Arriving at VOLSET in Ntenjeru

02 March 09
After a farily sleepless night at the Mukono guesthouse (15’ from the major thoroughfare between Kampala and Nairobi) Festus, director of VOLSET, picked me up. We did some shopping in Mukon before driving to Ntenjeru. It’s a red dirt road to my village and while there are potholes and bumps it’s nothing like the road to Trail Lake Ranch (for those of you familiar with the old Audubon camp inDubois).
I live at the dormotory for the school which VOLSET runs for children born with or living with HIV/AIDS. I met Deborah who recently graduated from school but has stayed on to provide meals for Festus, his wife Mary (a nurse and midwife) and me. There is also a peace corps volunteer named zach from California but he prepares his own meals. The other resident is 1 year old Gloria who was found abandoned in the jungle about 3 months ago. She now spends her days with Deborah who clearly loves her and gives her good care. The only way I could get Gloria even slightly engaged or animated was to hold her up and encourage her to take steps. She has a very distended belly and doesn't bother to brush away the flies that rest on her. My goal is to see her smile at least once before I go!
Basics- food at VOLSET is very good. Today for lunch we had chicken, rice with carrots, cooked eggplant, some left over pasta and avacado. This is a big improvement over the meals I had the first couple of days with no vegetable- only white rice or white corn maize, white bread. Apparently the carbohydrates are considered the food of the wealthy and vegetables and fruits (the things that grow and are considered “free”) are the food of the pour. According to Lee (Real Uganda program coordinator) there are cases of malnutrition in wealthier people here because they don’t eat a balanced diet.
For those of you familiar with Africa you are familiar with the pit style toilets. I, now, am too. As David likes to point out I’ve never been shy about taking a short trip (pee) outside and I’ve gotten adept at hanging toes or heels off the blocks depending on how long or short the trip is to the toilet. Bathing is done with jerry cans and big basins. The splash or scoop and poor method. So far not too bad and I’ll attempt to wash my hair tonight. I suppose it’s a good thing David cut off close to 4” (he might argue 3”) before I left although I didn’t think it was a good thing at the time. Thanks D, it’s much easier.
Tomorrow I go to the office with Festus to plan what my days will encompass. I believe he’d like me to teach…. We’ll see. I will update this as best I can but we rely on solar power at VOLSET and charging the battery on this laptop will be a challenge!