How to Save a Life

Merry Christmas everyone and happy holidays! I'll be spending yet another Christmas in this tropical, equatorial country, quietly pretending the palm trees are really pine trees.

I'm going to make this post very short and to the point: I am posting a link to donate money to our friend and colleague, Fred Kiyingi, who needs a liver transplant. He is our Safety and Security Officer for Peace Corps Uganda, and has done an amazing job at keeping volunteers safe and secure. He is the first person in my phonebook because he's the first person I'd call if anything happened. He was also very instrumental in the fatal car accident last May. He was their first phone call and has been up in Gulu once a month making sure that justice is served. We call him the "James Bond" of Uganda because he's been known to get to a mob in 4 minutes to rescue volunteers.
Fred has an aggressive form of liver cancer and needs to travel immediately to India for the operation. Volunteers and RPCVs all over Uganda and the world have been fundraising and we're almost at $10,000, but we need $15,000. Please help us get there! Thank you and Merry Christmas.

(Please note, if you choose to support Fred Kiyingi, select the Peace Corps Emergency Relief Fund from the drop down menu and specify that the donation is for Fred Kiyingi in the Tribute/In Honor of field to ensure your donation goes to him and not to the Peace Corps Emergency Relief general fund.)

https://www.facebook.com/howtosavefredslife

A Year in Retrospect

Mid-year decoding test for my P4 students

I'm back at Kulika, in central Uganda, in mid-November except this time I'm here as a trainer, not a trainee. Our new group of Education volunteers have just arrived in country and I'm here as a technical trainer for positive reinforcement, teaching in Uganda and making instructional materials. We having PST (pre-service training) at the same locations as last year so it feels a bit like I'm going back in time. So much has happened in the past 12 months, but at the same time, I can't believe a year has passed since I first arrived to the green rolling hills of Uganda. We are the first Education group to pilot this program with a heavy focus on literacy at the primary level. With this second group, we've had a lot of opportunities to share our wisdom, best practices and lessons learned, and encourage them to try new things. I'm very excited for them to start at their sites in January because they're going to be rockstars! Next week we move to a new site to start our school-based practice and I will have the pleasure of observing hours upon hours of observing lessons. 

A little of what's been happening in the past month-- I attended an HIV conference in Masaka in early November to discuss new projects and cross-sector collaboration. The conference was extremely helpful and informative, but mostly highlighted what an incredibly complex disease we're talking about. There's a massive difference between tackling malaria and HIV, since the latter revolves around sex. As soon as sex gets involved, things get complicated. Think about how many issues revolve sex, especially in a religious country. We got into all sorts of issues: gender-based violence, controversy around condoms, the church's role in advocating for abstinence and its ineffectiveness, power imbalance and the role of women, homosexuality, taboo around wearing condoms or male circumcision, etc. There are so many issues around this disease; it highlighted for me just how complex and difficult it is to tackle. Especially in a country where people refuse to talk about or advocate for condoms! 

It did get me jumpstarted on starting a life-skills club at my school next year with my fellow teacher, and teaching HIV curriculum after school. 

Halloween was also a blast, we all migrated out to Mbale in the East to celebrate for a 2-night event. Our friends organized the Hallloween party in a fantastic cave near Sipi Falls. Mbale is at the base of Mount Elgon and it very mountainous and beautiful-- the scenery around Mbale reminded me a lot of Grenoble's vistas. 

I'll be training with our new group until mid-December and then it's Christmas and New Year's when my sister Claire comes to visit! 

Ok Please

Back in the saddle! The months of August and September have flown by and I'm sad to say that I haven't written in two months. August was filled with birthday festivities (including a bada$$ safari on horseback, thanks to my boyfriend), finishing up the term at school and preparing to go back home for a short visit. It's strange to think that I actually went home, it feels like a dream--a wonderful, Target-filled (I mean…family-filled) dream. I had a week to myself before my boyfriend Jim arrived to meet my family and come to the much-anticipated family wedding. The real impetus for my trip home was to attend my cousin Liz and Tig's wedding, an event that's been on the calendar for over a year. Some may recall that before I left for the Peace Corps, I was dead set on staying in Uganda for my service and not making the trip home. Well, circumstances changed and my family and I decided that a wedding was a great excuse to come home.

