Ugandan Adventure 2010

Finished the report!

2011-01-31T19:07:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

How is it possible that it is already the last day of January? 2011 is off to a speedy start. I have always enjoyed thinking back to what I was doing a year ago to the day...on this day last year, Sarah and I would have been heading back to Kampala from Jinja after a weekend away with Katie, our new acquaintance from Switzerland.

Overlooking the Nile.
Well, in the last post I had alluded that we would have some exciting stuff to share...aka a synopsis our report! Well, we have composed the rough draft(52 pages later!!)...

Within the report is a basic review of rickets, nutrition, and relating these to Uganda. Details as to methodology. Results, as mentioned previously, in the form of graphs and tables. And, finally, the discussion bringing it all together.

As you may recall, I shared last time that analysis showed children with and without bone deformities in Kumi and Mbarara to be below the WHO recommended daily intake values for calcium, vitamin A and caloric intake. Within the discussion, we related this to a variety demographic factors affecting nutrition status...employment, family size, food expenditure, to name a few. And discussed the role of dietary calcium intake and how it could be (feasibly and affordably) improved.

So, the next step is getting stuff published...sure to be an adventure in and of itself.

Some kids fetching water from the local borehole.
For those who are interested, here is another neat report that I came across...WFP - Comprehensive Food Security and Vulernability Analysis - Uganda. Just a warning, it is kind of gigantic and might slow your computer down for a few minutes, but very interesting. Compiled by the World Food Programme, this report looks at a multitude of factors affecting food production and consumption all throughout Uganda.

Amazing balance.
Not quite sure who keeps up with our blog anymore, but we are most thankful for your interest. If at any time you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us at our email address ugandanadventure2010 at gmail dot com.

Take care,
Jo-Anna

December Update

2010-12-10T20:05:00.000-08:00

Hello!!

Somehow it is already almost mid December! Time is just flying by...Thought it would be a good idea to write a little about where we are just at the moment with the project and share a little bit of relevant literature I have been reading as of late. Interspersed throughout are pictures :)

Bandas off the road to Kumi Hospital with women out front doing their gardening.
Sarah and I are working away at preparing a very thorough report from the data collected. Data analysis is complete. (Thank goodness!!) But as we are learning, composing and arranging stuff in a meaningful manner is no simple task.

Cow herders on a road to get to Kumi Hospital. Oh, that red dirt!!
(I love this picture and posted a similar picture before.)
Analysis has shown that in general children were below the recommended daily intake values provided by the WHO for calcium and vitamin A intake, as well as calorically. It is a little tough in projects like this because you want your hypothesis to be correct...but would mean wanting children to be malnourished. And no one wants that!!! However, showing the children are malnourished does identify the problem...meaning that a solution or plan can be formed to help rectify the situation. And education as a means of prevention just seems so simple. The Ugandans we met were so eager to learn more about nutrition!!

A single row of shops near where we spent some time one fateful day waiting for the next taxi to come. (The time we were told we were going "nearby" and two and a half hours later, or so, arrived at our target destination - not a terribly fond memory).
I believe we were in Kashiri (a county within Mbarara district).
Leading up to this project both Sarah and I did a lot of reading and research to familiarize ourselves with nutrition in Uganda. Finding information was not as easy as one might hope, particularly in relation to calcium, as calcium intake really hasn't been investigated. Anyway, I recently came across this report put out by FANTA-2 and USAID in May 2010, titled "The Analysis of the Nutrition Situation in Uganda."
To check it out click here
http://www.fantaproject.org/downloads/pdfs/Uganda_NSA_May2010.pdf It is super thorough and goes over all aspects of nutrition in the various regions of Uganda. As well, it seems that many non-governmental organizations do have some sort of nutrition program in place, though I contemplate whether it is primarily providing food to those in need as opposed to raising awareness of appropriate feeding practices. A bit of a Catch-22, really! Both are important.

During our walk to see a child with an angular bone deformity,
we came passed this group on the road.
Well, that's all for now! We are planning to have some exciting stuff to share in January.

Hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas!! And best wishes for 2011!

Jo-Anna

An update...

2010-10-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

Hello!!

Wow! An update is quite overdue...a month and a half is quite the hiatus. Of interest, today it is four months to the day that I (Jo-Anna) have been back in Canada. That would make it almost five for Sarah. This is a post about where we are at with our research, as well as a few pictures from our time in Uganda...I tried to choose pictures that hadn't been posted before.

A boy drinking his porrige out of his lovely blue cup. We were told they were called 'nice' cups. Everyone seemed to have them.
If we thought that we spent a lot of time putting data into our computers in Uganda, well, that was just the beginning!! We are knee deep number crunching just at the moment...with no end in sight (or so it feels). We were a little stuck back in September, as we needed a way to convert our food measurements from cups to grams. Putting the measurements into grams was necessary to determine nutrient intake. After spending oodles of time inputting conversion factors into Excel we have derived nutrient values. Now we just have to rearrange it all such that it can be easily analyzed and get on to data analysis. Things are definitely moving in the right direction, though!!

What to say about trends that we have seen...hmmm...well, Ugandans really like their grains and starchy vegetables!! Matoke, millet, maize, rice, potatoes, and cassava are definite staples.

Mmmmmmm...millet!
As one might recall, our research was intended to derive some sort of estimate of calcium consumption. I am unsure of the average daily calcium intake, but can say pretty certainly that it will be below that of the suggested daily intake for children in Canada. No surprise there. From looking at the food composition values, it was interesting to learn that millet is a pretty decent source of calcium. As well as amaranth leaves. Cassava leaves also appear to have a high calcium content, but there are varieties that are poisonous. Have to be careful before suggesting that one! Silver fish are super fantastic, as they can be ground up and consumed. The calcium is found in the bones. Milk is undeniably the best way to get one's calcium (as would be expected), but consumption is rare as few can afford it. We are also determining average daily caloric and vitamin A intake.

Two ladies walking down the road in Kumi.
Well, that is all for now.

Will update again in the future :)
Jo-Anna

PS - If you want to look at the food composition tables we are using, go to http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/files/tanzania-food-composition-tables.pdf. Uganda doesn't actually have their own food composition tables, so were provided with some from Tanzania that were collected and analyzed with the assistance of Harvard.

Pictures that didn't make it on previously...

2010-07-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

I had hoped to post some more pictures before leaving Kampala, but as previously mentioned the internet was not cooperating at all. Anyway, here are some shots that I like and hope you will enjoy...most are meant to give you a bit more of a feel for Kampala, but there are also a trip I took to the equator marker before Masaka with Angela and Katie. (A side note: To call the ride there ridiculous, would be an understatement, as it was the first time that I actually feared for my life while in a matatu. And that after using matatus as my main source of transportation for the five months! In short, it was raining hard and the road was under construction, so we were driving on a gravel surface with lots of pot holes at full speed, all while the windows were totally fogged up. Driver's included. A few of the ladies in the matatu were actually yelling at him.)

Hope all is well :)
Jo-Anna

Sarah, Angela, and I with a security guard in front of the cinema in Garden City shopping centre. After being in Kumi for a month and a half, the three of us met up in Kampala and went for lunch and movie! It was a little strange being in such a big city again. For some reason this picture always makes me laugh.

Sarah, Katie, and I posing with an elephant statue outside of Oasis, another mall right beside Garden City where we would do a bit of our grocery shopping for the stuff that we could not find in the roadside markets. The grocery store here, called Nakumatt, was like a WalMart and even had two floors!

This is a view of Old Kampala from the Namirimbe Cathedral. We would go to the Namirimbe Guest House to use their wireless internet. It was a lot faster there than other places.

A view of downtown Kampala from a four story building. It isn't quite representative, as it was Sunday, so it was remarkably less busy downtown than usual.

Another picture from the Sunday downtown, but at street view. Bodaboda and matatus included!

This is what the road coming out of the new taxi park looks like at around 3. It is referred to as a jam...wall to wall matatus and one can expect to wait an hour just to get to the road they need to. When we were staying in Makindye in January, we would get stuck in the jam, but after that we stayed in Mengo/Rubaga which meant we got to go out another way and didn't have to wait quite so long. Keep in mind that it is suuuupppper hot while you are sitting in the matatus. Not the most pleasant, but that's life!

On the street in Kampala, in lieu of payphones like that we see in North America, are individuals with these cool yellow phones. You can make your call using one after talking with the individual in charge. Angela and I nicely asked if we could have our picture with them, as we thought they were pretty funny. (For quite a few weeks we had been talking about how we needed to find one and have our picture taken, as we jokingly called them banana phones given the colour).

The phone operator kindly let Angela take his picture. Here he is just hanging out waiting for a customer. Who wouldn't want to talk on a cool yellow phone!?

Katie, Angela, and I at the equator sharing a good laugh. After the crazy ride and the pouring rain at the equator, we were a tad giddy.

Another at the equator.

Me on the equator line!

Group breakfast at our guesthouse on Katie's last day (I left the day after Katie). Angela very kindly went all out with breakfast! Am currently missing passion fruit!

Nina's boots. Nina, the young daughter of the owners of the guesthouse, had left her boots at the door as it poured outside with rain.

Finally...my reflections on Gulu!!!

2010-06-29T22:34:00.000-07:00

Hello again!!

Weird not to have blogged for so long...I am going to miss it a little when I finally give it up.

Okay, so this took way longer to post than I had anticipated...having been back just over two weeks and all...Nonetheless, as promised previously, here is my final reflections on Gulu post. I must admit I had difficulty writing this post in a manner such that it is cohesive and to the point, so I apologize in advance.

(Just a note, I have a couple more posts still after this one, so keep checking the blog. As well, come August I hope to update you more on our project, the outcome, future plans, and more...things are just a tad on hold for the month of July and a bit.)

Katie and I had a good chat with Sally about the troubles that Gulu has faced and continues to face, and the challenges the people of Gulu have to overcome in the future. It is from this conversation that I draw these inferences.

Again, a little history...northern Uganda has seen over 20 years of civil war. Some may have heard of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), headed by Joseph Kony. It occupied the area and terrorized many. Possibly you have even heard of child soldiers? Basically, the LRA would capture children from the villages and use them as soldiers. It was so bad, that we were told parents would not send their children to school for fear that the LRA might come and kidnap them. At night people would opt to stay in gated areas for protection, as they were easier to defend. The hospital where Alex works, St. Mary's Hospital Lacor, was one place where the people would go to sleep at night due to night time attacks by the LRA, as it is gated (making it easier to patrol). There was no free ground space, as apparently 2000 and 10,000 women and children would crowd into the hospital compound nightly seeking a safe place to sleep.

St. Mary's Hospital Lacor - view from the street. The hospital was also often caught in the crossfire during the Idi Amin era.

We were told that children born in the displacement camps (now young adults) do not wish to return to their villages, as having not been raised in the village they do not know how to live life there. Instead, this group has opted to go to Kampala and seek employment there.

Throughout our time talking with Sally, the Ugandan military and UN were 'practicing' in the background at a camp about fifteen minutes away (aka gun noises and loud booms). Sally thinks that the military, along with the UN, are going to attack Kony in the Congo sometime in the coming months, as a Kony has been back to his old ways as of late. He recently stormed a village in the Congo.

If you are interested in more facts about Kony and the LRA, a google search would provide lots of info. He is not a good man and the details are not pleasant.

Katie and I have found the people of Gulu to be friendly and kind. Life here moves a little slower as people live in the moment. Most are quite friendly and greet us sincerely as we walk down the street. Having spent quite a bit of time in the market, we found the market ladies to be warm and genuine. All are more than eager to help us, even if it means referring on business to someone else.

This is a repost, but I love this picture! Some of the market ladies laughing because Katie wanted to take their picture. They found it equally as hilarious when she showed them the actual picture on her camera.

Ladies sewing.

Alex and Sally in the market.

The incidence of mental health problems is clearly higher. It is not uncommon to see a drunk man wandering down the street and saying something a little too loud. There are also several wounded people who limp or walk on crutches. What was explained to us was that people here try to forget the horror that they have seen and experienced. Some deal with it in different ways from others. Many are yet to deal with the anguish, rather keeping it buried below the surface as they just want to move on.

Katie on Market Road.

A herd of cows that we shared the path with on one of our walks.

Huts that we walked past down the road from our hotel.

Sally and Alex in front of the little building through which St. Mary`s Hospital was started.

Again, these are observations and explanations, as observed by and explained to us. Hopefully I'm not inserting too much of a Western outlook on things. Nonetheless, there is always hope and by all means I certainly hope that history does not repeat itself, the Ugandan north remains stable, and those who have been through so much would find peace and resolution.

Welcome back party!!

2010-06-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

I have super, fantastic, amazing friends who got together to throw Katie and I a surprise welcome back party. THANK YOU! It was so great to see everyone again after five months and I very much look forward to the summer ahead.

Here are a couple pictures from the party...

Faces of Gulu...

2010-06-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

Have arrived safely home! Wooohooo! Now that I finally have internet that works (have never appreciated wireless more in my life), I can post the pictures as promised. Am still working on text to go with, so stay posted. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

The first game of the World Cup was last night (South Africa vs. Mexico). Katie and I went and watched it at the cinema on the big screen. Was lots of fun to be in there with the Ugandans who were totally into it! I'm going to assume that those of you in Canada aren't aware that the World Cup is on, but it is in South Africa, which is pretty neat! Watching the World Cup in Africa in Africa. (Edit: I take it back! People in Canada do very much know about the World Cup. There isn't anywhere near the signage as there was in Uganda, but Canadians are well aware and watching. My apologies!)

The maize lady, from whom I purchased some fantastic road side maize!

Two guys riding past on a bicycle. This form of transportation is commonly called a push bike as the driver gives the passenger a 'push' or ride to his destination.

