Arrival

So I made it!!! I arrived in Entebbe yesterday afternoon after a relatively uneventful lot of flights. I think I may have made some progress on my fear of flying, but I think the wine may have had something to do with this! I didn't think I was going to die until I was on my flight from Addis Abba (Ethiopia) to Entebbe (Uganda) when we experienced horrible turbulence for the entire flight. Good thing it was at the end of the journey, or I may be trapped somewhere in Dubai!!! I was also lucky enough to have an additional encounter with the grumpy Air Canada flight attendant on my flight to London. If you remember my story from last year, this is the lady who refused to serve us food and who threw shoes at us when Sarah and I flew from Toronto to London. This time, she had a breakdown, complete with profanities, beside my aisle after she couldnt stack the food trays. After she dumped garbage all over the airplane floor, she started throwing things and yelling. Quite entertaining!!! At least this time, her anger wasn't directed at me! I ended up sleeping in the Heathrow Airport and the Dubai airport and arrived in Entebbe relatively free of jet lag. Everything here is pretty much the same as I left it. We spent the night at the always comfortable and reliable Green Valley Inn and spent the morning today at the Entebbe market and at the botanical gardens. I have just arrived and already I have had several people ask for my mobile number and email, etc. Ahhhh Ugandans! Now that I am with my sister, we seem to attract a lot more attention. Many people here have not seen twins before. Now that we are travelling together, I should technically change my blog name to "Nykato Lillian and Nyangoma Lola do Uganda!" Anyways, I don't have too much to report since I have been here for less than 24 hours. We are leaving for Kampala tonight so I am sure to have stories soon. We are going to venture onto a matatu with all of our luggage...scary. Oh and one last thing. I forgot just how much I missed the annoying bird and bug noises here. Trying to sleep with a choir of bugs and waking up to the "Hoo Hoo Hoohoo" noise of the doves here is truely priceless. I have yet to have matoke and g-nuts...but soon.

A Little Ray of Sunshine

I left Mbarara on the morning of the 24rd. Hilda and Deborah came with me on the bus. Once we arrived in Kampala, we went to Mango hospital together to visit Anthon. It was really good to see him and his mother. He had surgery the day before but was still in good spirits. They removed the infected portions of bone and put an external fixator in (pins to stabilize the bone). He was on lots of antibiotics and pain medication but his mother told us that he was being strong. He had not cried for a single one of his injections. When I asked him how he was doing, he said that he was feeling much pain, but from the outside you never would have known it. What a courageous little boy! I hope he continues to do well.

Anthon, Me, his mother and Deborah:

My Last Day in Mbarara

My last day in Mbarara was actually spent in Masaska, buying goats. We did not return to Mbarara until 430 pm and then we got lost trying to find the place where we were to drop the goats off. It was starting to get dark, but I made one last visit to some of my favorite kids in the villages. I had some photos printed earlier and I gave these away to the kids. They were very happy to finally receive a hard copy of a picture after having many taken. I gave some other small gifts away and it was a really good night! I finished off the night by taking milk tea and casaava. It was a nice way to end the day.

Me and Elizabeth:
Me and Anthony:
Me and Fareed:
All the kids:
Me and Ida:
Meeka with his new shoes:

Buyin Goats

After my string of bad luck, things started to go well for me again. I had just a few days left in Uganda, and I thought I would make the most of them. What better way to spend ones time than buying goats! Exciting eh? Well, not really... On Tuesday (July22), we drove out to Kasesse, which is about 3 hours north west of Mbarara. The drive was beautiful considering we had to pass through Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Tea Plantations:

Lake Albert:

Kazinga Channel:

The equator:

When we arrived at the farm to purchase the goats, we were sadly disappointed. Although the animals looked good, there were some discrepancies with their records etc, so we decided not to buy any of the goats. The following day we travelled another 3 hours to Masaska (east of Mbarara) to visit a well-known dairy goat farm. We were impressed with the goats and bought 13! Our original plan was to shove all the goats in the back of our small SUV, but needless to say, we realized quite quickly that this plan was not going to work. Instead, we took 5 goats with us and arranged for the transport of the rest the following day. Luckily these were well behaved goats so the journey with them went well.

A string of bad luck

It has been some time since I last posted an update. At the beginning of the week, I got hit with a really bad cold that I got from one of the ladies in the villages. I know it was from her because everyone that worked with her 2 weeks back is now suffering. I was starting to get better from that illness when I got hit with a nice case of food poisoning. That kept me in bed for a good day and without food for almost 3. I was starting to feel better from that when I accidently (stupidly) deleted all the photos from my camera. I had not backed up the majority of the photos so needless to say, I am devastated. I had some pictures on the work computer so I was hoping that would be able to retrieve some of these. Again, my bad luck continued. The computer crashed and is now completely out of commission. So, I guess the end result of this crappy past week is that I have few pictures to show from my trip and I have no real update for now. I do have some good news though. I have arranged to volunteer at the Uganda Wildlife Education Center for my last three days in Uganda. I am not quite sure what I will be doing but I feel confident that I will be able to spend some time with the chimpanzees. Now the challenge is leaving my camera alone long enough to get some photos back to Canada! Sigh....

Anthon

I started out the day by attending church with Hilda. It was a very dynamic ceremony with loads of singing and many "hallelujahs!" I had met the pastor a few weeks ago when we treated his pigs. During his sermon, he mentioned our ability to 'heal is pigs; praise the lord...hallelujah!!" I guess I have healing powers. Awesome!

Today was also the day that we picked up Anthon and his mother, Cecilia, and took them to the orthopedic center. They are being transported to Kampala tomorrow so that Anthon can have his surgery. When we arrived at their home, there were many people from the community there. Most of the people there were helping Cecilia prepare the house and the other children for her departure. It was wonderful to see how the whole community got together to help this one family. While we waited, Cecilia had set out tea, bread, avocados and bananas for us. We ate and watched the children play dodge ball with a wound up ball of plastic bags. When it was time to leave, Cecilia loaded the boot of our car with matoke, yams and eggplant! It was really nice of her. In return, I gave Anthon a teddy bear and his face lit up when I gave it to him. It was really cute. We had a safe journey to the medical center and I hope they are both now settling in well. I am still amazed by the generosity of people here and it reinforces my desire to help them in any capacity that I can.

Anthon (looking very smart today!) and his mother:

World Population Day

The National World Population Day was held in Mbarara, Uganda. It is an event that aimed at educating and encouraging local Ugandans to participate in family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention. FOAC was invited to participate in the event so we set up a booth at the stadium. The morning started slowly. The opening ceremony for the event was supposed to begin at 9am. So we had arrived good and early and had our booth ready to go. However, we neglected to remember one thing - African time! By 9am people were just starting to put up their tents and get their booths started. However, this was good opportunity for Francis (our co-worker at FOAC) to scope out the scene for free stuff. He found us free t-shirts, hats and he even hooked us up with badges that identified us as officials for the event. It was really funny how excited he was to receive and give out free stuff.
The opening ceremony began at 11:30 and there was a huge parade of school children complete with a brass band.
By mid-day, the guest of honor had arrived. Before he made his way to our table, we were instructed to 'prepare ourselves' and stand as he passed by. There was a huge crowd complete with photographers and groupies. I still have no idea who this man was (some representative for the president) but apparently his attendance was a big deal.