Heathbrook

My first meal in country? Sushi. Something you certainly can't get in Uganda. My parents immediately whisked me up to New Hampshire to our cabin, but not without picking up my best friend Andrea, in town from New York. What a fun weekend-- filled with hiking, boating, story-telling, visiting with aunts and uncles, and a new card game Ligretto. And oh, the wine! And the beer! To have good draught beer was such a treat. 

Waterskiing on Silver Lake!

We visited all week with friends and family, and I felt so lucky to have so many friends involved in our lives. I visited six states (six!) in two weeks-- MA, NH, ME, RI, CT and NY. I spent a few nights in Brooklyn, NY with Andrea, and was introduced to a very charming, lovely side of Brooklyn. We went for a Sunday afternoon bike ride, took a ferry (free!) to Governor's Island and had a perfect pique-nique. Jim arrived the following day and was immediately thrown into our typical family mayhem once we got back to Boston. We had a beautiful day of waterskiing, tubing and boating on Silver Lake, and then crazy lightning storms the following day. Our family joke goes that we try and maim the boyfriends at least once during their stay. One boyfriend involved a nearly fatal wood-chopping incident, with Jim, it was almost getting struck by lightning. Welcome to the family--you survived!

Family photo! (all we're missing are the matching white turtlenecks)

Me and Jim 

The wedding weekend in Maine was a blast-- I saw all my lovable cousins, including my twin cousins for the first time in years. We couldn't even remember how long it's been, which is funny because the three of us used to be inseparable when we were kids. The whole family was back together, the only person we were missing was my grandmother, who passed away in June. We talked all weekend about her, shared a few tears, and did our best Grandma impressions. At the reception,  my cousin Liz played a voicemail that my grandmother had left a year ago, and left our whole side of the tent in blubbering sobs. If we weren't all crying so hard, we probably would have been laughing at how much noise we made. The after-party was an upscale pig-roast; we were all wearing our pretty dresses with rainboots from all the mud. Maine-style!

Cousin photo, in order of height, just as Grandma would have done!

It was great to be back together, all 10 cousins, just like old times. The whirlwind weekend was over as soon as it began.

I'm back now in Uganda and I have to say, it felt really good to be back... at first. As soon as I landed in Entebbe, I could smell the fresh rain and loved the cool night air. It smelled like Uganda--I really can't put my finger on what that smell is, but it's a combination of roasted meat and burning trash (and some other things, they don't really come to mind now. The best time to figure this out is when you get off the plane). I missed the smell, I missed the constant sense of adventure in this country that you just don't get in America. As nice as it was to be home, I realized that my place is here, for now.

We had a few nice surprises when we got home from a month away. Our water was no longer running, our water tank was bone dry and our cat, Captain Cuddles, had run away. Welcome home!


*Title of this post comes from the funny way Ugandans use the word "please" for everything. Usually when you order something off a menu, and the server responds "Ok thank you please."

Babies Holding Babies

 We recently celebrated our six-months-at-site anniversary, so I thought it would be a good time for a little update on life here in Uganda. Things at school don't seem to have changed a wink since I've been here, so that's promising. Only kidding-- obviously I won't see any results in six months, maybe not even a year or my entire service in Peace Corps, but it still feels disheartening. Luckily we have a wonderful boss who is our cheerleader and always there to pick up our spirits, and remind us that we'll probably fail 100 different times before we get it right. A 6-month slump is totally normal as a PCV, but it doesn't make it any easier to get through. 