A girl walking by on the street enjoying her maize. The next few pictures were taken while I was sitting at a cafe people watching, so the setting may look a bit similar.

A child giving a toddler a lift.

Two children walking down the road.

Women on the street selling mangoes. It looks like they are looking at the camera and not too impressed, but if you zoom in on the original, you can tell that they are actually looking at something going on down the street. I had Katie stand in front of them and I pretended that I was taking a picture of her, such that it might be more candid. A bit more about the mangoes - if you wash them well enough, you can eat the skin. They are a bit smaller in size than typical mangoes and some would say sweeter, but all agree that they are very stringy. Very. The strings get stuck in your teeth and it is not the most attractive look around.

Katie's picture of women at the market we went to with Sally. Sally was buying tomatoes, so Katie asked if she could take their pictures. They thought it was hilarious that she wanted their picture. They burst into further laughter once they got to view the picture. People find it quite odd to see themselves on the screen.

A lady at the market.

Murchison Falls National Park

2010-06-07T03:42:00.000-07:00

Hello!

I have been so, so blessed this trip to have had such an expanse of experiences. And am so thankful. Sometimes it just seems like I have to pinch myself!

The latest of such adventures was a trip to Murchison Falls National Park. Murchison is in northern Uganda. One of its many draws is that it is the only place in Uganda to view giraffes in the wild. (I am now seriously in love with giraffes, but more on that later!!)

Our journey began with a 7 am departure from Kampala (and 5:45 wake up..yuck!) to Gulu. Our trip was planned with some friends from our guest house in Kampala, Marijt, Sjoerd, and Wanda. They are from the Netherlands (there is a picture of us all later in the post).

After meeting up in Gulu, we travelled together to Pakwach. The drive there was quite nice...not only was it scenic, but the roads were great! Minimal pot holes are always appreciated.

Our lovely green vehicle with our driver/guide Robert. At this point we had taken a pit stop to stretch our legs and enjoy the view. The roof of the van was really cool, as it popped up such that we could stand up and look out the top!

The long stretch of road ahead of us on our way to our destination.

Pakwach is a little fishing town outside of the park. Here we stayed the night, as accommodations within the park were entirely booked and we needed an early start for the game drive. We went to a local place for dinner and enjoyed beans and rice.

The next morning we had an early start again, leaving at 6:30. The sunrise was beautiful and the park was covered by a lovely mist.

A true Ugandan sunrise. Complete with a ball of sun.

Looking out at the mist amongst the trees. Lovely palms and acacias.

Our first spotting of the day was a lone elephant in the middle of our path. We had to wait a little bit for it to move.

Lone elephant in our path.

A short drive later and we were on to ungulates! Most of them were featured in the Queen Elizabeth post, so to keep picture to a minimum (there are still 20, but loading takes a lifetime), I am posting only the Jackson's hartebeest as there weren't any at Queen Elizabeth. They were pretty skitish, so that this picture was captured before it bounded away is pretty neat.

Male Jackson's hartebeest in the savannah grasslands.

Robert managed to spot a female lion way off in the distance. Somehow. Using binoculars, he further determined that she had two small cubs with her. As they wandered along hunting, they decided to cross right in front of us. Sooo cute! And this was all within less than an hour of being in the park.

The two little lions. It is rare enough to see lions at all at Murchison, so to see babies was quite cool. Credit goes to Katie for this picture!

On we went to view more animals, as pictured below. The incredibly variable topography within the park made it all the more interesting. Don't have many pictures of the variation to post, but sometimes there would be woodland forest, savannah grasslands, swamps, and more. Added to the ambience :)

Buffalo with birds on its head.

Crown crane. Uganda's national bird (I think). They always travel in pairs of two. Awwww.

A lone tree.

We saw many, many giraffe. They are so elegant with their long necks. They move rather slowly as the go along. When they run they look pretty funny with their long legs. They were so peaceful and nonchalant. The older the giraffe, the darker its colouring.

Mother and baby.

A pair munching on leaves.

Headed to the water in the mid morning. It was getting quite hot already.

I lied about not repeating previously seen ungulates. This is a waterbuck that stayed so still as we drove past.

The waterbuck.

Here are some young wart hogs. Pumbas! They made the cutest little oinking sounds. And when they run, their tails go straight up in the air. Very funny.

Young warthogs.

Around mid-day, we took a tour of the Nile up to Murchison Falls. We saw elephants, hippos, buffalo, birds, a monkey and Nile crocodiles. The falls were very beautiful and we hiked from a point where we were dropped off by the boat to the top. It was sooooo hot! We were all literally dripping with sweat. But it was worth it, as the view was fantastic. So much water all in one place!

Me with Murchison Falls as my backdrop.

Our group on the boat tour. If you have good eyes, you should be able to make out the falls in the back ground. From left to right, Marijt, Katie, Sjoerd, me, and Wanda.

The falls, as seen at the start of the hike.

Here is our group at the end of a very full and satisfying day.

Everyone looking normal. From left to right, Katie, Sjoerd, Marijt, Wanda, and me.

Spotting animals! Katie missed the memo on where to look :)

We all had such a fantastic day and are still marvelling at it days later. God has created such a beautiful earth with magnificent creatures to match!!

It is hard to believe that five months is coming to an end so soon, but can't wait to see you back in Canada!

Hope all is well with you all :)
Jo-Anna

First Thoughts on Gulu...

2010-06-06T00:54:00.000-07:00

Hello!!

As I type this, I am sitting in a boiling hot room in a village (Pakwach) just outside of Murchison National Park before I head to sleep. Today Katie and I travelled from Kampala to Gulu. I thought it would be interesting to write a first observations on Gulu post, based on the mere three hours that we spent there. We will see how my thoughts and outlook change in the coming week...

A little bit of background first as to why we are in Gulu...Sally, the founder of King's Daughters Ministries (KDM) has moved to Gulu to be with her husband, Alex, who is a doctor at a hospital here. They very kindly invited us up to see the next project that Sally is working on and to help out where possible. Sally is hoping to create a seed organization of KDM here in Gulu, similar to Kampala. As an added bonus, she hopes to organize a sort of farming cooperative. She has been given approximately 40 acres and desires to cultivate the land such that the produce might be able to feed those working it and the girls back in Kampala, with the extra going to be sold in the market. Pretty ambitious, but pretty neat, too! And if there is anyone who could do it, it would be Sally!

And back to Gulu...for those who aren't aware, until three years ago Gulu (and most of northern Uganda) had been quite war stricken. Most people would not dare go near Northern Uganda ten years ago. Some of you may be familiar with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and child soldiers. That was based out this way. Many people are still displaced from their homes and productivity is nowhere near what it should be. We are told that many still live in fear though it has been relatively stable here for a while.

As we drove into Gulu, it was fascinating to see all the people on foot along the main road. There were very few cars and bodas, but a huge number of people travelling a la pied. Most women were carrying various objects on their heads (crops, wood, jerry cans, etc.) and babies strapped to their backs, while men often had supplies for physical labour with them. Also unusual to see were multiple grown women riding bicycles. In general one might see young girls riding bicycles, but otherwise it is primarily men who do so.

Gulu is larger than I had expected it would be. It is more than just a one road town, rather covering quite an expanse. We got here just in time, too, as it is mango season! Yum! The town is not the cleanliest, but from what we could see, there is no reason to suspect that a war had ravaged the place such a short while ago. There are multiple NGOs and we have seen many signs for WorldVision.

View from the window of our hotel room.

None of these reflections have proven to be too deep. I guess I am more tired than I thought, but we will see what shapes up from this trip, as we have approximately a week here.

Hope all is well with you :)

Not all of you are from Victoria, but to those who are from Victoria, I hear that summer has not yet arrived. How sad! At the time of writing this, I return home in exactly ten days, and had quite been counting on jumping straight into summer weather. Eek! Should I be worried?

Until next time,
Jo-Anna

PS - For those who have asked, I return to Victoria on June 15. Can't wait to be back in Canada and see, hang out, and share my many experiences with you all!!

Life in Kampala

2010-06-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

***I posted twice. Bonus! Check out the post below for more on river rafting!***

Hello All!

We are watching Julie and Julia at the moment and Amy Adams' character just got in a fight with her husband about her blog and quest to do everything Julia and the others turned to me and told me not to let my blog ruin my marriage. (That will make sense if you have seen the movie.) Haha. Well thankfully I am not married so we don't need to worry about that! However, it did make me think that it is due time to update this blog...

Katie and I have been doing lots of walking all over Kampala and going to KDM in our spare time. Believe it or not I think I might be getting used to the craziness that is Kampala (or at least at used to it as I am going to get). I can actually walk down the streets these days and look around a little, not just constantly watch my path and footing.

Our latest expedition with the girls was making journals. To do so, we decorated paper and then pasted it to the cover. Hopefully the girls will be able to use the journals to record their thoughts and what they wish. We also brought along bubbles and balloons which the younger girls immensely enjoyed! Unfortunately, no pictures as Katie and I both forgot our cameras. Oops!

Last night we were invited to Sally's and Alex's for dinner. We were their first official guests to their house as a married couple! Quite the honour. We shared a lovely meal full with posho, beans, vegetables, and fruits! Katie didn't like my posho, but she actually kind of liked Sally's posho. My ego might be slightly bruised, but Sally's posho is a lot better. And then there is the fact that she is actually Ugandan and been making it for yeaaarrrssss.

Anyway, the following are some pictures of us throughout Kampala taken over the last several weeks. Sarah, you are in many too!

Typical scene where we get dropped off on the taxi (matatu). This area is right between the old and new taxi park.

Street side vendors. Found all over the streets of Uganda. Makes it a little trickier to walk around, but interesting to look at!

Katie on the street to the old taxi park in front of the little shops. The shop behind her is selling fabrics.

Sarah and I walking along a street in what we call classy Kampala (Kololo area). Note the building behind which demonstrates the use of wood for scaffolding!

Katie with Kampala as her backdrop.

A typical butcher. Note the furry tail left on the goat carcass hanging up. There is no refrigeration. Have I mentioned that I have become a vegetarian since coming to Uganda? (Was borderline prior, but have officially made the switch.)

Sarah and I in front of Mr. Tasty. A fast food place near the old taxi park. The staff is...interesting. Note the slogan...Mr. Tasty, the taste that makes you go Hmmmmmm.

Sarah and I in front of the old taxi park. It might seem crazy, but believe it or not there is some sort of order amongst the madness. Seems like a common theme...

Well, hope you enjoyed the post and pictures! We are off to Jinja to go river rafting. Pray that we have a safe trip and enjoy ourselves immensely :) Back to Kampala after that, then Gulu (with Sally and Alex as our guides), then Kampala, then Canada!

Finally, I must say a huge thank you to everyone who reads this blog. Don't say it often enough, but you have no idea how much I appreciate your interest and support. It means so much to me!!!

Have a lovely, fantastic day!
Jo-Anna

***I posted twice. Bonus! Check out the post below for more on river rafting!***

Jinja and River Rafting

2010-06-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

As alluded to earlier, we had bundles of fun rafting the Nile with Nile River Explorers in Jinja. This past weekend we had the opportunity to be tourists for a while, which was quite enjoyable. Here is a little more about our trip...

We left Kampala Saturday morning on a coaster. A coaster is a mix between a matatu (taxi) and a bus. It fits in neither category exactly, but combines both worlds. Everyone is packed in there like sardines (don't want to think about what would happen if there was an accident no exit aisle). At least it goes quite a bit slower and doesn't stop every ten minutes to let people on and off.

On the coaster. A picture kindly taken by another girl travelling to Jinja. The four of us got the last four seats on the coaster. The seats right down the centre of the aisle.

Anyway, the main attraction of Jinja this time round was to go river rafting! I had originally been quite wary of it (remember the family float trip of the end of January?), but was convinced by Angela's exuberant tales and Katie's enthusiasm for a new adventure.

We were led down the Nile by our fearless Ugandan guide Henry. Also in our boat were four guys from an overland tour who were into rock climbing, but taking time off to enjoy a different element.

Our team (ever so originally named Team Awesome). Note that Henry is in the back. The first row of people includes (from left to right) Chris, Matt, and me (Jo-Anna, just in case). The second row is Nick, Katie, and Ben.

All of us paddling hard in prep for our first serious rapid, the famous Bujagali Falls! A huge thanks to Angela for snapping these pictures of us as we went.

Group going over Bujagali.

As you can see, once you got over the initial wave, you got quite wet.

The total time spent on the water was about five hours. Our boat flipped twice. Yeah, that is a little scary, but life jackets are truely wonderful things. There were two times that the boat almost flipped but didn't. I think the last rapid was my favourite, as the boat alllllmost flipped, but didn't so we got to complete the rest of the rapid. At this time, we "surfed" at the top of the rapid and got a great view of the eight foot wave ahead which we soon thereafter descended and flipped.

At the end of the day we were presented with a lovely and much appreciated BBQ.

Katie and I also had a chance to enjoy Bujagali the next day. So much water flows through there. It was funny because at one point there was a tour for retirees that came through and their guide ran ahead and took down the sign and everyone went right down to the water's edge.

Disrespecting (but only slightly) the sign.

That's it a weekend at Jinja!

Hope all is well in Canada and for those in Victoria that warm weather finds you soon. I return in less than two weeks and had been counting on returning to summer...eek!

Thanks for reading,
Jo-Anna

PS - Bonus picture. Just for laughs. This was on the inside of a matatu.

While you were sleeping...

2010-05-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

We were rafting the Nile!

Such a crazy time, but much fun was had!!! Can't upload any pictures at the moment, but Angela very kindly took some of us as we went down Bujagali Falls. Neither of us got hurt or burnt. Yay!

