Rubingo

Well I have finally arrived at my new home. Monday the 17^th of October we left Mbarara town and drove into the hills and valleys to Rubingo village and the water project area. The area is all big rolling hills with valleys in between, dotted with villages. Rubingo camp is on a little hill in a valley so we can see the surrounding hills and plantations. It is a beautiful place, very idyllic rural African sort of idea! It is lush and green, almost everyone in the area relies on subsistence farming for their living. There are Matooke trees EVERYWHERE!! Not to mention goats, cows, sheep, and lots of dirty little children running around screaming and waving at us! Matooke is a type of banana tree but matooke is green and tastes sort of like plantains. It is a big hit here diet wise but I’m not sure I agree with the Ugandans on that one!! They also have a type of banana tree whose fruit is used for local brew, as well as bananas like we are used to…yellow and sweet. These I love!! Anyways…..moving on from food. I live in Rubingo work camp in a sweet little safari tent “nestled” (not my word!) in a wooden platform/roof structure. Camp is on a slope like everything else around here so you have to be careful not to wipe out when it rains! My tent is at the very top so I can overlook camp and the valley below. There are 6 of these safari tents as well as dining room and office wooden shelters. There are also rooms for the local staff who live here at camp. I have to tell you about our shower because it is a nice little set up with papyrus reed walls and no roof, this is the kind of shelter Ugandans use for their bathing, but for us they even hooked a hose up to a shower head and we have our own little outdoor shower! The water is kept in big black pipes on the hillside so it is warmed by the sun and if you have a shower at around 3 in the afternoon you might even get warm water! Either way it is very refreshing.

When we first got here we met all of the staff and specifically those whom we will be working with. They are all wonderful people who have done their best to translate and explain everything to us so we know what is going on! We have had the chance to visit all of the different projects in the Rubingo area that ACTS has implemented, even the ones not in our field of expertise so to speak. We hiked to the source of the water project, viewed the holding tanks, and visited the tap stands in the villages that deliver water. The health and agriculture crew has kind of been working together this past little while so we all understand what the others are doing. Katie (the other nurse) and I went with Graeme and Laura (Agriculture crew) to some meetings of the Widows Mutual Benefit Societies. These are groups of widows who share land and garden together as well as make crafts for income. ACTS assisted in implementing these self governing groups and helps them out as well with land rental, and other needs that arise. Many of the widows are aging and it is difficult for them to work in the field so we are trying to arrange a selling strategy for their crafts so they can have a sustainable and sufficient source of income. These ladies work so hard, in the garden as well as other jobs, and many still lack the money for simply homes to live in, or school fees for their children. The needs are many and it has been overwhelming at times meeting with many people and groups who look to us as an answer to all their needs. We Muzungus (white people) represent money to them and in many ways it is true. Without the resources and opportunities that we have it is difficult to get ahead especially when there is no form of governmental social security to fall back on in hard times. It really is a testament to fundraising because there are soo many legitimate needs and people who need support. Our job is going to be trying to create sustainable ways of helping these people so when we leave it keeps on happening. However that takes money in the first place a lot of the time! These first few months we will just be learning and taking it all in, there is so much work represented here, of years and years of interns from Canada, as well as the ongoing work of the staff here who know far more than we do!! Luckily they are teaching us! There are so many experiences I have had so far in little over a week! I will have to write more about them later, from visiting with widows, to filling out health/sanitation home surveys in the villages, to going to market, to crazy church services, to home visits with our HIV/AIDS clients. Each one could have its own blog entry! For now I will hopefully just leave you with some more pictures because they say more than I can!!

Our beautiful valley, with Rose, one of our Health/Sanitation workers standing on the path. I climbed that mountain behind her at 6am one day!!











This is my lovely safari tent! My home. It was laundry day when I took this picture so my deck is a bit cluttered.


















The view of camp downhill from my tent. You can see the dining room building on the left and on the lower right is the office building. And a big cactus in the lower middle which has to be avoided in the dark!!







The Rubingo Aid Station.

FINALLY...PICTURES!!!!

Crazy Kampala! They have a plethora of crazy billboards here as well.

















A busy street in Kampala. Now you can see why sometimes the safety of the bus driving through this is preferable to walking throught it!! There isn't a lot of room on the streets!!