A bunch of Volunteers from the Southwest got together this weekend for a mzungu getaway on Lake Bunyonyi, and it was nice to know that we're all in the same boat (no pun intended). Everyone is experiencing some sort of frustration at their sites and schools, we're not alone in this struggle. I was deeply disturbed last week when a bunch of pupils were caned for looking unkempt and not washing their shirts on Wednesday, or not bathing. It's a cruel punishment for something that can be easily remedied or taught. The worst part? Every week there are new (or the same) pupils who are unclean, and they still get caned. So how is the caning teaching anyone a lesson? Wouldn't it be better to motivate them with an incentive?

After nine months in country, we all adopted an unhealthy amount of Uganglish, such as using the word "somehow" for almost anything. "How was your weekend?" "It was somehow." Or: "I'm somehow close to Rwanda." Or: using the phase "some small" for a little bit. Salt? Just some small.
Or: "Are you feeling any better?" "I am feeling some some." 

We entertain ourselves by thinking what massive weirdos we're going to be when we return home in two years. Just the other day, we met a cantankerous Brit who thought his ears deceived him when we said we were here for two years. "Two years?!", he gulped. "That's how long they sent convicts to Australia for!" 

Yup, well, that's my reality. There's are so many short-term volunteers who come to Uganda for "voluntourism" that two years seems like an eternity compared to four weeks. In reality, if you truly want to have a meaningful impact here, the longer the better. Some projects are short-term and sustainable, such as building a water tank for a school, but most volunteers feel fantastic having taught Nursery kids the Hokey-Pokey (I'm really poking fun at myself, since that's the majority of what I did in India during my stint as a "voluntourist"). 

One of my favorite pastimes is to observe the various signage around this country. On matatus, on T-shirts, on trucks. And sexually ambiguous outfits, usually where males strut around in clothing that was intended for women. Yesterday I saw a young sebo wearing a T-shirt with the words "Pussy Power" and hot pink skinny jeans. La classe! My friends have even started a fashion blog in Uganda, taking pictures of sebos who are accidentally hipster.

It's been an unusually dry "dry season", and a severe drought has taken place all across Uganda. This place was the greenest place I'd ever seen when I arrived in country; now the hills all around my site are brown, barren and dusty. We need rain desperately. One of our PCV's site is so dry that they might have to cancel school, they are completely out of water and can't function.

The locals all tell us the rain will arrive on August 15th. Not the 16th, not the 14th of August. The 15th. I think they really mean mid-August, but I like their scientific calculation of when the rains will come. Usually during dry season, there are some sprinklings here and there, but there hasn't been a drop of rain in 3 months. My garden plot has withered up, my sprouting vegetables have completed shriveled and sunken into the earth. "Too much sun! Omushana munonga!" the locals tell me. My fault for planting during dry season, tsk tsk. But life has a funny, ironic way about it; despite my garden drying up and producing zero vegetables, tomato plants that no one planted are alive and well, and thriving around my sewage tank. Thank you, nature.  

And oh, the dust! How I wish for rain just to wash away the red dust that has creeped into every corner of my house (and it seems every orifice of my body). My house would be a housemaid's nightmare-- it requires dusting about 3 times a day. Everything is coated with a thin layer of red dust that blows in off the road, looking like only ghosts have lived here for the last decade. Our cat certainly doesn't help-- Captain Cuddles' favorite pastime is to literally roll around in the dust, and then drag it into our house for cuddle time. No wonder why he always has a reddish glow to him.

While things are slow at home and school, there's a lot in the pipeline to look forward to. I recently wrote a SPA (small project assistance) grant for our Education Volunteers to each receive a BASE Pack (see my post called "Muzungus in the Mist" about using the BASE pack to lead a teambuilding and teacher training exercise), in time for the next school year. The BASE Pack is a custom-made backpack designed by the King's Foundation (based in the UK), and filled with objects to do teambuilding exercises, such as a parachute, cricket ball, tennis balls, cones, bean bags, jump rope, even bands that serve as sashes for the team with the most spirit. 

These packs are major incentives for our students, and very instrumental for building positive behavior systems at school. One of our major challenges as a group is introducing positive reinforcement, as opposed to caning as a form of punishment. While caning may not be entirely phased out from school for a long time, we can still have a system built in where 100 students are rewarded for showing up on time, and get to play with the BASE Pack games. 