We went down several grade four and five rapids. For those of you PCS people, no motor this time, paddles! And the boat flipped twice. Katie fell out three times, while I fell out twice. It was pretty intense at times, but super fun.

Hope you are enjoying a lovely day in Victoria :)

Fort Portal Trip

2010-05-26T01:38:00.000-07:00

Hello Again!

Katie and I went to Fort Portal this past weekend. I always sincerely appreciate being able to get out of Kampala and escape the hustle and bustle.

The town of Fort Portal itself is pretty much like the other Ugandan towns that I have been to; regardless, what makes it a little extra special is the lovely Rwenzori Mountian backdrop. We went on a lovely walk to a nearby cave and waterfall (not pictured below) and enjoyed the outskirts of the town. This also led us to Katie's first boda ride.

Sunrise over Fort Portal. Note the gorgeous Rwenzori Mountains in the background.

A typical house along our walk.

Matoke (or matooke, depends who you go by) man pushing his produce up a hill on our morning walk. Again, the Rwenzori Mountains are shining in the background.

Katie's first bodaboda ride. could not have been a more picturesque ride and she thoroughly enjoyed it! Don't worry, we don't take bodas in Kamapala.

One of our reasons for going to Fort Portal, besides its small town charm and simply that it isn't Kampala, was the nearby crater lakes. We opted to go on a ecotour with a local tour company. This included a full day (8 until 5) of biking and walking.

Getting ready to set out on the bike tour.

With our guide, Simon - a local villager, leading the way, we set out from to our first nearby crater lake. Can't remember the name of the lake, but it and the views were absolutely amazing. Like a true tropical paradise! As we were led on a small winding (and sometime steep) path, we enjoyed vines, palm trees, greeny blue water, and butterflies fluttering all around.

Katie looking at the lake from our first view point.

Simon and Katie spotting a fish in the water. It was such a lovely colour!!

View of the other side of the lake (we later hiked up this mini-peak).

Katie and Simon hiking up a particularly steep part of the path. This was just before we had to run for a while as there were red ants all over the ground! Totally got bitten a bit, but Simon helped us pick the ants off our shoes.

Another shot of the lushness of the lake. Note the palm trees and Rwenzori mountains in the background.

At one point we came across a mother washing her clothes at the lake shore. Her two sons were also collecting water in jerry cans to bring back home. They were super cute and let us take pictures of them. We then all walked up a very steep hill together. It is quite common to see people carrying heavy loads on their heads.

One of the little boys.

Heading up the hill.

At the top of the hill looking out on the lake.

After walking round the lake for a while, Simon navigated us through the farmer's fields. We got to take in all the crops close up! I got particularly excited by the ground nut fields!! Ground nuts are the equivalent of peanuts.

Meandering through the fields.

After hiking through the fields and interacting with the locals, we continued around the entirety of the lake.

At the top of the previously mentioned hill - with the lake as our backdrop.

And with the Rwenzori Mountains as our backdrop. It was an amazing view, all 360 degrees of it!

You can really tell that it is a crater in this picture.

Katie and Simon making their way down the hill. The grass was really long and we were sincerely hoping that there were no snakes skulking about.

Once the entire lake had been trekked, we shared our packed lunch at a lodge that was being built above the lake. It was amazing to see and very luxurious. Would be neat to stay there when all the construction is complete!

The remainder of the afternoon was spent biking to some springs and to two other crater lakes, known as the Twin Lakes.

One of the Twin Lakes.

Posing with our bikes in front of one of the Twin Lakes.

It was quite the trip. And very much worth the five hour bus ride each way! Even if there were chickens tied up beneath my feet and pecking away. Have to enjoy Uganda while are here!

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna

Time at KDM

2010-05-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

Hello again!

As you might know, over the last bit of my time here in Uganda I had hoped to volunteer with King's Daughter's Ministries. I have mentioned it before, so feel free to look at the archives or do a google search as they have their own website.

Katie and I were wondering what we might be able to do and came up with the idea of doing crafts with the girls. Something simple, but that we are both quite capable of doing.

This idea arose as a result of hanging out there one afternoon and seeing that not everyone has too much to do on a typical day once school is over. While we enjoyed just hanging out with the girls, we thought it would be neat if we could do something productive. Thus crafts!

This idea waranted a trip to Nakumatt for supplies. See below!

Us with the new supplies!

Close up on the supplies, which includes paints, crayons, pencil crayons, paper, glue, skipping ropes, journals, pencils, and balloons. Much fun is ahead!

At this point we have done paper folding and water colour painting. Paper folding took a little bit of patience, but water colour painting really took off! It was great to see the girls painting away. Hopefully their colourful paintings will add a bit of colour to the walls of KDM.

Painting up a storm at KDM.

Close up on passionate painter! (Marjorie)

Another painter! (Sanyu)

Hope all is well!

Jo-Anna (and Katie)

Trip to the Botanical Gardens

2010-05-20T02:56:00.000-07:00

Hello again!

After saying our goodbyes to Sarah at the airport and retrieving Katie's luggage, Katie and I decided to walk to the Botanical Gardens in Entebbe.

Welcome to Uganda sign as we were walking.

The Botanical Gardens contained lots of trees and shrubs from all over the world and horticultural plants. As well as some monkeys (vervet and black and white colobus), birds (hammercop, Egyptian geese, grey parrot, hornbill), and huge spiders! It is claimed to have been the site where the early black and white Tarzan movies were filmed.

Male and female hornbill in a tree.

We had a self appointed guide (Bright), so all identification is not because we are amazing, but rather thanks to his insight.

Bright posing with a twenty year old termite nest. (Which he soon thereafter knocked a chunk off of to show us how the worker termites will come to the surface. sorry termites!)

The neat trees we saw included a cinnamon tree, nutmeg tree, lemon tree, cacao tree (a different tree with different pods for white and dark chocolate, apparently), huge California palms, umbrella trees, and much more.

Cinnamon tree bark that Bright chipped off the tree for us. It smelled really good, as did the leaves when crushed.

Under the umbrella tree! Close up on the cool leaves.

Coffee pods that Bright opened for us.

There were two types of spiders that we got to see. Can't remember the name for the life of me. The pictures don't do them justice, as they really were quite big. The first one was about the size of half of one's palm (including legs) and the second, the size of one's entire palm.

Spider number one.

Spider number two.

The first type of monkey was up high in a tree, where it stay. We were told that they are not very social. The second was the ever popular vervet monkeys. We even got to feed them matoke and bananas!

Black and white colobus monkey up in the tree.

Vervet up in the tree.

Katie feeding a vervet monkey.

Vervet monkey taking food from my hand.

Katie and I thought that 'Tarzan's' part of the woods were pretty neat! Lots of hanging vines and morning glory covering the tall, tall trees. We even got a chance to swing on an actual vine!

Katie and Bright walking along.

Katie swinging from a vine.

There you have it! The Entebbe Botanical Gardens!

The Wedding of Alex and Sally...

2010-05-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

Hello!

This is a post dedicated entirely to Alex and Sally's wedding. We had such an amazing time and hopefully with the help of some pictures will be able to portray but a bit of what we experienced and enjoyed that day.

For those of you who don't know Sally and Alex, here is a bit about them. Sally is the founder of King's Daughters Ministries (mentioned previously in blog, but look up for more details). She is very cheery, talkative, and just a fantastic person all around. Alex is doctor, currently working in Gulu. He is more softspoken, but very kind and genuine. They got engaged in January and we have been super excited about the wedding ever since!

Before we get to the wedding, here is a picture of Sarah, Jo-Anna, and Katie. Katie's bag didn't make it from Egypt to Entebbe and it had her's and Jo-Anna's dress in it, so the day before there was a mad shopping trip to a covered market in downtown Kampala. Super crazy experience (thank you so much Rachael and Jocinta for your help!!!), but we found dresses and we all found shoes!!

Sarah, Jo-Anna, and Katie ready for the wedding.

We got there half an hour early, thinking that we would need to fight to get good seats as many guests were expected. Of course Ugandan time isn't qutie Canadian time, so we were about the fifth people to arrive. This allowed us to get some good pictures of the flowers. The colours were brown and gold.

Pretty flowers used to decorate the church.

We all got super excited when the Archbishop, The Most Reverend Henry Luke Orombi. He served as the officiate and gave a nice sermon, which will be covered in a bit. He looked just like all the pictures we had seen on calendars over the months.

Archbishop Orombi in a moment of silence before the wedding was to begin.

At only five minutes after the wedding was to start, Alex made his entrance with entourage. Sally, too with her's.

Alex walking down the aisle.

First glimpse of Sally as she made her way to the church entrance.

Sally walking down the aisle.

Everyone got really excited on the bride and groom's side during the entrances and many 'tribal noises' were made. The pictures are a bit close, as everyone was standing and darting around trying to get pictures. The Ugandans got very excited!!

Alex and Sally made their way up to the front where the officiating priest got right to it. Vows were declared and rings were exchanged without delay.

Alex and Sally make their way up to the front of the church.

Alex and Sally in front of the priest with their maid of honour and best man, Dr. Sam and Mrs. Grace Ononge.

Alex removing Sally's veil. The lighting in the church was not the best, so some of these pictures are going to be a tad blurry as flash was not used.

Alex stating his vows.

As sally and Alex were exchanging their vows, onlookers felt free to just go up and take pictures. This is in addition to the two hired photographers and two videographers. It made taking pictures of our own from our seats quite difficult, despite being in the third row! Thank goodness this isn't status quo in Canada. The super bright light is the videographer's light.

Priest blessing Alex and Sally

The vows are complete and a passionate hug is exchanged.

Following the vows, it was the Archbishop's turn to talk. And that he did with a sermon crafted specifically with Sally and Alex in mind. One neat thing was that he spent most of his time talking to the two of them directly.

The Archbishop giving his sermon.

The Archbishop addressing Alex and Sally.

Sally laughing during the sermon.

After the sermon, it was time to sign the registry. This brought on another onslaught of onlookers with cameras. Thankfully they were asked to move so we got to see a little bit.

The onlookers. They had no shame.

Alex and Sally at the signing.

Proudly holding up the marriage certificate.

After a hymn and some singing by the choir, the ceremony was over and Alex and Sally headed out officially as husband and wife. The ceremony itself was only about an hour and a half and we had been warned of a three hour event.

Dr. and Mrs. Amone.

There was a reception at the church hall directly following the service.

The beautiful cake.

Sally and Alex at the head table with pop bottles coordinated conviently with the surroundings.

The best man and maid of honour as the best man gives a speech.

Cutting the cake.

During the cutting, it was decided that silly string and a confetti canon thing should go off. Note to our friends - please resist the urge. It just ended up in one's hair and it looked like it would be hard to get out.

After the first reception, there was a second reception. At this point it was well into the evening, so not many pictures turned out well enough to post. The second reception was at the Archbishop's Palace, in his garden. A bathroom break was needed, so we wandered up the the servants quarters of the house and got to see the Archbishop's car. Jo-Anna and Katie got very excited.

The Archbishop's car decked out with 'HIS GRACE' plates. Pastor Mark and Lynn, you might have been part of his entourage, but we got to use the toilets in his servants quarters!!

At the reception itself, we were seated directly behind the Archbishop and his wife, Mama Pheobe. They were both very kind and we had a nice chat with him. During his toast, the Archbishop thanked everyone for being there from near and far within Uganda and from different cultures. At this point he turned directly to us and smiled! Woohoo! Shout out from the Archbishop!

Alex and Sally also said a little bit about each other. It was very sweet. Believe it or not, Sally was actually a bit at a loss for words! Super unusual, but entirely touching.

The food was fantastic and Katie got to try her first Ugandan meal...millet, matoke, tilapia, goat on a stick, etc. There were quite a few speeches, but nothing tooooooo excessive. The KDM girls did some impressive traditional dancing. There was more cake. There were some unique traditions, like giving a cake to bride and grooms parents.

The whole event was complete by around 10 at night. We are all so thankful to have had this experience and feel blessed to have been able to have been a part of Alex and Sally's wedding.

Hope life in Canada is going well!

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna, Sarah, and Katie

It's official!

2010-05-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

We have lasted four months in Uganda.

What seemed like a slighty daunting task no more than one month ago has come to an end for one of us as Sarah flies home on Sunday. Jo-Anna still has another month with Katie.

Undeniably, a month ago we were getting a bit Canada sick...more or less missing the convenience and relative dependability of life back home. Not to mention all of our family and friends!! However, we have turned a corner and now wonder how we will put up with life in Canada. It will seem so dull in comparison! No constant hustle and bustle...

It has been refreshing to see Uganda through Katie's eyes over the past few days. She isn't as jaded by common happenings as we are. She could not be adapting to life here any better. We all dove right in the day she arrived and took matatus and headed right downtown Kampala.

Stay tuned for an entry on Alex and Sally's wedding. It was so much fun and we had an amazing time. Quite the experience!!!

Hope you are well,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Return to Kumi!

2010-05-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

Before Sarah goes back to Canada, we wanted to return to Kumi one more time. Kampala is a city full of hustle and bustle and six days there was enough to tire us out! The simplicity of life in Kumi and friendliness of the people was a welcome change. It was fantastic to see so many familiar friendly faces.

It is a little funny that we went back for a weekend trip, as during our time in Kumi we always went on weekend trips to other places; now that we are based out of Kampala, a weekend trip to Kumi was quite due.

Our first order of business was to help Angela decorate the occupational therapy room. Angela coordinated the repainting and accessorizing and did a fantastic job. Sarah and I helped by creating a bit of a mural on one of the walls and some posters.

