25 March
My time at VOLSET is coming to an end quickly. I’ve dreamt of being at home and missing Uganda only to wake up in Uganda and feel relieved.

This morning Mary and I did another home visit to an infirm man living with his sister in our village, Nsumba. I’ve started asking if I can take people’s photographs and, despite his illness, he and his sister were pleased to be asked. We all enjoy seeing ourselves! His English was good and had a stack of papers near his bed where he reads and writes although I don’t think he ever leaves his bed. He came to live with his sister when he was no longer able to care for himself. These visits make me realize what a posh life we live at the white house with occasional lights, furniture and even paint on some of the walls. We are most fortunate.

Although March is normally the start of the rainy season we have had no rain the entire time I’ve been here except for a torrential rain the first night I spent in Mukono the beginning of March. The dust from the road is coating everything and we have run out of water in our cistern. There is an elaborate gutter system that drains into a large tank and, when it is full, a much easier way to get water. This morning before our visit Mary, Deborah, Millie and Jane all went to fetch water from the natural spring down the lane. Probably a 10 minute walk but it is all up hill. People planted crops mid-March anticipating the start of the rain and many of those crops (beans, g-nuts, maize) are languishing without the rain. Nobody seems particularly concerned… I don’t think there has been a serious drought here for as long as anyone can recall.

How do you like Gloria’s new hair?

This week has been light work wise. I gave a presentation on Monday at a secondary school about personal hygiene, health, nutrition and water quality after spending most of the morning at the nursery school. Yesterday we gave another presentation to the Helm Secondary School (this is the third week we’ve visited) using the hour to answer the questions they’d submitted last week. It is obvious the curriculum lacks a reproductive health component and hopefully that will be included in the VOLSET talks in the coming weeks. Festus does an excellent job of answering the questions honestly and frankly but with a sense of humor which keeps the students engaged and also more at ease. The students and the headmaster gave me a very nice farewell and I was struck at how disappointed I felt knowing I wouldn’t be returning. This is the type of education I enjoy- sharing information with students that is relevant to their lives in a way that treats them as young adults. I only wish condoms were made more available to these students, and young adults throughout Uganda. In a culture that considers 10 year old girls “mature and ready for sex” they shouldn’t be surprised when teenagers at a boarding high school are engaging in sex and getting pregnant.

A 15 year old neighborhood girl was recently hospitalized after she tried to give herself an abortion. There is a plant (common enough that Jane pointed it out on the side of the lane) whose leaves you chop up and make into a tea which is thought to induce an abortion. Apparently she started to bleed profusely- her parents brought her to the clinic 4km to the south only to have the clinic say they couldn’t help and she should go to the hospital 8km in the other direction. I haven’t heard how she is doing.

Last weekend I went to Jinja with 2 other Real Uganda volunteers, Mayra (coincidentally from Boston, originally from Venezuela) and Zoe, an 18 year old from Ithaca, NY. Zoe was in town because she decided to leave her placement (an AIDS orphanage about 50km northwest of Kampala) after the director of her program received word that the villagers were planning a Muzungo sacrifice. In her village sacrifices are not uncommon- when they opened the market 12 children were sacrificed. Many parents will inflict cuts on their children so they are blemished/scarred as only un pierced, unblemished virgin children are appropriate for sacrifice. It was interesting to me that Lee (Real Uganda coordinator) told Zoe she should return- that it was just a scare tactic and they wouldn’t harm a white American with so many piercings (Zoe does have a lot of piercings)…. But I don’t blame her for not wanting to return. Especially since she walks unaccompanied for an hour each way between the orphanage and where she lives.

Off we went to Jinja to white water raft on the Nile. First we stopped in the town to get some western food (there are a lot of Aussie’s here catering to the Muzungo tourists) which included my first cup of non-instant coffee and a brownie. We then went north along the Nile to the base camp for the white water rafting- which also has the most incredible outdoor shower. It is set into a high bluff overlooking a bend in the Nile. There are doors to get into the shower but then open overlooking the water. No matter there was no hot water. Simply having water coming out of a shower head and a view in the evening light was more than enough for me.
The next day was the rafting adventure. There were class 1-5 rapids and if we didn’t flip the raft in almost all the class 4 and 5 I would have said it was great. OK, it was pretty amazing to be rafting on the Nile and it was beautiful. The last rapid was a class 6 which we portaged around, followed by a class 5 called “the bad place.” I decided to sit that one out and let my sinus drain the portion of Nile which had been shot up my nose for the past 4 hours.

This outfit was also run by Australians but there were plenty of Ugandan guides whose English had a bit of an Australian accent. There were three rafts of Muzungos, one safety raft, and then ½ dozen safety kayakers who would go through the rapids first and then standby to rescue the muzungos who got tossed out. They kayaks were the smallest I’ve seen, maybe a meter and a half in length, and I was impressed with how quickly they made sure everyone was accounted for and had us back to the rafts. But I will say it was exhausting getting tossed out and hauling yourself back in. That evening I decided to head back to Mukono as hanging out in the camp bar, listening to loud distorted music with a bunch of muzungo twenty-something’s wound up about rafting and cheap beer was not so appealing. 24 hours of being a tourist was plenty for me.

On Saturday I hope to spend the day in Kampala and return for the big party at the Future Diplomats school on Sunday. I bid adieu to VOLSET, Ntenjeru and my many mukwanos (friends) Sunday night as I return to Kampala to embark on a 3 day safari to the north west of Uganda. Thursday night I fly to Nairobi and then Amsterdam and on home.