I'm also part of a grant that will fund volunteers to get materials for workstations to work on literacy with our students, at any age level. I'm already doing some of that at my school, but having more money to buy materials, book shelves, a reading table, will make it even more solid. At school, I work everyday with a small group of upper primary students. We make time for Buddy Reading, giving every pupil a chance to pick out a book from our stocked library (I am very lucky in that my school has received a truckload of donated children's books from various sources). Buddy Reading time warms my heart because it's great to see two kids huddled together outside in the grass, reading a book together. Reading for fun isn't really a thing here-- if you're going to read a book here, it's for study, not for pleasure. I'm not sure I can ever change that, but at least giving them some time everyday to read aloud to a friend is wonderful. Next we do word-work activities that play with sounds, diphthongs and vowel sounds. We build words and play games, write on slates or even just play "Duck, Duck, Goose." While my small reading groups are fun, I always worry Will the kids be better readers after two months working with me? I don't want to get my hopes up that when I assess them with the same reading assessment at the start of the term, their scores will be markedly higher. It could be that I'm doing this all wrong and our Library time has resulted in zero improvement. 

But I want to end this post on a good note! Not only am I turning 25 next week, I will be home in America for a short visit in a month! I dream of America…but my dreams usually involve being really overwhelmed by grocery stores, and fruits + veg being absurdly overpriced compared to here. But it's still the land o' freedom, and I can't wait. 

Stay tuned! 

*The title of this post derives from seeing small children, as young as 4, somehow holding even smaller babies. It's pretty entertaining. 

May The Fourth Be With You

Peace Corps Goal #3: Share American culture with others in your community (or something like that)…check. The night before July 4th, Caitlin and I threw down for an American bash and invited our Ugandan friends from the PTC. How did we get this idea, you ask? Well we told one of the PTC officials that we were going to Fort Portal to celebrate with over half the PCVs in Uganda, to which he responds, "Why don't you celebrate here with us?!"

Me and my counterparts: Bright & Constance

It was a nice opportunity to share with them how we celebrate our day of independence, cook some American food (other than cookies-- they all thought for months that's all we ate because it was the only thing we brought them) and show them some muzungu dance moves. 

Me and Caitlin with Asaph, our dance champion!

We have four Irish girls on campus for a few weeks, here for a teaching program. They are so crafty and sweet, and brought us a bunch of homemade goodies, including an American flag, a poster proclaiming "Happy Independence Day", red white and blue flags, and yarn bracelets. 

We slaved away all afternoon to make pasta salad, potato salad, guacamole and chips, snickerdoodles and fruit salad.

Do the twist! Dancin' up a storm

As the evening wore on, it turned typically Ugandan and turned into a massively fun dance party. Caitiln and I modeled how to do the twist-- Pulp Fiction style. One of the administrators at the college, Asaph, gave it a go and was an absolute riot. He looked like a robot dancing on stilts. Pretty soon, we were all up and dancing in our living room, swing dancing to old Beatles and James Brown songs. As a housewarming gift, my counterpart gave us a giant American flag that is proudly hanging in our house.

Happy Fourth everyone!

We Lock Up Our Hoes

The joys of starting a garden in this country. It's not your typical throw-on-some-work-sloves-and-buy-some-mulch, à la American. In Uganda, the one and only tool used for gardening/digging/weeding/harvesting/you-name-it, is the hoe (trust me, the puns we are able to spin are endlessly entertaining), known as a fuka in local language. And here, we call it digging, not gardening. My fellow PCV Aaron, who lives on an island in Lake Bunyonyi and teaches at a high school, came over to our place for the weekend and helped me dig up the land. About a month ago we did the first dig to churn up the dirt and kill the grass, which grows at an exponential speed here on the Equator. Despite having already dug up the small plot of land behind my house, naturally it looked like nothing had been done, since things grow so fast here. We basically had to start over.