We got to hang out with Dr. Raymond as well :) Caught up on a few episodes of 24 that we had missed. The show is just as intense as ever and was not at all short on plot twists.

Finally, we had the opportunity to view a few surgical procedures, including a placenta removal and two caesarean sections. Very interesting!!

On the way back to Kampala we stopped off in Jinja to enjoy it one last time. And that we did. Packed in a bit more shopping as well.

As we have return to Kampala, we are going to be staying at a guest house with Angela. Annnnddd (drum roll), we have an addition to our posse as of this week...Katie Huston!

Stay tuned for pictures of Sally and Alex's wedding, which is to take place May 14. We are sincerely looking forward to it.

Hope you are all well,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

We are thrilled to announce that...

2010-05-10T03:44:00.000-07:00

...the data collection component of the survey has come to an end!!!

In total, we saw just under 260 children, of which approximately 75 had bone deformities and 180 did not. Not too bad!!

To celebrate, we said toasted with ice coffees! Yum!

Here is a picture of us taken while watching the sunset and thrilled to be moving on to next stage of the project (data analysis). We feel so blessed to have been able to experience all that we have and that God has continually provided for us in ways that were so much greater than we could have imagined.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers :)

Stay posted for more updates as our time in Uganda is not up yet!!

The OURS Outreach Team

2010-05-10T03:25:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

Though we were back in Kampala for a while and have since moved on to Kumi and Jinja for brief stints, we really wanted to do a post introducing you to the OURS team with whom we went on outreaches. Just an update, we saw 118 children in Mbarara total (28 with angulatory bone deformities and 90 without). These pictures are from our last outreach when we went to Ibanda (April 29). The road was well paved, so no exciting stories to tell there.

We introduce them alphabetically again, so as not to show preference.

Ambrose:

This is Ambrose. He is an OT and super dedicated. He is always working hard, so this picture is of him in action! He saw a total of 50 kids at the outreach with varying disabilities but primarily CP. Didn't even take a lunch or bathroom break from 10 until 6! Here he is counselling someone and taking notes for OURS.

Eppy:

Eppy was our faithful translator in Mbarara. She put up with our repetitious questions about food intake and we greatly appreciated her! We estimate that she translated our survey roughly 100 times. That's dedication. She was always cheery with a smile on her face :)

Noah:

Noah is the driver at OURS. He was also our stand in translator when he was around, such that we could double time things and get twice as much done in the same period of time.

Steven:

This is Steven hanging out by the mini bus waiting for Ambrose to finish up for the day. Steven is the orthopaedic officer at OURS, so he sees all the orthopaedic patients. He also helped call people in to OURS with angulatory bone deformities so that we could survey them. We appreciated his efforts. Also featured in this photo is Andy, a physiotherapist from Manchester (the sun was in his eyes). We had a good conversation about Man U. vs Arsenal. (Go Arsenal!)

Finally, we leave you with a picture of us in the minibus after a long day of hard work.

Hope you have a great day :)
Jo-Anna and Sarah

A Look at OURS!

2010-05-05T04:32:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

We thought that we would write a little post on OURS, the organization with which we worked with during our time here in Mbarara.

OURS (Organized Useful Rehabilitation Services) is a partnership between the Ankole diocese and CBM (Christian Blind Mission). It is a rehabilitation centre at which individuals are identified, assessed and rehabilitated. It serves people from the whole of Western Uganda.

The majority of the children that go to OURS are physically impaired. Some are born with their conditions (like clubfoot, spina bifida, cleftlip or palate) while others acquire disabilities through diseases or trauma (cerebral palsy, limitations in movements after burns, paralysis of the legs after injection).

We always enjoy going to see the various children at the rehabilitation centre. There are twenty rooms in which children being treated can stay with their caregivers. Here are some of the children we see on a regular basis.

Unique

There you have it! That is OURS in a nutshell. They are doing fantastic things for the children and truly changing lives. The staff are great with the children and we always enjoy our time there.

Just another quick update! We have officially finished our survey as of yesterday! Wooooohoooooo! Cannot believe this part is over...now on to data analysis. We also ran into both the boy and girl featured about at CoRSU, a hospital we went to in Entebbe (quite far from Mbarara). We were very excited to see them both, as well as another child from OURS. It's a small world.

Hope all is well with you,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Queen Elizabeth - Post 2

2010-05-03T04:49:00.000-07:00

The long awaited for Queen Elizabeth day 3 post!

Hello!

Finally it is here...our day out in the park when we saw lions :)

DAY 3:

Animals seen:
Waterbuck, Ugandan kob (impala), hippos, buffalo, elephants, LIONS, baboons, other deer

Experiences:
Day three of our trip was by far the best. Not only did the weather cooperate, but so did the animals. We woke up early again and went out into the park. Our mission this morning was to see lions.

Off the main road, we were distracted by another group of elephants.

Once we entered the park again, we drove around for about two hours before we actually managed too find the lions. In the meantime, we saw lots of ungulates and a huge herd of buffalo. The Rwenzori Mountains provided a fabulous backdrop.

We were tipped off by a guide as to where the lions actually were. We followed their vehicle and alas there were lions! Several cars with hired guides came through and only watched the lions for a couple of minutes. We, however, got to enjoy them for quite a while. They were quite sleepy, but super interesting.

On our drive back to Mbarara we happened to come across a group of baboons. They were digging around in the grass at the side of the road trying to find food.

Well, that's it. Less writing on this post as we figured the pictures were better than lots of words.

Hope you are all well :)
Jo-Anna and Sarah

The long awaited post about our trip to Queen Elizabeth!

2010-04-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

As you can tell from the title, this post is about our trip to Queen Elizabeth. Our internet had been down, so the posts are delayed a bit. If the internet cooperates all the pictures will go up, otherwise it might take a while. We have so much to say that it is going to be split into a two part series! Here is part one, which includes the first two days of our trip.

DAY 1:

Animals seen:
None (travel day)

Experiences:
Day one of our trip to Queen Elizabeth was primarily spent in transit. Angela travelled all the way from Kumi to Mbarara to enjoy the park with us. It was so fantastic to meet up with her again!!

The drive from Mbarara to Queen Elizabeth Park is close to two and a half hours. It took us a bit longer because it was raining. And because we had to go over all those crazy speed bumps again. The drive was quite scenic as we travelled through tea plantations, various crops, forest, and amongst lakes. This is a crater lake called Green Lake. It is green because of all the algae in it (or so we are told). You can't tell, but the locals will float on a banana tree trunk and fish.

We opted to stay outside of the park at a lovely resort called the Kingfisher. It has an amazing view of the park, as it stands up on a mountain side. This is our room. Can you spot Sarah? And this was the view from the deck. Sarah and I looked out into the great beyond with binoculars that were kindly lent to us and swear we saw elephants...or at least large things that moved that we are opting to call elephants.

DAY 2:

Animals seen:
Birds, elephants, hippos, buffalo, waterbuck, Ugandan kob (aka impala), wart hogs.

Experiences:
On day two, it rained from early in the morning (before the sun rose) until mid-day. We had gotten up very early (5:45) such that we might see lions, as we were told it was easiest to see them early in the morning, but because of the rain and general dense mist our driver told us it would be better drive around instead as the lions hide in the bush when it rains.

We had concocted a strategic plan for park entry. Park entry passes are good for 24 hours from purchase, so we thought that we would go in around mid-day and then could enjoy the following morning on a game ride without paying again! Woohoo!

So, we drove around the surround until about 11. Our mode of transport was this lovely Toyota Corona. Not a Corolla, a Corona. We were a little worried that we were in a car and that it would impede our vision, but it honestly didn't. The grasses weren't too tall.

Our first spotting was an adorable family of elephants. We watched them parade through the grasses.

Our second stop was some hippos. They were lounging in the water. Apparently hippos don't have any interest in you if they are in the water and it is when they are on land that they are dangerous.

We continued on to see a village near where the road crosses the Kazinga Channel. Treated to some cow sighting here.

When we entered the park, we drove around a bit and saw another hippo. Apparently he isn't that cool though because he was on his own. This means that he got in a fight over territory and lost. Poor hippo.

We opted to drop off our stuff at the Mweya Hostel, where we were staying for the night. While we were there, a wart hog ran through the camp. They aren't too attractive, but when they run, their tails stick straight up in the air and it is so cute. Sarah was taking a video and he started to run at her. Haha.

We had been highly recommended doing a boat tour of the Kazinga Channel. The Kazinga Channel connects Lake Edward and Lake George. There were, of course, lots and lots of hippos. Here we saw some buffalo as well. The hippos and buffalos live together quite happily as they are both herbivores. It was also cool to see birds sitting on the buffalo and cleaning them.

There were quite a few Nile crocodiles. They do a great job blending in with the surroundings. Here is one sitting with its mouth open. There is a reason for this, but it is lost on me for the moment.

There was an absolute abundance of birds. Again, the binoculars came quite in handy. This group of birds all flocked at once and there were hundreds in the air. Also shown, are two fish eagles...the equivalent of the bald eagle back home.

Just before we turned back, we passed another village. Lots of the locals were going out fishing. The mountains in the background are in the Congo.

Here is Sarah as we travel along the Channel. And all three of us...looking quite touristy of course.

In the evening, we opted to go for another drive. Our goal was to try and spot a leopard. Unfortunately we didn't, but saw some waterbuck, a neat lizard and some birds.

As the day ended, we were blessed with an absolutely amazing sunset.

Stay tuned for part 2...

Another Outreach...

2010-04-28T11:47:00.001-07:00

Hello!!

This is a post about the outreach we went on last Thursday. Again, we are a tad behind and trying to catch up with all of our posting before we return to Kampala on Saturday. (The internet here is a lot faster. Better for loading pictures!) Hard to believe that our time here in Mbarara is almost over. It has gone so quickly!

Anyway, about the outreach. This one was to Katerera. The turn off for Katerera is just past a fantastic view of Queen Elizabeth Park, but before you get to the park itself. The majority of the road was paved which was quite the treat! The major downfall was a 10 km long part of road with a speedbump every 10 metres. Literally! So not fun. Ugandan road crews do not comprehend proper use of the speedbump. We got to OURS bright and early at 7:45 for a 8 departure.

As you can see, the weather was just slightly more cooperative than last time. Here is the same shot of the Land Cruiser as last time. Looks clean now, but the poor thing was a mess upon return.

There was a bit of sliding on this trip once we turned off onto the dirt roads. Wouldn't be an outreach without some! We had to climb a very gradual hill. Did some slidding from left to right, but made it. This picture doesn't do it justice, but here one is looking down the gradual hill from the top. You can just see our tire marks in the bottom right as we slid from the road to make our turn.

The outreach took place under a mango tree. We have come to greatly appreciate mango trees. They are an excellent source of shade!! The first picture is from when we arrived. The second was taken about 30 minutes later. People are always a little slow to show up, but once they hear that the health team has actually showed up they start appearing.

You may have noticed that there are a lot of babies. This is because there was also another group doing immunizations while we were there. The babies got their basic vaccines, as well as some vitamin capsules.

At the outreach, there was only one child with an angulatory bone deformity, so Sarah and I opted to venture out into the surrounding area to interview 'normal' children. You may have noticed in the previous picture that the dirt wasn't red as we are accustom to seeing. It is actually quite a rich, dark brown. We are told that it is quite fertile and produces abundant crops. It certainly seemed to because there were matoke trees and crops everywhere. No space was wasted, as on the 'forest floor' one would find beans, cassava, dodo, and other plants prospering. Even coffee! It was really neat to see the coffee plants at harvest time, but unfortunately didn't get any pictures.

Sarah worked with Noah, the driver at OURS, while I worked with Eppy. Since we only have one scale, we had to meet up at different points. Someone offered to show Sarah and Noah the way to where Eppy and I were at one point, but changed his mind at some point and concluded that a walk to the local school would be a better idea. Needless to say, Sarah had about 70 children running to her and flocking. Noah said that they all wanted to touch her. He got quite worried that there would be a stampeed or something so everyone was shooed away. Haha.

When we returned back to the outreach mango tree a few hours later, we learned that school had been let out. There were lots of school children (in blue ensembles) under the tree, in addition to the normal youngsters. Doesn't look like that many from this picture, but there were a lot of them. They all gathered round us. Of course!

Eppy thought a good sing along was in order and had the kids singing for us. Of course everyone has figured out that our cameras can record, so it was requested that we record. In case you can't quite make out the lyrics, they are singing 'We know english.'

On the way back to OURS from the outreaches, the team always does some grocery shopping. We thought we would go out with them to see what the hype was about. We managed to score a couple of pineapples. 500 shillings each! That's 25 cents each! Crazy! Here is Eppy checking out the pile and me with our purchase.

That's it. Another outreach under our belt. And another tomorrow to go! We were told that it was 'in town.' To us this means within Mbarara itself, but are told that we are heading back out to Bushenyi district. That means at least an hour drive! That's not in town! Haha.
Hope you all have a great day :)
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Our mini outreach...

2010-04-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

Hello!

We had a day out in the field a few days ago. What had been described as "near" turned into not so near (2 hours away!!) and transportation was not fun. We had thought that the road to Isingiro was bad, but this trip brought bad to a whole new level. Will simply leave you with the mental image of nine grown adults and one small child stuffed into a 1997 Toyota Camry. (Not kidding!)

It was a very hot day and to see our first patient required a bit of hike. The views were great, regardless. Rolling hills and matoke fields all around; the majority of which belonged to a minister, we were told.

The first family we met had a son with knock knees. We also surveyed three of their other children to make up the children without an angulatory bone deformity component of the sample. They were terribly kind and gave us fruit as a thank you for coming and visiting their home. Included were two papayas, some oranges, and two guava which we very much enjoyed eating!