Musiibire muta baasebo na baanyabo!

Hey everyone, I don’t know what time it is there but I have just greeted you in Runyankole, using the afternoon/evening greeting. Now you have to say “Nsiibire gye, Nyabo!” As you can see my day of language training has really payed off! Until you hear me try to pronounce it that is.
So I have officially arrived on the continent! After two 8 hour plane rides, separated by a 10 hour layoff at heathrow airport [where I randomly met a Jamaican reggae band! networking for the next trip ;) ] we finally arrived bedraggled but excited to the messy, busy, fascinating city of Kampala. We had 3 days in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, to acclimatize so to speak. Our beautiful guesthouse was a very “westerner” oriented bubble. But we had the experience of venturing out into the city in the best way possible for newbies… our mini-bus! With our faithful driver at the wheel we went into downtown Kampala, all 14 “Muzungu” (white person) glued to a window. It is impossible to describe, pictures help, but you have to be there (or a similar foreign city) to really know! I loved driving around because the city is right outside your window, quite literally, in fact if you put your head out to peek you are face to face with somebody! Any space between the van taxi’s and cars is filled with a scooter, bicycle, or pedestrian!
But at least in the bus you are also protected from having to actually step into the madness! And that way when you draw awkward attention, as we always did, we could zoom away after a few seconds of interaction!! Like the time I tried to take a picture of some guys on the street because they were waving, but then I realized one of them had a rifle, which is a big no no to take pictures of everyone tells you. And they were calling out for us to give them money for the picture, of course this was when traffic decided to stand still!! Then there was the time we actually ventured out of the bus to go find the office of Boaz, who provided us with the drivers, and we ended up in some back alley ….now you have to imagine this….14 white people just randomly show up in this big herd, every eye is on us, and we’re awkwardly standing around and laughing at what we can only guess they are saying about us!! It was a pretty funny sight and I can definitely appreciate the absurdity of the situation!
Moving on, we left Kampala after recovering from jet lag and accomplishing a few key tasks…ie. getting cell phones, registering as nurses…the usual. Took a bus ride for 5 hours, crossed the equator! and arrived in Mbarara. This is our “home base” sort of, the closest town to Rubingo the village where I will be living most of the time. When we get days off or have business we come into Mbarara where ACTS has a home aptly named Canada House!! We have almost a week here to get some language learning done, review the paperwork from the past interns, go into town for errands etc. And also enjoy the luxuries of our own home, own cooking/food, and electricity!!!....well every other day on that one! That is where I am at the moment, typing out this message that I will hopefully send to you all tomorrow with the SUPER SLOW internet connections of rural Africa!!! God bless!! Miss you all!!

LOVE TANESSA

Worth a thousand words

Here are some pics of our great "team-building" kayak trip

Graham and I not feeling the morning vibe, I think I am adjusting my foot pedals. Prepared for all weather with our slick toque/hat combo, you can't see but I have one with a chief on it!! The nickname I made everyone adopt for me cause I decided I needed a better title than nurse volunteer. I am officially Chief Medical Officer now!! Much more impressive don't you think?!?!

Team Rubingo BLUE!! These girls are going to the same village as Graeme and I so we picked coloured coordinated kayaks!!

Team on a log.

We love Kayak!!

I thought I would start this entry with the words of our fellow intern Joel, the French Canadian, who was expressing his enthusiasm by commanding us all to yell "We love Kayak!!!" Ahh the new friends I am making. I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you a little bit more about each of them, in their own words! We all took the chance to create this list of comments about each of us, yes some of them are inside jokes, but if you ever get to meet any of them it would all make sense!!! So here's the breakdown...6 of us are CIDA interns with six month posting, 1 corporate intern with six month posting, 3 six month volunteers, and one lone 2 month volunteer (he's gonna want to stay longer!!!) So that is 11 of us.


some phrases to describe each intern...so far:

John "Wilson": Mongolia to herd horses...Hardy Boy...quick dry...mefloquine mondays...
Laura: gives you the straight goods...sustainability...lacking internal compass...nice bum
Ryan: creative when it comes to rules...Mr. unpredictable Fix It... fire-retardent pants...the corporate cow
Graeme "Little G": the bearded baby...the token yank...the glue...
Katie: quick to laugh...knows where stuff is...good at filling awkward silences (ie. "whoopsies")Tyler: born to be an engineer...passport photo winner...Mr. I Won't Do It (ie. Dukarol...blog...)Joel: quebecois...trekker (ie. trying to keep up with his Aunts)...Uganda and beyond (ie. Tibet)Melanie: the local...laundry room songster...van DJ...eternal optimist...
Tanessa "the chief": crazy energy ball...'making memories' - aka breaking the couch
Bryony: free with her fists (agression?!?)...cackle...85% goodness...part-time hilarious..
Emily: machine gun laugh...distracted/crazy driver...surprisingly short...