Digging time 

The locals passing by on the street were perplexed why we were a) digging on a Sunday [it's pretty taboo, since it's the Lord's Day) b) planting when it's the dry season and c) digging with weird, colorful things on our hands (work gloves). It's the dry season here now, and certainly not the time to be planting. I decided to still plant my sweet corn, radishes, beans and herbs cuz I'm officially adopting the Honey-Badger-don't-care and do what I want. Also, plants can still grow in dry season, they just need to be watered. But to the folks from around here, it's unheard of and they think I'm crazier than before. After 4 hours of backbreaking work, we dug up my plot of land and planted seeds. To show for it, my hands are covered in some gnarly blisters and I got an awkward but brutal sunburn patch right above my pant line from bending down all day. Hopefully some little seedlings in a few weeks will make it all worth it. If I can't grow veggies in this fertile, equatorial country, then I am royally screwed.

World's most awkward sunburn

Mzungus in the Mist

Teaching the Daily 5

After more than a month of traveling, squatting at fellow Volunteers' houses, taking one matatu ride after another, it's nice to finally be home. My school started a week late since… well, because. The Bakiga [Ba-CHEE-ga] people do what they want. Caitlin recently came up with a great metaphor that the Bakiga (that is, those who live in the Kabale district of southern Uganda) are the Honey Badgers of Uganda (if you haven't seen the skit, watch it here, and you'll understand). They just do (and take) what they want. School was supposed to start on the 27th of May, but my school made the executive decision to start a week later (fine by me!). 

On Friday, to kick off the term, I held a small workshop with our teachers. We're still short two teachers, which are apparently being sent our way by the district commissioner, but I'll believe it when I see it. 

Introducing Bloom's Taxonomy

I was a bit apprehensive to have a teacher training, and was dubious about how it would turn out. My counterpart at the school isn't as collaborative as I would like, so I planned the workshop myself. One of my biggest fears is that the teachers wouldn't take me seriously-- I probably look about 18 years old to them, and here you tend not to be taken seriously until you're married and have popped out a few kids. Since I've done neither, I was doubtful of the turnout, especially on a Friday afternoon. To my surprise, it went wonderfully. My roommate and fellow PCV Caitlin came along, and together we made a great team. We first covered Bloom's Taxonomy and higher levels of thinking, and how to include critical thinking in lesson plans. We introduced Daily 5 targets to promote literacy in every day's lesson, and teachers seemed to respond well to it. I created a "Teacher of the Month" award to motivate teachers to utilize our resources in the Library, and to include reading time in their daily schedule.

Let the fun and games begin! 

After spending over an hour trying to promote literacy throughout this workshop, our headmaster ended on a great note, saying "If you want to hide something from an African, hide it in a book!"
Thanks, buddy.

In other words, Africans are not known for ever reading books, unless they are studying for something, but the whole concept of "reading for fun" is lost on them (at least those in my district..) I showed them our new donated BASE Pack, one of six in Uganda at a PCV's school, donated by the King's Foundation. This big backpack is filled with games such as a parachute, cricket bat, frisbees, soccer ball etc. We spent one morning at our IST Workshop playing all sorts of games, and had a blast. Six of the donated packs were dispersed to 6 Volunteers to pilot them as the schools. As a regional captain for this pilot program, we are going to see how we can use the pack to encourage and motivate good behavior on behalf of the students.

We collaborated as a staff on which behavior we'd like to target, and settled on participation and work ethic ("laziness" as the teachers call it.)  I reminded teachers that good participation and work ethic could translate later on not only into better test scores, but also a great school culture. As part of the workshop, I took the teachers outside to play some of the games so they could appreciate the value of the BASE Pack. When I asked my counterpart if she thought the teachers would like to play some games, she sounded skeptical. I thought it would be like pulling teeth to get them to do some Teambuilders.

Fruit salad!