We discovered that one of their children, Rogers, a softspoken gentleman of ten, spoke absolutely fantastic english. We discussed football (go Arsenal!), Jo-Anna's camera, and the surrounding land. He kindly escorted us back to the centre of the village with a friend, where we surveyed some other children. These two were featured some posts back saying 'aghandi' (hello) in Rwenkole (the local language, sp?) with Eppy. Rogers really wanted to see the video setting on the camera so we thought he would be a good subject.

A typical house in Mbarara. It is unusual to see bandas (circular houses) as one might have in Kumi here.

As you can see, we gather quite the crowd when we do the survey. We usually wear long skirts when we go out into the village, so as to be respectful. However, we thought this location was close to town, where it is acceptable to wear pants, so we are wearing pants. Jo-Anna is surveying someone under the shade of a tree while sitting on mats. Rather impromptu setting, but it works! We draw quite the crowd. People want to come out and simply see us and what we are doing. Ugandans are very curious!

Jo-Anna sharing a laugh with the villagers while conducting the survey with the assistance of Eppy. This crowd is small, relatively speaking.

Until next time,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Our Bushara Island Visit...

2010-04-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

The posts seem to be a bit biased lately...as if all our lives here are is trips and food...but it isn't! Promise! We work really hard during the week. It is just that the work is tad repetitious and there isn't anything too original to post on from a day to day basis. Though we do enjoy it none the less :)

Anyway, this is another post about a weekend trip that we did not this past weekend, but the one before. Not to worry though, there will be more posts about our project and the group we are working with in the week to come. As well as pictures of our safari at Queen Elizabeth National Park from this past weekend! (And, yes, we saw lions!!!)

Without further ado...

Last weekend we had the opportunity to go to Bushara Island. Bushara is located on Lake Bunyonyi, near Kabale in the Western part of Uganda. We had such a lovely time. Trees! Water! Swimming! Birds! Woohoo!

Our ride from Mbarara to Kabale was fantastic. We got to sit in the front seats on the matatu, which we really neat. The ride there was through beautiful mountain country side, the same route as our trip to Kigali. The view was fantastic! As well as that the matatu driver kept his speed in check and went a solid 50 km/h. Unheard of! The ride was even slightly relaxing. Extremely unheard of!

The matatu did make many stops along the way. That was a tad irritating. Buuuutttt! During said stopping we got to see two really cool things. First a pair of freshly born lambs. There umbilical chords were literally still dripping, with blood and the mother still had blood on her legs. (Graphic, sorry!) It was soooo cool to see them wobble around and nurse. The second was a flock of about twenty crown cranes which flew over head. Very neat!

Bushara means 'island of small birds' in the local dialect. And there was certainly no shortage of them! After being greeted with passion fruit juice upon arrival on the island and shown to our cabin, we immediately went for a walk. The island itself is not that large, only 1.8 km, so we walked it many times! Jo-Anna even swam it 2/3 of the way with a group that was there for the weekend.

The sights totally reminded us of being back on the Island (Vancouver Island). So thrilling! Enjoy the following pictures to get an idea of where we were.

Dove cottage. Where we stayed for the weekend.

The view from our deck.

Dugout canoes. The local means of transportation.

One of the many docks off. So serene.

A dock and Lake Bunyonyi.

A local transporting a pig in his canoe. We had quite the conversation yelling back and forth across the water. He could not understand why we were going for a walk instead of swimming. We could not understand why he had a pig in his boat.

Another dugout canoe going across the lake.

As mentioned previously, Bushara was covered with birds. So many! We got to go on a bird walk with a guide, as well as borrow the binoculars of a couple from Ireland. They had come prepared and were eager to show us all the exciting birds around. Crested eagle, sunbirds, weaver birds, flycatchers, and more! Here are some of our favourite pictures from the weekend.

A weaver bird amongst papyrus on the shore.

A close up of a weaver bird's nest that was hanging off some papyrus. We often see them hanging off different trees and bushes.

Another weaver bird.

And another. There are multiple varities. These are all males, as the females are not this colourful.

A speckled mousebird.

Cinnamon breasted flycatcher.

Ibis.

Cuckoo.

Another fantastic experience that we had getting to go on a nighttime canoe ride in a dugout canoe! We had hoped that it would be a clear night, such that we could see the expanse of stars in the sky, but it was a tad overcast. There was, however, lightening in the distance which was really cool to watch. Also listening to the crickets, drums from a local village, and frogs was neat! The evening was complete with fireflies dancing amongst the reeds.

There you have it! Our week away at Bushara. Hope you liked the pictures!

More to come soon :)
Jo-Anna and Sarah

A Toast to Pit Latrines...

2010-04-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hello!

We thought that it was due time to do a blog post dedicated to pit latrines!

For those that don't know what a pit latrine is, it is essentially the equivalent of an outhouse, though there is no seat and one must simply aim for a hole in floor. In more sophisticated areas, the hole is well defined and the ground is concrete, but the ones we come across...a meager crack in a dirt floor. Growing up with such luxury has ruined us...

Here is Sarah outside a pit latrine. This one happened to be in a garden setting. Unfortunately you cannot see the 'grass' but it wasn't really grass at all...rather a dense array of portulacas! So cool!

We have had some unfortunate experiences with pit latrines. Most notable of which is when Sarah's cell phone fell out of her pocket and through the hole. Honestly something one would expect to see in a movie, not happen in real life :(

There you go. That is the pit latrine. Be very thankful for toilets and toilet paper. Such things are a fine luxury in the Uganda outback :)

As an added bonus, another guessing game! Can you guess the flora?

Have a great weekend! We are off to Queen Elizabeth National Park and hoping to see lots of super cool animals.

Wish you were here to join in the fun with us :)

Aghandi (hello) from Mbarara!

2010-04-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Outreach to Isingiro on April 15

2010-04-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

Hello Again!

We went on an outreach with the OURS staff to the Isingiro district last Thursday. And we are still talking about it feverently a week later! Wanted to do this post justice, so it has taken a while to get it up. There is a lot writing, but promise it will be well worth the read!!

Included in our team for the day were Stephen (orthopaedic assistant), Ambrose (occupational therapist and home visit coordinator with special interest in cerebral palsy), Eppy (our translator), and Robert (driver).

We have been on one other outreach, as you may recall, back in Kumi in Okwamor. This was the time when Jthey made us eat chicken gizzards (a special honour). The morning of the outreach, we were excited for what was to come as we had found our previous outreach to be quite the experience!

Isingiro district is about a two and a half hour drive from the OURS location in Ruharo. Ruharo is essentially what we would consider a suburb of Mbarara. The particular location at where the outreach was was a health care centre in Kamubizi. Kamubizi is located way up in the hills and a ways to get to.

To set the stage for you, we will let you know that it had rained all night prior to our departure. This would not seem so strange within Canada, where it can rain non-stop for hours on end, but in Uganda this is perciluar. Rain is much more likely to pour heavily for an hour or two at most, then the sun comes out for the remainder of the day. Anyway, the rain had still not let up when we walked from our house to OURS at 7:00. We were finally on the road by about 8:30 and still it was quite constant.

Ambrose packing the Land Cruiser.

The reason in noting this is that roads in the back country are not paved. They are not even made of gravel, but rather of lovely, compacted red dirt (a common theme). When it rains, it makes for very slick and slippery conditions. On a surface that is already uneven to start with, it is quite the bumpy ride as the rain pools and makes streams at random.

Thankfully, the vehicle which we were in was a Land Cruiser with four wheel drive! We did by all means do some 'dancing' as Stephen liked to call it, as we fish tailed along flat pieces of road. It was entirely comparable to driving on black ice. Overall, not too bad though!

The scenery within Isingiro district was absolutely gorgeous. There were multiple matoke (plantain) fields. Little forests. Streams. Everything was very green and lush. There were hills and mountains in the surround. Once the rain started to lift at around 10:00, it left only the mountain tops covered by mist. Simply beautiful! In the not too far off distance were the hills of Tanzania. In fact, our cell phone service seemed to think that were in Tanzania! This fact will become important later in the post.

The drive up to the health centre required the vehicle to climb some very steep inclines. The whole time, Ambrose kept telling us about this one really steep hill that his boda could not make when he was going on a home visit and how he had to walk it. Honestly thought he was exhaggerating a little, but he wasn't. It had to have been at least a 60 degree incline. Keep in mind, this is a dirt incline and it had been raining all night. And on the side of a mountain with no shoulder. It took us two tries to get up it. Will leave it at that. Lots of praying was involved on this journey. We were never in harms way, as Robert drove very cautiously but there were slightly nerve wracking bits here and there that kept the adrenaline pumping.

We were warmly welcomed at the health centre. A known patients from the area had been called to the health centre, so we saw this child first. This was followed by new patients with angultory bone deformities who came because of a radio announcement. The children that came to the outreach were not by any means limited to angulatory bone deformities, as there were several other disabilities and malformations, notably several clubfoot patients and cerebral palsy patients. Stephen saw all the orthopaedic related patients, while Ambrose saw the others and CP patients.

In order to optomize our time, we split up with Sarah joining a former OURS staff member, Obediah, in travelling to a nearby village to see know children with bone deformities and Jo-Anna staying at the health centre to work with Eppy. Sarah was able to see five patients out in the village, while eight came to the health centre and were seen by Jo-Anna. Since we had to split up and worked hard, there are no further pictures for us to show you as the camera was used for work purposes alone.

Both Stephen and Ambrose were thoroughly impressed with the turn out. Stephen saw about 30 patients in total. Both commented that this was one of their best outreaches yet.

Once again, the team was treated to lunch. Two lunches, actually. Jo-Anna got to have matoke (cooked with the peel on - supposably the more nutritious way) and posho. Sarah, however, was out in the field, but still had her packed lunch (our daily peanut butter sandwich).

The village which Sarah visited was situated at the top of a hill about thirty minutes from the health centre. The views were again amazing and she commented that she wished she could have just had a camera attached to her head all day long.

These parts are rarely visited by mzungus, so she was quite the site! There was optimal crowding and peeping and staring. At one point, she broke up a soccer game, as it was put on hold to watch the mzungu ride past and scream with excitement.

Unfortunatley, the first person that Sarah and Obediah had set out to see was in Kampala. She did, however, spot a young child with an angulatory bone deformity, whom she was able to interview once Obediah had calmed him (the child was scared of her). Once the villagers understood what they were looking for, more children with bone deformities (as well as an array of other conditions) were brought! Actually, so many children were present that they were not even able to survey all the children who came. (Our survey is such that we must interview children with and without angulatory bone deformities.) Obediah was able to provide necessary information in obtaining treatment when relevant, though.

By about mid-afternoon, it started to rain again, so it was important that Sarah come back to the health centre before the roads got too slippery. Unfortunately, during the slippery trip back her boda managed to get a flat tire. This provided a bit of a hitch in the plan and she had to walk to the nearest village with Obediah to try and get it fixed. Finding someone to fix the tire was the next challenge! At another village down the road, there was someone who could complete the task and Sarah sat in a store during the wait. At this point, people would do the subtle, but really not so subtle poke the head in the door to see the mzungu. They even came in and pretended to shop at times! Haha.

Time was passing on and it was getting later and we were unable to contact one another. Cell service was horrible and the phones kept thinking that we were in Tanzania, so it was pretty crazy. We did eventually meet up and all was fine and the team head back.

As Sarah and Obediah fought the elements to get back, the group that Jo-Anna was with decided to try and find pork to bring back home at a nearby village. Of course at the time we went school had just let out, so children littered the roads. As the land cruiser drove along, people would look in the windows and see her and the excited shouts of 'mzungu' would start. The others in the team found this pretty hilarous and just had to pull over multiple times, thus allowing the village children to get a better look while the team just rocked back and forth with laughter. The team would get her to wave which only excited the children more, as they looked on with big eyes. At one point they had them singing Sunday school songs and clapping 'for the mzungu.' Oh dear.

The drive back consisted of an overly packed car. There were sixteen people in the back of the Land Cruiser (nine adults and seven children, eek!) and three adults up front. Space was tight to say the least. The road was worse than before and light was disappearing pretty fast when we finally left at 6:30. At one point, the flow of rain had created such a crevice in the road that the Land Cruiser was literally at like a sixty to seventy degree angle. Was pretty sure we were going to tip, but somehow we didn't. At this point we were mostly sliding along a flat part of road, so there really wasn't much one could do. All were laughing in the end. It was pretty crazy!

In an effort to be helpful, Robert tried to warn a man with a lot of cargo on the back of his boda not to use that road. We pulled up to him, but at the last second when we were along side we slid just slightly, knocking the back of his boda where the cargo was piled, thus causing it all to tip off. All in an effort to be helpful! Shesh! Shouldn't have been funny, but it was. The irony...Everyone (including the boda driver) was in hysterics. Tears were literally coming out of our eyes. This is probably the first time that we have shared a good mutual laugh with the Ugandans about the same thing!

We finished the rest of the hilly part of the drive without much trouble (praying constantly!!). However, a while after we were at the bottom, on a road amongst a matoke 'forest' (as Eppy called it), we discovered that we had a flat tire. All the jostling down the hill had gotten to our stomachs a bit, so it is not too suprising it did a number on the vehicle, too! At this point it was dusk.

Soooo, all the stuff came out to change the tire. And it had started raining again. Not heavy rain, but constant. Then an important part of the jack that was necessary was not there. So Eppy and Stephen had to try to stop passing cars to see if they had it. Standing at the side of the road in the dark, in the rain, in the middle of nowhere in Uganda had us feeling pretty vulnerable, needless to say. It did get fixed though after about an hour. Dr. Penny, you would be glad to know that the flashlight on your cell served as the primary torch in operation tire change! We were very thankful to Robert, Stephen, and Ambrose for their hard work - they all managed to get quite dirty in the process.