Orientation in Comox

In an effort to quench my eternal procrastination I am writing another entry already! I am trying to delay the inevitable which is me updating my blog, after the entire trip is already over!!! So....

Orientation: the quick overview.

Before embarking I have a week of orientation in Comox on the Island. After sad goodbyes I came across with a van full of other participants on the ferry. Friday night was a delicious dinner for all of us, the new interns, some of the returned interns from last year, the team leaders. We settled into the hostel house which we have overtaken and booked full for the week!

Saturday: long but good with lots of input from last years interns whose places we are taking and shoes we are filling, hopefully!! Getting excited about the work ahead.

Sun/Mon/Tues: Church and time off, trip to the beach and poked a jellyfish!! Followed by two days of training by the Center for Intercultural Development (or something like that). Had some crazy flashbacks from Nursing school (small group activities, talking about our "feelings" and creating posterpaper presentations!!) But managed to come through hopefully as prepared for Ugandan life and culture as you can expect for a little white girl. I can now say God Keep You and Mr/Mrs in Ryunyankore...the lovely local dialect I will become fluent in (yeah right)!! Starting to get a feeling for what my role will look like in the Rubingo Aid Station (health clinic) but as they keep saying over and over to the scared, nervous interns "all will become clear once your on the ground". Sure...sure.

Muraare gye
(good night)

In the beginning...was a blog

I have decided to make THE first blog ever of my life to help update everyone with news and pictures during my trip to Uganda. So here it is!!!

Finally ... after about 2 weeks of crazy and frantic pre-departure preparation I have begun my new adventure! Props go out to:

Lindsey: fabulous roomate and best friend for tolerating utter chaos in our living room, rising stress levels, and a pre departure To Do list that included hand written thank you notes and programming my entire I-Pod :) I am eternally grateful babe

Sarah: other uber-fabulous roomate giving out free hair do's, barmaid services at the benefit concert, and fried tofu snacks!

Sheldon: my darling, for inummerable best boyfriend behavour too vast to mention but including coffee deliver, car service, emotional support, and the one that deserves a Nobel prize in the world of relationships...the 4 hour shopping trip to WalMart for last minute "essentials"!!! (Lord bless that man!)

..not to mention many others who loved and supported me enough to get going on this dream of mine...my parents/everyone who helped out at the benefit concert/my financial supporters etc. etc. ...what is this an academy speech?! Needless to say it takes a whole lot of people to get me out of a house!! Never mind a country!!

Ok so carrying on. I am going to Uganda as a volunteer nurse with ACTS to work in a village called Rubingo. I will be working at a small health clinic there as well as potentially helping to run a number of ACTS health related projects: HIV/AIDS program, working with widows. More details to come. I am there for a 6 month term.

At the moment I am on Vancouver Island for a week of orientation before departing on Oct 7th for Uganda. I am staying in a hostel with 10 other wonderful people who are going with me on this excursion:

THE LINE UP:

Bryony
Emily
Katie
Mel
Laura
Ryan
John
Joel
Ty
Graham


Remember those names because you will be hearing more about them in the next 6 months!!! First impressions are great :) and plus they are all going to read this in 5 minutes ;) no seriously I have now had a chance to stop/breathe and turn my thoughts to the months ahead and the work we are attempting to accomplish and have become so excited. I am thankful to God to have this opportunity and only pray to Him that I will be filled with the strength to accomplish what I am setting out to do and in some way have a positive influence that would not exist had I not came and will continue on long after I leave! Praise the Lord for miracles... (and Sheldon...just can't get over that shopping trip, seriously we hit every aisle except car parts and paint and he STILL didn't complain!!)