Instead, the response was phenomenal. The teachers loved the games, and even better, all the students crowded around and howled at the teachers playing these relays. They could see for themselves all these games they could play if they performed well. We first took out the parachute and did a few activities, and they didn't want to put it away afterwards! Next Caitlin helped me set up the game where you hold hands in a line and have to pass a hula hoop down the line. The teachers set up two teams, and I had them each choose a team name. We did relay races with bean bags and balancing a frisbee on the head. We were all howling with laughter, especially the students who were standing around watching. I think it was really important for them to understand how valuable the Base Pack can be as a tool, and the best way to do that was to play the games and have fun! 

Bean bag relays

I'm also happy because it sets a good standard to do more teacher trainings. There's so much good material I could cover with our staff, including engagement strategies, positive reinforcement, and promoting literacy. And I'm sure I can entice them with a few Teambuilders after the hard stuff is done...

Teamwork on 3!

Camp BUILD & GLOW

"Everywhere we go! People want to know....!"

Welcome to Camp! (Photos by Jim Tanton)

It was back to camp this week for Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and BUILD (Boys of Uganda in Leadership Development), a Peace Corps-sponsored camp for Ugandan youth in empowerment and leadership development. I never thought I would see the day that American-style camp worked successfully in Africa, complete with camp songs, cheers, field day and teambuilders (the only thing we were missing was a lake and swimming lessons). In the past, the girls' and boys' camp would operate simultaneously but separately, giving the girls their own space to learn how to be more assertive. The directors of our camp, who are  fellow PCVs, decided to experiment and run the camps together.  At the beginning of the week, there was some awkwardness with the girls refusing to sit or talk with the boys, but by the end, they were all getting along great. During the morning and early afternoon, the campers would have sessions focusing on topics such as domestic violence, net repair, gender roles, family planning (we even had a condom race on wooden penises--some girls were horrified) and a whole day devoted to learning about HIV/AIDS. This day was the most insightful into rumours and widespread beliefs around HIV. The questions campers had about how HIV is spread ("I heard you can get it from someone sweating on you...!") was a revelation about what a large knowledge gap exists.

Teambuilding: The Spiders Web

That's why camps like these are so important: we are able to give the right information and stamp out any myths surrounding the disease in a controlled setting. There's no church behind our shoulder condemning condoms or telling us they cause cancer. On Thursday, we had a Ugandan organisation TASO (The AIDS Support Organization) come in to do a performance for our campers. All the performers are living positively, and shared a little of their experience. They also conducted HIV testing for anyone who wanted to know their status. I'm proud to say that my entire group was brave enough to get tested, which shows some real initiative.

I got tested!

In the evenings, we had teambuilders, endless games, frisbee on the pitch, bracelet-making or learning origami. It was amazing the see the transition in the girls, who went from being docile and quiet, to being more assertive and confident. The results were surprisingly positive.

A little teamwork goes a long way: The Human Knot!

There isn't really a culture here of people of the opposite sex being friends; platonic friendships between the two genders isn't a thing, especially not in the village. I was a counselor for the boys' side, along with my Ugandan co-counselor, and we had 8 happy campers. They ranged from mid-pubescent and voice-cracking teenage boys to older, more mature boys who could be eligible to be counselors next year. It was a blast and we got along great. I thought boys would naturally be more assertive and confident than girls, but I still had to get the boys to come out of their shells. Our animal group for the week was the Hyenas (we always had an excuse to laugh and cackle, which I really liked), including 8 girls from the GLOW side.

Breakin' it down, BPU shows us their moves

A big presence at the camp, including campers, counselors and staff, was BPU- Breakdance Project Uganda, a youth empowerment program in Kampala, Masaka and Gulu. I can't stress enough how awesome these guys are. Not only do they have major swagger but the kids who come out of these programs are determined, inclusive, polite and good leaders. I assumed that a lot of these kids came from well-to-do families in the big cities, but apparently a lot of them are orphans or come from poor families. They have great role models at the Project who help shape them into young leaders, and the best part-- to teach them how to dance! When the BPU campers arrived at camp, I figured they would be the troublemakers and we would need a disciplinarian on Day 1. Instead, I quickly found out what great kids and role models they were. I had two BPU boys in my group, one 18 and the other 19, and they were the natural leaders of the group, sometimes doing my job for me by encouraging others to speak up. Another great message from BPU was their living proof in gender equality; girls are encouraged as much as boys to dance. They all performed a skit for us where they showed that breakdancing isn't just for boys, but girls can be just as good. Take that for breaking gender roles!