The rest of the ride was rather uneventful. Lots of bumps, but minimal sliding. We made it back to OURS by about 10:00.

The greatest highlight for us overall was that of the thirteen children that we saw with angulatory bone deformities, approximately twelve were previously unknown to OURS. This means that they can now be referred for surgery and get the help that they need. This was what was really exciting and rewarding for us. Getting numbers for our survey is fine, but seeing people receive help where they had not before is so entirely more rewarding.

Another adventure, to say the least!!! And not a time that we will soon forget!

Hope your day was a little less eventful :)

Jo-Anna and Sarah

Our weekend in Kigali!

2010-04-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

Hello again!

As we alluded to a couple posts ago, we spent the past weekend in Kigali! Sorry this took so long to get up. This has been quite the busy week.

Seeing as we had to renew our Ugandan visas, as it was only possible to get 3 month tourist visas upon arrival, we left for Rwanda by bus early last Friday and returned to Mbarara Sunday afternoon. It was a fantastic trip (which we refer to as our vacation) and we loved Rwanda!

Rwanda has had quite the rocky past as many may recall. If you are interested, look up the Rwandan genocide. A truly tragic piece of history. Some may be familiar with it from the movie Hotel Rwanda.

Thankfully, things seem to be quite stable in Rwanda currently and one wouldn't know that mere decades ago the country was a total mess. We found Rwanda to be incredibly clean and orderly. And, they keep right like us Canadians. What's not to like?? ;)

Our trek began with a 5:30 wake up. Yuck. We had to catch a bus that left from 'downtown' Mbarara at 7:00. The bus ride was uneventful, with the exception of some bumps and nutmeg. Nutmeg, you ask? Well, originally when we got on the bus there weren't any seats together, so Sarah and I were sitting on opposite sides of the aisle. The guy beside me, however, offered to switch seats with Sarah, such that we could sit together (or maybe it was because he had made friendly with the girl across the aisle and we put a damper in their bonding time, but we will go with the first theory). It was nonetheless very kind of him. Unfortunately, in vacating his seat, he managed to spill his little container (two table spoons worth) of nutmeg beside my seat.

Once we got going (and trust me these buses get going), we got major air off our seats! As in like a foot to a foot and a half multiple times. Said guy before opted to laugh at us because apparently it was that funny. Ugandan roads are in notoriously bad condition, but the ones to the border seemed to be remarkably worse than usual. Probably didn't help that we were sitting almost at the very back of the back of the bus. I would look over at the nutmeg and it would be bouncing about a bit too. This led to particle dispersion and sneezing. But, really, it was probably a blessing in disguise because the bus as a whole smelled like unwashed people and wet baby. Yum.

As someone who loves to stare out the window, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The scenery was fantastic. We drove among rolling hills and terraced mountains, through matoke farms, swamps, general farm land, and more. The land was green and absolutely beautiful. Once we were on the Rwandan side of the border, the roads were in great condition, too. Hooray!

The terraced mountains on the way.

The border people were all very friendly and jovially greet and ask us how we were. A little different from Canada and the States ;) The border crossing that we used was a little peculiar. One must first dismount the bus and go through customs to exit the country that he or she is in - requiring a filled out form and passport to stamp. Then one has to walk across the border (about a five minute walk) to the country one is entering's border and go through the same procedure again. Once all is complete, one finds his or her respective bus again and done!

All the mountains in Rwanda are entirely terraced. It would seem that there is no land left to cultivated. Apparently this is quite a problem, too, as soil erosion is becoming quite a factor given inadequate irrigation practices. Crops that we could identify included sugar cane, tea, rice, matoke, and maize. See below for some pictures. It was neat to see people hard at work in the fields...machinery that one would see used in the western world is not terribly common. Rather, it is physical labour with hoes used to farm. It is not uncommon to see cattle pulling a plow Little House on the Prairie style.

The terraced mountains of Rwanda.

Houses with terraced mountains behind.

Rice and other fields.

The drive took a total of five hours and we arrived at the bus park at the bottom of a large hill that leads up to the main city. Of course it was exactly mid day by this point and the sun was beaming. There are taxis and minibuses that one can take (which are surprising clean and orderly looking), as well as bodas (who are required by law to use a helmet and carry one for their passenger. crazy!), but we opted for walking.

Looking up at the Kigali city centre as coming in on the bus.

The walk probably took about an hour and once up, you are greeted by this lovely waterfall and round about. So clean and pretty.

We found our hotel with a little bit of help from the locals pointing us in the right direction. After checking in and dropping off our stuff, we went for a walk around Kigali. So lovely to have sidewalks again and road lines! And roads with medians that have gardens! The mountains that border Rwanda, Uganda, and the Congo are where one can trek the mountain gorillas, so there were a few gorilla statues about town.

Median in a street.

Jo-Anna and a gorilla.

For those of you who have seen or experienced the Kampala taxi park and the mayhem it creates at the side of the roads in downtown Kampala with people pulling over to pick up and let off passengers and park temporarily, here is a Rwandan taxi pit stop.

For our late lunch, we went to this cafe in the mall called Bourbon St. Cafe. It is family run by locals and the decor was gorgeous. It felt very Western which we were craving and appreciated. They roast all their own coffee and prepare food fresh. Feeling a little decadent and deprived we both ordered fancy iced coffees. Pretty much all of our meals over the next two days were eaten here. The staff began to know us quite well! A direct quote from Sarah is "That. Place. I. Love."

The rest of Friday was spent wandering, while on Saturday there was more wandering, craft shopping (and looking) and a trip to the pool at Hotel des Milles Collines! We couldn't actually stay here (it is over $300 US a night), so we opted for the next best thing and spent about four hours poolside. Very relaxing. For those who don't know, this hotel has a lot of history associated with it and was featured in the movie. Check it out :)

Hotel Des Milles Collines.

The centre of the pool.

The view from the lounge chair.

Hibiscus beside the lounge chair.

View of Kigali from pool area.

More wandering was in store for morning of Sunday. We left on a bus to Mbarara by 1:00 pm and were back in Mbarara by 6:30 (there is a 1 hour time difference between Uganda and Rwanda). The trip went well and the bus had way better shocks, so while we did get some air (still like a foot), it wasn't as ridiculous as the ride down.

That's all for now! Sorry for the delay! More posts to come soon! We have one on our outreach pending completion and another on our fabulous weekend away at Bushara Island on Lake Bunyonyi. Only just got back :)

Jo-Anna and Sarah

Happy 1/2 Birthday Jo-Anna!!!

2010-04-13T00:48:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

We have been dying to have some sort of celebration as of late (well since late February, really), but seeing as both our birthdays are later in the year and there were no nearby holidays at the time we had difficulty finding an occasion. Alas, we found a solution to our problem!! April 13! Today is Jo-Anna's half birthday. As of today, April 13, Jo-Anna is officially 22 and a half! (And 22.5 is half way to 25, which means we will be 30 soon! Eek! We are getting old!)

You might be asking how we plan to celebrate? Well, our first order of business was to go to the market to get fresh groceries! We love going and getting fresh fruits and vegetables. And seeing as how all that probably cost us about $3, who wouldn't!? See below for a picture.

Here are all our fruits and veggies sitting in bleach water. It is necessary to bleach everything before you eat it here in Uganda, just because you can never be too sure what is on the skin!

Here is all the lovely food. Normally one would also find pineapple in the mix, but there weren't any at the market this morning. Guess we went to early. Clockwise, starting at the top, are avacado, carrots, tomato, green pepper, eggplant, and oranges (oranges aren't actually orange in Uganda).

While today is primarily a data entry day, meaning that we will spend lots of time on our computers entering the data from our survey into spreadsheets, we have a few more activities in store. More chocolate cookies are in order!! This will be prepared this afternoon. And for dinner tonight, we are to have vegetables and chapattis! Yum!

Sorry that this seems to be turning into such a food blog! But wish you were here to enjoy with us :)

There is one other special things about today. As of today, we have officially been away from Victoria for three months (and loving it)! Though we do by all means miss our lives back home.

Hope you are well!
Jo-Anna and Sarah

This post is dedicated to the letter P...

2010-04-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

And the answer you have all been waiting for is...(drum roll)

POINSETTIA!

Congratulations to all who guessed the mystery flower as a poinsettia! We have seen several growing wild in the higher elevations of Uganda. Thought it was funny because it was close to Easter and we associate poinsettias with Christmas and cold(er) weather. Well, it turns out they grow free in Uganda! Who knew? Stay tuned for future similar guessing games.

In other news, we made our first truly Uganda meal the other night! Posho! For those of you who do not know what posho is, it is essentially just maize flour mixed with boiling water. When accompanied by the right sauce, we find it quite tasty. Sally gave us a tutorial on how to make it when we were in Kampala last. Our first stab at it was a success, too! Woohoo!

Posho has proven to be quite a staple in both Kumi and Mbarara. It is very common throughout Africa as a whole, though it is referred to by different names. To make it, one simply uses a 2 to 1 ratio of water to maize flour (for us, 2 cups of water and 1 cup of maize flour is plenty). First you boil the water. Once it is at a steady boil, you pour in the maize flour. Then you turn the heat down stir! And stir more and more so as that no lumps of flour remain. It might look like mashed potatoes, but it is quite dense and the texture is slightly granular.

The pictures included are of us with the posho, the posho in all its glory alone and the posho dressed up (below). We opted to serve it with beans and fresh vegetables (tomatoes, onions, green pepper, carrots, and a bit of garlic). Soooo good!

That's all for now. Stay tuned for an update on our weekend trip to Kigali, Rwanda! Should be up by mid-week with lots of pictures.

Hope all is well in Canada! And to those at home writing exams starting this week all the best :)

Until next time,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Cookies in Africa! Oh my!

2010-04-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

We thought we would post a little more about our latest adventure...making cookies!

We enjoyed a peaceful and very relaxing Easter Monday...walked to town, read, reflected, and made cookies. They actually turned out well, too! Woohoo! Cookies in Africa. And chocolate 'chip' at that!

We splurged a little and bought a bar of Cadbury's cooking chocolate. The shocker was that it wasn't actually half bad. By no means up to our high standards (set by Purdys, proudly Canadian), but it did the job and was not a repeat of our previous Cadbury chocolate experience. Thank God! It is lovely to be able to cook again :)

Below you will see a picture of us with some cookies. And a close up of the cookies themselves! Also featured is a picture of the view on our walk to town. And, last but not least, is a picture game! Can you guess what plant the leaves in the last picture belong to?? Let's just say you wouldn't associate it with Uganda, yet there it was growing outside.

Us with the fabulous cookies!

Close up on the cookies!

Our view from the road to OURS

The mystery plant! Take a guess in the comment area!!!

Have a great day :)
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Happy Easter!!

2010-04-05T00:11:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

Wishing you a very happy Easter from Uganda!!

We were invited over to a family from Victoria's house for Easter dinner and enjoyed quite the feast! Canadian food! Woohoo! It was lots of fun and we met several new people who are working on different projects in Mbarara.

This week we are starting our survey at OURS. They are very organized and already have a list generated for us of children that we can go and see. We should be going out into the villages by either late this week or next.

It has been a tad rainy here in Mbarara; it is the rainy season after all! But nothing compared to the weather in Victoria as of late!

Hope all is well with you all :)

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

In Mbarara!

2010-04-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

We are in Mbarara now. The trip by post bus was a tad bit long, but we arrived on time. This time there was a group of German students that got on at a later stop and there wasn't room for them, so they sat in the aisle. Of course we got pulled over by the traffic police/soldiers, so they got upset, blah, blah, blah, and we had to wait for a total of 90 minutes. Ugh. Anyway, we arrived fine and are excited to start work!!

Hope you have a very happy Easter weekend!!

Jo-Anna and Sarah

Goodbye, Kumi!

2010-03-28T05:44:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

Just wanted to let you know that we have arrived safely in Kampala. We were able to catch a ride with a doctor who was sending out a car to Entebbe to pick someone at the airport. Despite the early start time (we have been up since 4 this morning. yuck.), we are thrilled that the drive only took five hours, as opposed to the full days trip last time. And no one got sick!!

We have only a short time here in Kampala (three days). One will consist of getting printing done for the survey. Another, getting groceries for Mbarara. We will be able to cook for ourselves for the first time there! Hallelujah! The third day will be spent preping ourselves and re-packing.

Easter weekend will be spent in our new place of residence in Mbarara. Thankfully we are relatively familiar with Mbarara from our previous trip so that should come in handy. We are in an entirely different area now, though (30 minutes outside of town).

We realized that we never posted any pictures of Kumi town, so see below to get a feel for it. We decided to walk to town with Angela yesterday from the Guest House. That is approximately 7 km!! One picture is of the main street. As well, this is the market that we frequented. Pineapple, papaya, passion fruit, avacado, carrots, green pepper, tomatoes, onions, bananas, oranges, and more! We learned last week that we were doing well with our food price negotiating, as we were paying Ugandan prices, not mzungu prices. Yayy! The funny machine thing is making ground-nut butter...the equivalent of Canadian peanut butter. It is rather a noisy contraption, but it smells good! We have become experts at roasting ground-nuts!

The main street in Kumi.

Scenery from our walk into town.

The market.

The ground-nut butter making machine.

Happy Palm Sunday!

Jo-Anna and Sarah

Our Kumi Friends!

2010-03-28T03:11:00.000-07:00

Hello again!

We are very disappointed to have had to say goodbye to our friends in Kumi, as we are safeley back in Kampala with Sally now. This post is a tribute to them as we will miss them a ton!!! Let us introduce them to you (alphabetically, so as not to show favouritism)...

