First Days in Uganda

Our time in Uganda, though short, has been packed full of learning and adventure!  Kampala itself is a large, congested city of over 2 million.  They say that it swells to nearly 3 million during the daytime when people come in from surrounding towns to work, and the traffic is a testament to that fact!  You need to drive using a different set of rules from the ones we are used to! 

The temperature is very tolerable.  I would guess it is in the 80s with about 50-60% humidity.  I can wear short sleeves and be relatively comfortable without any air conditioning. 

Our home is lovely.  It is a modest stucco and stone construction with three small bedrooms, two baths and a nice dining/living room area next to the kitchen.  It sits on a hill with a great view over the city.  There is a B’hai temple on a distant hill that graces the view.

The Ugandan people we have met are the friendliest, most engaging people.  We have had dinner with the families of a couple of the people we work with.  The conversation was so informative of local culture and politics that we feel we have learned a lot in the short time we have been here.  Too much for the purpose of this writing to go into detail!

Our first trip out of Kampala was to the town of Kamuli.  We visited Ugandan NGO (non-governmental organization or “aid agency” as they are sometimes known in the US) that we partner with called AIDS Education Group for Youth.  They are implementing three projects in Kamuli.  The first is one for children who have been orphaned when their parents died of AIDS.  It provides education for the children.  The education is free at the government school for children through grade 7, and we provide funding for the students who are older so that they can continue through high school or some type of vocational training.  We also provide funding for uniforms and schools supplies for all 212 students age kindergarten through high school. 

Their second project is a home visitation project for people living with AIDS.  It provides education and counseling for them, support groups, and income generation projuects, mostly goat or pig raising.

The third project trains youth in conflict mediation skills so they can help with peer mediation in their high schools.  Hopefully they will carry these skills forward into adulthood to be conflict mediators in their communities. These youth are alseotrained in constructing “Lorena stoves” and then go back back to their villages to train others how to make and use them.  The stoves burn a lot less wood, so are better for the forests, the air quality, and also reduce the amount of firewood a woman must gather and carry every day to meet her household needs.

AEGY runs these programs with very little assistance other than funding and training.  We will also be seconding a volunteer to teach English in their school for the coming year.  The project manager and officers are very committed, well spoken and extremely capable people.  It was inspiring to see the work they are doing and the passion they have for the work that they do!

On the way home we stopped in the town of Jinja and had lunch at the Kingfisher Resort.  It sits right at the source of the Nile River where the river flows out of Lake Victoria.  It was such a picturesque scene with the lake and the river in the distance,  the beautiful rolling, manicured lawns and landscaping, and a host of tropical birds to grace the scenery with their colors and their calls.  We saw a Crested Eagle, a mmanikin, red-cheeked Cordon Bleus, a Black Kite, and an assortment opf cranes and loons.  At least that is what I was told by our hosts, Gann and Dale Herman who are the current MCC Representatives we will be replacing.