Girls learning how to make their own reusable menstrual pad (RUMPS)

After three months at site preparing and eating muzungu food, I had a harsh re-awakening to eating Ugandan food three times a day for a week. I forgot how potent the beans are here and the profound effect they have not only on me, but all my fellow staff members. We could have powered a hot-air balloon with the amount of beans we were eating. I realized how rather spoiled I've been at site with my porcelain throne toilet and hot bucket baths, I missed those two things dearly after using stinky latrines and having cold bucket baths for the week. (In truth, this is how most PCVs live, but some of get lucky and are blessed with a toilet!)
By the end of the week, after spending so much time with our Ugandan co-counselors and campers, all the PCVs were fluently speaking some weird form of English we call Uganglish. For example, instead of saying "Come here," we'd all do that backward hand-wave thing they do and say "You first come!", or instead of saying "Me too", we'd all say "Even me!"

Treat Yo Self

Another milestone was reached this week: our 3-months-at-site marker. We celebrated this momentous occasion with a wonderful weeklong training to remind us just how far we have to go. Our in-service training got off to a rough start with a tragic accident involving three of our Volunteers in the North, and set a somber tone for the rest of the week. I was looking forward to IST as a jumping off point to start my projects in Term II, and to bring home a few fresh ideas. Instead, I felt off-task and thrown off all week, and unable to concentrate on the tasks at hand.
After a trying week, I've had some nice R&R in Kampala all week, staying with an embassy sponsor and a few other Volunteers. My friend Jen and I spent the day in Kampala, and had a "Treat Yo Self" day where we splurged our meager funds on little trinkets to make us feel better about ourselves.

The weekend before, Jim and I went down to wild Kisoro, right on the Congolese and Rwandan border, and in the very bottom corner of Uganda. Even though Kisoro is a short 1+ hour drive from my hometown of Kabale, it feels like a different world. A string of volcanoes make up the border of Rwanda and DRC, and somewhere in the distance you can see smoking volcanoes in the Congo. We stayed in Kisoro town at the Golden Monkey, and scored a free night at a fancy lodge the night before our hike. Mt Sabinyo (the local name translates "The Old Man's Tooth" due to its uncanny appearance to a molar) has three peaks, the last one so steep that they've built ladders into the mountainside. We hiked up the ridgeline on the right, passing under creepy moss-covered trees that probably inspired Dr. Seuss. The peaks of Sabinyo split the border between Uganda and Rwanda, and at the top of Sabinyo you can stand in three countries at once! (Uganda, Rwanda, Congo). As we hiked up, we looked down on a village on the Congo side, and saw the Rwenzori range in the distance, which is extremely rare for  this week to have such clear weather.

Our climb up Mt. Sabinyo's 3 peaks. (Photos by Jim Tanton)

Jim in front of Mt. Muhavura

The last peak, complete with ladders. 

A taste of hiking in Uganda.

No Time to West

Caitlin and I took advantage of our surroundings this past weekend and ventured to Queen Elizabeth National Park to camp and go on safari. We stayed with a fellow Volunteer, Jim, who lives in a village right on the edge of the park. The drive out there from Mbarara is stunning—passing so many rolling hills covered in tea that it feels out of The Wizard of Oz when they’re heading to the Emerald City. The rolling hills in the far west are spotted with crater lakes, perfect little moon-sized lakes that were formed from volcanic craters. You can only imagine how fertile and black the soil is in these areas. Then out of the mountains, you can look out into the Great Rift Valley, so flat that it looks like an ocean (I actually thought it was for a hot second and had to readjust my internal map). On the far side of the valley, where Queen Elizabeth Park is found, the Rwenzori mountain range rises above like a steam vents from an ocean floor. The Rwenzori range is the highest in Uganda and next on my list.