First off is our fellow Canadian, Angela. She is an occupational therapist from Vancouver. She was super kind to us and helped us find our way in Kumi from the start! We appreciate her continual support and encouragement :) We will miss her as our Canadian partner in crime, though we hope to meet up again soon!

Us with Angela.

Next, is Emily. She was our housemate at the guest house. As a physiotherapist from the London, she volunteered with the physio department. Together we enjoyed long walks around the hospital premises and sunsets. She very kindly put up with us when we were over tired and would get into laughing fits. (We might be 22, but we don't always act like it.) We will miss her sweetness.

Us with Emily.

Third are Julia and Mericka. These two German girls spend their time with the nutrition unit. They help out and spend time with the children. We would use their scale sometimes for our survey so we enjoyed morning chats with them. They also very kindly made us a goodbye cake in the shape of a heart. It was sooooo good! Will will miss their kindness.

Us with Julia and Mericka.

Us with the fabulous cake.

Finally, is Dr. Raymond. He is a doctor at the hospital, but has an interest in orthopaedics. He very graciously had us at his house, where we satisfied our American television fix. Many late nights were spent watching 24 (which we are now mildly addicted to it). Seriously! Try all half of season 8 in four days! Yep! That is a lot of lost sleep (as you can likely tell from the bags under the eyes in the picture!) We will miss his hospitality.

Us with Dr. Raymond.

Group shot. (Minus Emily who was enjoying a weekend in Sipi)

Hope you are well back in Canada. We miss you all, too.

Have a good day,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

A Week at Kumi Hospital

2010-03-27T04:48:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

Hope that you are well.

We have just finished our week hanging out at the hospital. We got to go around with lots of different people and see what they do in a day. It was really neat! There isn't too much activity in the hospital at the moment as funding is under evaluation, but we enjoyed what we were able to see!

We have never really posted any pictures before of Kumi Hospital, so we thought now would be a good time to show you around, so to speak. This will be pretty basic, but hopefully it will provide you with a greater appreciation of it all. Looking back at pictures now, we realize just how much we didn't take pictures of. We spent time in other places, too, just didn't take pictures.

The following is the front gates through which one enters the hospital.

This is the Hall of Hope (dedicated by a Canadian family). We enjoyed devotions here every morning. Unfortunately, we never got the guts to take pictures while in devotions. Didn't want to offend anyone.

This is the CBR (community based rehabilitation) office. We would meet here from time to time and use it to enter data or charge our electronic devices.

Below is the rehabilitation village. It is where mothers and children can stay following treatment. We have mentioned it before. It was funded by CBM and CIDA. While we were there, people from Gulu awaiting prosthetics also stayed here.

This is one of the main walks through the hospital. Off to the left, are two wards. Off to the right is a lovely tree with purple flowers.

Here is a picture of the lovely people in physio. From left to right are Paul, Harriet, Angela, Florence, Lydia, and Emily.

This is the nutrition unit. Here you see Julia (a girl from Germany) doing morning weigh-ins of the malnourished children.

There you have it! A basic tour of the hospital. We didn't take pictures inside the wards, so as not to offend. We also missed everything related to surgery. We did however get to watch a hysterectomy. That was really neat.

We are so grateful to everyone for their kindness in putting up with us and showing us around and being gracious in general.

Hope you have a great weekend,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Nyero Rock Paintings

2010-03-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

Today we had an opportunity to visit the lovely Nyero Rock Paintings. Located about 25 minutes away from the Guest House, the rock paintings are set in a little town called Nyero. It is crazy to see all the rock outcroppings in this area, seeing as how we are so accustomed to Kumi where it is primarily flat.

At Nyero, there are three different faces with paintings. They are at least 300 years old but likely much older and painted by fair skinned bushmen. The paintings were located on nearby rock faces, which allowed for a lovely little promenade between viewings.

The first painting consists of sets of white concentric circles and a few acacia pod figures, as seen below.

The second was the most impressive! It covered a rock face that was approximately six metres high, set between two large boulders. There were several sets of red concentric circles (as seen below). Also present was an acacia pod, the faded remains of zebra (seen in top right of picture of entire rock face - the scratchy looking bit), and two large canoes.

The third face was in a low rock shelter and had a single set of concentric circle on the ceiling.

Hope you enjoyed the rock paintings! We are back to Kampala come Friday and will miss all of our friends here terribly. Perhaps we will have to do a weekend trip or something after we finish in Mbarara. Hmm...

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Very exciting news!!

2010-03-23T07:23:00.000-07:00

Hello!

We have some very exciting news to share with you all! As of Saturday, March 20 we have finished the first half our nutritional survey! In other words, our work here in Kumi is has come to an end. We saw children 133 total, of which 41 had bone deformities.

That we are finished is bittersweet. We have truly come to love Kumi and don't really want to leave. Despite a slightly rocky start (getting over not having power was a tad of an adjustment - promise that will be the last time that is mentioned), we have made many friends and will sincerely miss their company upon our departure back to Kampala on Friday. Then it is on to Mbarara...

Francis was super helpful and key in getting our survey completed. Not sure where we would be without his help. He is a fantastic CBR (community based rehabilitation) worker and we cannot imagine being with anyone else. We will miss Francis a lot! James was also a great bodaboda driver and stand in translator when needed. See below for pictures of them both at work. Francis is holding the containers we use to estimate portions, while James is telling Emily about dodo (left) and ebbo (right), two greens.

Last Tuesday, Emily had an opportunity to come out to the field with us. She is a physio from the UK and wanted to see what life was like in the villages and our survey. We were so thrilled to have her with us and she even helped us complete a couple surveys! Thanks to her presence, we also got a couple of pictures of us hard at work. Included are Francis translating, Jo-Anna taking a child's middle upper arm circumference, and us with some villagers. See below!

Below is a picture of us on the back of James' boda. This is our main source of transportation here in Kumi, as well as what we used in the field. We would never go near one in Kampala (drivers are way too nuts! In the villages, we always wear skirts, so as not to offend. It was unsafe to ride side saddle in our skirts given distances we were travelling, so we had opted to wear capris beneath and hike up our skirts while in transport. Also, see Francis on the back of his motorbike. Our motorcade usually included Francis out front while we followed with James. Most roads (if you can call them that) are little dirt paths just wide enough for one to walk on (see below also). There are no street signs (haha) and we have literally no clue how Francis knows his way around. Seriously, everything looks exactly the same. Living in Kumi all your life probably helps, though. Again see below for a picture of one of these 'roads.'

This week we will be spending our time completing our data entry (which are pretty on top of!) and volunteering in the hospital.

Hope things are well in Canada!

Jo-Anna and Sarah

Survey and Chapattis

2010-03-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

Hello!

Hope that you all are well!

We are taking a day off for data entry in light of some repairs that are needed for Francis' motorbike before we can return to he field. In lieu of this unforeseen event, we will be going out on Friday and Saturday of this week. Probably a good thing that we didn't go out, as it is soooo ridiculously hot as of late. There has not been any rain in over a week :S Ugh. We appreciated our almost daily rains before because it certainly cooled things down!!

We have seen a lot of children in the past couple of days. See below for some cute pictures of some of the kids eating. We actually dropped in on a family while they were eating their lunch!! It was fun to watch the process of eating in action (that sounds kind of weird). In Uganda, it is not like in Canada, where one is likely to sit around a table and take food from the centre and place it on one's plate. Here, people are more likely to sit on the ground and partake in communal eating. In other words, while one might have a bowl with a bit of food intended for him or herself, but quite a bit of the food placed in the centre for one to grab at will.

Take, for instance, the bowl with the brownish food as seen in the picture below. This is a 'bread' like substance, known locally as atapa. It can be made of various flour components (potato, cassava, sorghum, etc). In the case below, the atapa is made of cassava and sorghum flour. The bowl containing the atapa sits in the centre of everyone and when one feels the need, he or she reaches and pinches off some food at will. And, it is all about eating with your fingers! No matter how old one is, one's fingers are by far preferred. (Just a note the other food in the bowls include a cooked local green, called ebbo, and some beans.)

Along the line of food, the other night we had the opportunity to learn how to make chapattis. Grace, the housekeeper at the Kumi Hospital Guest House, taught us how. Using the charcoal stoves and everything!! Grace has the recipe down so amazingly well that she simply eyeballs the ingredients to determine how much is needed. Anyway, we estimated the amounts and will hopefully be able to replicate the recipe at home. If we are successful, we will post the recipe! The ones that Grace helped us make were certainly quite tasty!!

Well, that's all for now. Hope that you have a great week!

Bye,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Two Month Anniversary!

2010-03-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

Hope you are well. We are back in Kumi. This is the last week of working on our project here. Next week we are volunteering around the hospital and then heading back to Kampala. April 1 will bring us back to Mbarara to start that part of the project.

Today is our official two month anniversary in Uganda! Woohoo! We have survived so far!! Sarah has another two months and Jo-Anna three.

Well! That's all for now. The internet is going ridiculously slow and terribly inconsistent (as in 15 min to load one page).

Have a great day,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Sipi Falls!

2010-03-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

Hello from Sipi Falls!

We have just come back from a fantastic hike from where we are staying to the bottom of Sipi Falls. Sipi Falls is credited as one of Uganda's most romantic places and it is quite beautiful. Though the hike was by no means easy, the view and falls themselves were fantastic.

Before I go on about the hike, I will set the scene for you. This weekend, one would find us staying at the Crow's Nest (apparently they have a website if you are interested in checking it out). Below is the view of the falls from our door. We opted to spend a $1.00 more in order to have our own private cabin (again below) instead of being in a dorm. It is quite quaint, but enjoyable. Very rustic feeling. There is no electricity, but seeing as we are used to that, we are getting by just fine.

The following is a picture of the falls from the reception area at the Crow's Nest. We very much enjoy just sitting outside and gazing at it. You can even hear the water falling from where we are!

And now on to the hike! We decided to hire a local guy through the Crow's Nest named Alex to be our guide. There are several various hikes that one can do, as there are four falls in total. However, given just how hot it is during the day, we opted for just walking to the main Sipi Falls first thing in the morning. Looking back on it now, we are quite thankful as it is suuuuper hot. There and back took us just over two and a half hours.

Below you will see Sarah and Alex walking along a path. We had not descended yet at this point. Those little green tree/shrub things are coffee plants! (There is one right in front of Sarah.) A nice portion of the hike consisted of walking through the coffee plants. There is also a picture of the berries close up. Alex told us that they will not be ready until September, at which time they will be harvested.

Next we came to the Sipi river, the source of the Falls. Where the water sort of seems to drop off there is just before where the Falls start. One can repel off the cliff, but neither of us were too fond of that option. Here also is a shot of us on the bridge over the river. This is at about 9:30 in the morning and the sun was already beaming, so we were getting quite hot. We were provided walking sticks which we thought was a tad tacky and really only made us feel more like the tourists that we were, but we were quite thankful for them later!!

A lot of the hike was going through people's land (which is why it is best to use a guide). Here you can see someone's banda. The children would always come out and say hello to us and wave.

The view from above the falls was fantastic!! Here we are facing toward Kumi. You can't actually see Kumi (it is too far and there is too much haze), but you do see a bit of how flat the land is in the distance. The trees in this picture are banana trees. We were walking through someone's farming area at this point.

We got to climb down one Ugandan-made ladder. Here is Sarah travelling down. The descent to the base of the Falls was quite steep, which meant quite the hike when we had to go up the same path later. Not going to lie, we were quite out of breath and had to take breaks. It just too steep!

Here is our fearless leader Alex. He had no idea this picture was being taken, but his pose is pretty good! As you can see he opted to hike in flip flops. Nutcase. The pictures posted make it seem as though it was a meandering climb, but it wasn't. A lot of the trail consisted of a narrow dirt path on the faces. Given that much of the dirt was quite loose, so you had to be really careful! Makes one appreciate the well maintained paths you find on Vancouver Island!

Here I am as we are getting close to the waterfall. We got excited as we got closer and closer!

And of course here we are at the bottom! We have completed our descent! There was a lovely mist. Quite refreshing. Thankfully, you can't tell how sweaty we are from the picture. It was hot. The water was really loud as it crashed onto the rock behind us.

Here is a view looking up at the falls. 97 metres in total! Wow! It was not possible to get the whole waterfall in a picture from top to bottom, but hopefully this will do!

One last picture of us. Quite pleased with our hike.

Well there you have it! A weekend at Sipi Falls. This will be our last weekend away for a while. This coming week is our last working week with Francis and James at the hospital. We will be going out from Monday to Thursday, as well as Saturday. Saturday is intended to be used to catch all kids we missed because they were in school.

We should be heading back to Kampala on March 25 or 26. Then it is off to Mbarara again for the month of April. Lots more adventure to come there!

Wish you were here with us,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Another week gone by...

2010-03-11T07:47:00.000-08:00

Hello!

Hope all is well with everyone :)

We spent last weekend in Mbale and the majority of the week doing research. We decided to go for a couple of long nights of data entry and leave a day early to Sipi Falls! So that's where you find us this weekend, Sipi Falls!

Mbale was quite a bit larger than Soroti. Of course, by no means was it Kampala. We wandered the streets and checked out the market. It wasn't all that clean, so we did not overly enjoy it. Below is a picture of some gentlemen cutting up jackfruit on at a stand they had set up on the sidewalk. Jackfruit is like a combination of an apple and a banana...It tastes a bit more like a banana, but had the texture of an apple. I, Jo-Anna, like it, but Sarah is not so fond. She states that it has a bit of a funk to it...which it most certainly does, but it is quite sweet, too. There is also a picture of a typical street (complete with a matatu/taxi - the white van with writing on it - our main source of transportation).

