to leave it to the last minute they can be the ones freaking out thank you very much. (My friend Janine has deemed this week selfish week - i'm going with that so I don't actually freak out)
Still teaching 6 hours a week and getting a little stressed out. Have already handed my final exams over to the school but don't know if I will have time to teach all the stuff that is covered on the exam! Eep!
A project proposal that I helped write is being shopped around in Gulu as I write this. If we get it funded it could be a multi-year multi-hundred-thousand dollar project! Unfortunately I’m not written into it for a paycheck, but it will look great on a resume!
Have decided to write my final report on the issues facing grassroots groups that do TfD (theatre for development) in developing countries – specifically Uganda obviously. Where can they get funding? How do they build their capacity? How do they expand their skills? Etc Etc.
I met with an Ethiopian refugee while in Kampala this past week. He is the cousin of a woman in Ottawa who wants to try to sponsor him to come to Canada through my mothers church. He had malaria and his prescription wasn’t working so I made him go to a good clinic to make sure it actually was malaria (often, the laboratories are sub-par here so although the Dr.’s are great, they never know if the info they get from the labs are right so they have to diagnose on guesses – one friend of mine was taking 22 pills a day at one point, a pill to treat everything that could have possibly been ailing her). It was malaria but the Dr. gave him different drugs and he has recovered. His aunt called me the next day from Canada to say thank you. I was so touched. She wanted to repay me but I insisted that all I wanted was a big Ethiopian meal when I got back to Ottawa.
My mothers church will (hopefully) be sponsoring these adorable twins who are growing up in a slum outside of kampala and will, if not sponsored, go to a school with no chairs and most probably go to school hungry and come home hungry. The school we want to send them too is a little bit pricey but the girls are so bright and their parents are so supportive that I think they have had the right start to become the leaders of tomorrow. I dropped in to Lohana Academy (where the parents really want them to go) while in Kampala and was very impressed with the Principal and his staff. They were all very professional, helpful, and kind. The Principal is working towards establishing a trust in the UK so that other people can sponsor children to get good educations. Not just at Lohana, but anywhere the sponsors choose. I think it is a great opportunity for people who want to get away from groups with huge overhead costs. This is just the sponsor, the child, and the school. And you know it is a good school. For 30$ a month, WV kids are probably going to those schools with no chairs and no food.
My mother, me and her church are obviously going to be very busy!
Have to run now, I have arrangements to get picked up on the side of the road by people I don’t know. This is our mission impossible plan: They look for the mzungu at the t-intersection in kabwohe, I look for the mzungus in the blue jeep.
Wish us luck!
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