Hiking with chimps in the jungle

On Friday, we hiked around the area, first to explore the Twin Lakes, two perfectly round lakes side by side, with Queen as a backdrop. There are some cliffs around the lake that we attempted to climb, but it was too chossy to find anything good. In the afternoon, we hiked around the jungle, far away from any civilization. Above us, high in the treetops, chimps called out to each other, probably to warn of our presence. This is extremely rare to hear, or better yet, to see, unhabituated chimpanzees since they are such reclusive animals. We had a few hairy encounters with safari ants, otherwise known as marcher ants. [If you’ve ever read The Poisonwood Bible, these are the ants that march through their house and eat alive the chickens.] These ants are vicious, organized, and quite frankly, terrifying. They have lines going across the jungle floor and if you don’t watch where you’re stepping, you could be covered in ants with pincers and a purpose in no time.

Stuck in the mud! 

We had to run across one stretch where the floor was covered with them, doing high-knees like it was a track workout. We hiked through a serene pine forest to a remote lake in the jungle, where the local name translates as “Lake that cures Gonorrhea.” Good place to start? Absolutely. The water was extremely clear and blue, and apparently up to only 3 years ago, there was a medicine man living out in the cave that you would pay royalties to for use of the lake. Beyond going on safari, Jim also showed us around his site, House of Love, an orphanage run by a Christian mission. If you’re ever on the road to Queen Elizabeth Park, check out their craft market! They have some beautiful handmade items.

On Saturday, Jim’s friend Nick, a burly South African with a thick Afrikaans accent, picked us up with all the camping gear and we hit the road for our safari. We were 6 in all, including Marie from Germany and living in Kasese, and my friend Joseph from Fort Portal, who hails from MA and is here on a public health fellowship. Driving into the national park, we glimpsed elephants reaching up and tearing down branches. We also spotted warthogs, baboons, kob and topi (types of antelope). Our destination for the day was Ishasha, famous for the tree-climbing lions. I’d like to think they climb trees because taking a catnap in a fig tree sounds heavenly, but it’s actually to escape the vicious tsetse fly. 

We drove around the park for the whole day driving 4x4 through the mud. The mud is this country means serious business—we got stuck in the mud, despite the 4-wheel drive. We had to hike up our pants (or in some cases, take them off entirely) and just get into the knee-high, thick black mud and push the car. To say it was fun would be a massive understatement. It was a blast, and happened twice in the day. Slipping and sliding through the mud was priceless, with all of us sick with laughter. 

Sadly, we spotted no lions (even my “Here kitty, kitty” was useless, but our jokes about carrying Meow Mix was amusing) and headed back to the campsite for grilling. It didn’t seem like the best idea to be grilling a T-bone steak and whole chicken in a lion-infested park, but luckily we had two armed guards with us the whole night. Even to run out and use the latrine, we had to bring a guard to protect against lions, hungry hippos, other large creatures eager to munch on a tourist. The other worry is that we were right on the Congolese border (one step across the river and you’re in Congo!) and rebels could be hiding out in the facilities.

We pitched our tents right next to the river, and saw tons of hippos. We even saw a few mating, which looked…uncomfortable. They are extremely large creatures, and are actually one of the most dangerous animals in the world to mankind (more than sharks!). Do not get in the way of those tusks. Hippos also make an obscene amount of noise; camping next to them doesn’t make for the soundest sleep. They make a noise that might sound like your Uncle Larry snoring.

Sunday morning we stepped foot in the Congo and spelled out C-O-N-G-O with our bodies for an epic photo. We attempted to spot more lions, but with the rain the night before, the road were pure mud. And the mud here doesn’t muck around.

PS- Matatus (taxis) in this country usually have big letters across the windshield, like “Jesus Cares” or “God Loves You.” The title of this blog post is my new favourite new matatu name.