Pearls from Africa: 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.