We stayed at an inn just outside of town. It had a beautiful view of Mt. Elgon. There is a picture of that below as well. It was a bit overcast the first day we were there, but cleared up entirely the second day. We went for a lovely walk in the morning (really early to escape the heat) and enjoyed the views a lot.

Nothing too exciting has happened over the past week. At one village that we went too, they were super excited to see us and were getting upset that we had to leave and were not going to survey each and every one of their children (of which there must have been close to forty). Anyway, I for some reason thought that taking my camera out might be a good compromise...they get quite excited to see pictures of themselves on that little screen...this went well for a while until each mother wanted me to take a picture of her child. That's a lot of pictures! Yikes! The sun was super bright, too, so the pictures didn't turn out too well, but it made them somewhat happier (I like to think).

Below are pictures of two little girls that I actually managed to capture smiling!! People seem to smile a lot, but once you go to take a picture they stop! (Don't worry we always ask permission before taking any pictures.) Anyway, the trick is to smile at them and hold the camera in place and then quickly look down to make sure you are centred before taking the smiling picture. Ha ha.

And finally, there is a picture of the sunset through some trees during our walk last night. It has been quite hot lately, so going out in the evening is about the only time one is comfortable enough to do so. At one point during our walk, a small herd of cattle decided to join us, so we were walking with the cows. Haha.

The sun sets quite quickly, but the stars come out really fast. In no time at all, they litter the sky. It is really beautiful as you can see what seems to be the entire Milky Way in an expanse above! It is super pretty. I am going to try to get a picture, but without a tripod it is unlikely to happen.

Well! That is all for now. We are really looking forward to Sipi Falls. It is at the base of Mt. Elgon and from what we have heard quite beautiful. Another post about our adventures will be coming soon!

Have a good day,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

PS - We hear that the cherry blossoms are out in Victoria! How lovely! We were just talking the other day about how we will miss seeing spring come alive. Hope life in Canada is fantastic :) Miss you all!

Quick Update

2010-03-06T03:29:00.000-08:00

Hey!

We are in Mbale at the moment for a weekend get away! Yay! Just wanted to let you all know that we are a few hours away from the landslides and are just fine. There had been quite a bit of rain earlier this week, but nothing too crazy for Kumi.

Please pray for the families affected. There are many unfortunate stories, but I do not have time to list them all. Some of the staff at the hospital have family members affected. It is very sad.

Other than that, hope you are well. Please, please, please feel free to leave comments. We love to hear from you. As well, we have an email address ugandanadventure2010@gmail.com. Feel free to email us any time. We would love to hear updates on life in Canada and hear any encouragement you might have. (Ugandans use the term 'just feel free' a lot, with certain emphasis on certain words, and it is totally rubbing off on us. Haha)

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Reflections on a week gone by...

2010-03-06T03:15:00.000-08:00

Hello!!

We got back from Soroti safely and enjoyed a week at work on the project in Kumi!

After waking up at 7 in the morning to a beautiful Soroti sunrise last Sunday (see below), we went out excited about our pending hike. Of course, once we finally managed to locate the path up, there was a large sign stating that trespassing was prohibited and trespassers would be prosecuted. Not wanting any trouble, we decided to turn back. Slightly defeated. On the way to finding the trail, however, we did get to see a vervet monkey quite close up and a funny little lizard (again, see below).

As usual, the local children thought it would be funny to follow us on our walk, so we had a trail of about six to eight of them for a good fifteen minutes or so. First they would say hello, ask us how we were, and then ask us for money while sticking out their hand (using the word 'ask' is generous given the general phrase is 'give me my money'). Ah, yes. So classic. We just laugh and tell them we have no money for them.

As you likely recall if you read our posts often enough, we had set out to watch Team Canada triumph over the US for the gold medal at the Olympics. Well, we by all means stayed up to watch the game and braved walking in a torrential downpour, but would you believe that despite having nearly 400 channels, DSTV (a South African satellite provider) lacked a single channel playing the Olympics??? Not just hockey, but the Olympics period!? We were quite disappointed given how late we had stayed up (usually asleep by 9 - that's what happens when you have no power and it is dark outside by 7) and all that anticipation! Top that off with that it was apparently an absolutely fantastic game and, well, that's life for you! Soccer was definitely on at least every second channel, but winter sports were non-existent. ESPN was even playing a soccer game from like twenty years ago (at least). Really ESPN, really? And you think that you are a leader in sports entertainment? Guess that just confirms the popular suspicion that the rest of the world really doesn't value hockey quite as highly as us in Canada. Their loss.

This past week was our first consistently working on our project out in the villages. Monday to Thursday was spent out in the field, while Friday consisted of data entry. We work with two gentlemen named Francis and James. Francis is the CBR (community based rehabilitation) worker and James is his friend and our boda driver (aka he has the lucky task of driving us around).

We got an awful lot done and saw about 50 children (way over our estimated number to see per week which stands at about 40). Of that, about fifteen have angulatory bone deformities (knock-knees, windswept, and bow legs thus far). Francis knows where the children with angulatory bone deformities are, which is why that number is quite high. The incidence isn't that high in the common village.

People have been very welcoming as we simply coast into their villages on our motorbikes. They immediately go and grab us chairs to sit in. We draw quite a crowd, too! Children immediately gather just to stare. We are quite the spectacle! At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have had a couple of incidences of children who are scared of us because we are white. Haha. The poor kids would cry whenever we came near them. In Sarah's case, she had to get Francis to do the measurements for one kid as he would scream like she was hurting him with her presence. Oh dear.

We ask the mothers the questions within the survey itself. It consists of basic physical measurements, a 24 food recall, and a diet frequency questionnaire. This sort of questioning is status quo in this line of research. The consent and each question asked are translated by either Francis or James. We usually split up such that one of us is with each of them and we each take a mother. We had a morning of training a week back so that we are ensured that they really understand the questions we are asking.

We always have a period of time where mothers and any others who are there can ask questions. It is encouraging to see that they are interested in the health of their children. We are often asked why children have angulatory bone deformities and while we are not experts, it is clear that many lack basic knowledge the importance of appropriate nutrient intake during childhood.

Below you will find some picture from our outings. An example of what it looks like to have knock-knees. A picture of Sarah while conducting the survey. Some women and their children with us (they wanted to have their picture taken). A grandmother and her grandchildren with dodo (a common green eaten by Ugandans). Finally, us looking fantastic (of course) in our helmets; quite the fashion statement with the hiking boots, skirts, helmets, and all.

That's all for now. Time to enter more data into the computer.

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

PS - Pastor Mark, this is a note just for you! If we wake up early in the morning after a night of rain, there are these decently large ant-like bugs with wings that fly around really slowly. Lots of people (especially children) come out to catch them as they are considered quite the tasty treat (or so we are told - the exact phrase used was 'a nice fatty snack'). We find trying to walk at this time of day difficult given the amount of time we spend swatting the air. The locals consider us quite the sight...they laugh and try to demonstrate how to best catch and eat the things. In fact, the children are so well practiced that they bring bottles along such they can save some for later. Not quite crickets, but close. Sorry to say, but I have no intention of trying one :)

Soroti!

2010-02-27T05:18:00.000-08:00

Hello!!

As previously mentioned, we are now in Soroti.

It was about a one hour drive from Kumi. We sat beside a mother and her two young children. It was the baby's first time seeing someone white the mother informed us, so she stared at us a lot. (More than the usual amount of staring we provoke, that is...staring is just plain common these days.) She warmed up quite quickly, though, and would laugh, play with my (Jo-Anna's) hand, and put her head against my sleeve. In the end she peed on me. Hmmm...Oh well!

There isn't much to note about Soroti...it's more of a pass through town. There is, however, a giant rock at its centre. This wouldn't seem that exciting, except for that in this part of Uganda one sees primarily red dirt everywhere. There might be little mounds, but for the most part it is quite flat. We plan to hike it tomorrow morning. When we walked near it this afternoon, there were monkeys hopping across the faces!! So exciting!

It is nice to have electricity and we are enjoying the change of pace and scenery. The hotel at which we are staying is right downtown across from the huge market. Here one can find fruits, vegetables, meat, and random other goods. And we have a view of this rock! Yay! Find below a picture taken directly from our room.

We are very excited to hear that Canada's mens hockey team has made it into the gold medal game. Go Canada! We are going to stay up and watch the game at a neighbour's house with Angela (an occupational therapist from Vancouver working at the hospital). We had vowed that if they made it to the game we would stay up (given the 11 hour time difference) and watch. Can't remember if I mentioned that before, but I know I meant to. When we tell all the Ugandans they laugh at us. Haha.

That's all for now! We go back to Kumi tomorrow afternoon and out into the villages on Monday.

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Back to doing research...

2010-02-27T04:40:00.000-08:00

Hello again!

Everything is back on track, for which we are exteremely thankful. Our research project will start up again on Monday. We have practiced with the CBR worker we will be working with, Francis, and things seem to be lined up to go well. This weekend our plan is to go to Soroti, a near by town. Apparently there is a big market, which should be fun! Fruits and vegetables are ridiculously inexpensive. Imagine the best pineapple ever for 50 cents!!

We had an opportunity to go on a nice long walk through Kumi this afternoon. It had rained a lot this morning; it was a long continual rain, as opposed to the typical on for two hours, done for the day rain. It significantly cooled things down, which was great.

The 'roads' we walked on were more like foot paths. Haha. Most people here could only dream of owning a car, thus the preferred mode of transportation is a bodaboda (motorcycle). A farming community surrounds Kumi Hospital, so we walked among fields of cassava and other crops. There were also livestock like cows, pigs, goats, and chickens. Chickens roam free, while the others are usually tied up on a rope.

When we walked past little clusters of houses, children would come out and to say 'hi' or 'yoga'. They trailed behind us as we continued on our walk for a while until they had ventured a little too far and returned to their huts.

Below are some pictures. First is of a field behind the hospital guest house, where we are staying. The second of the guest house itself. The third of a bug. Can you spot it? It camoflauged ridiculously well and we wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't jumped. The fourth of some kids/preteens that ran past us herding cows. The fifth of Sarah on our walk back along the main road from town toward the hospital. These will provide you with a bit of a better idea of the terrain. (These images are in the reverse order listed as the internet I am using is being difficult!!)

Hope you are well and have a great weekend!
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Things at the moment...

2010-02-24T08:22:00.000-08:00

Okay, so things are a little at a stand still. Not going to write too much at the moment, but hopefully things will clear up and we can get stuff up and running again.

In the mean time, here are a couple of pictures for you to enjoy from when we went out on Monday into the village.

Please pray that things would get fixed. We are slightly discouraged but remembering to have faith in God and His provision.

First Outreach Clinic

2010-02-24T08:20:00.000-08:00

Yoga!

This morning we were formally introduced at Kumi Hospital during their morning devotion. They found it particularly funny when I (Jo-Anna) said that I was a student of biology and Sarah said she was a student of microbiology. The entire room full of people burst out laughing because one person studied small stuff and the other big, as they put it. We felt quite welcome and they gave us 'flowers.'

Following our introduction, we were to meet up with Charles to go on the outreach clinic; however, it seemed he was running a little late and was not there yet. While we were waiting, we met Margaret, the house mother of the rehabilitation village built by CBM. The rehabilitation village is where mothers and children can stay following treatment. There are about five rectangular houses, each with six beds. A door is found on each end, such that a nice breeze flows through. This is important in Kumi given that it is quite hot! It is a really cute little area.

Once Charles arrived, we learned that they were having difficulty finding a vehicle for us to depart in as each of land rovers seem to be in need of some sort of repair. This resulted in us leaving a little bit late. Upon departure, our team included Charles (head of the community based rehabilitation - CBR - workers), Lydia (physiotherapist assistant), Michael (ophthalmic assistant), and George (driver).

The ride took quite a while (though I couldn't tell you exactly how long). We were headed to Okwamor, a village in the next district over from Kumi.
The topography was quite varied from fields of crops (cassava, maize, rice, and others) to marshes with waterlilies and papyrus to sudden outcroppings of rocks that went straight into the air. There were various trees and bushes spread throughout, as well as houses made of clay and grass roofs (that is a poor description, but I will try to learn the proper term) and some basic brick and tin roof structures...So much more like the Uganda that we were expecting; Kampala kinda threw us off.

This was the group's first time going to Okwamor. Apparently word had been spread that the team would be coming so there was a group of about 20 or so women and children gathered under the shade of a tree (later during the day the number got closer to 40 or 50). When we got there Charles explained that Sarah and I should give a speech to the people as this is expected and to include some sort of word of encouragement. I have to admit that at this point I still was not feeling so swift and fearing a little that I might lose the contents of my stomach again due to sickness. The bumpy ride along the dirt road really hadn't helped anything.

Regardless, on we went. Sarah gave a very sweet speech about how we were blessed to be with them and that we hoped that we could bless them as much as they were blessing us. I, too, rambled about how beautiful their village was. My word of encouragement was that we were pleased that they were interested in the health of their children and that interest in assisting the disabled was good. Not so deep. I will work harder on it for next time. I should note that while we were talking we were being translated in to the villagers' language of Ateso (the language spoken here in Kumi by the Iteso people). It is weird to have someone translate while you are talking! I had heard that before, but can truly attest to it now! (Hello in Ateso is 'yoga,' thus the greeting at the top of this post). Anyway, there were several more speeches from different people including all those in our team, some elders, some people who had received help from Kumi hospital before (they had all had cataract surgeries), and a local councilor.

Once the clinic started, Michael took the children needing eye consults to the church (a simple brick building) beside the tree, while we stayed with Lydia under the tree and saw the orthopaedic clients. Sarah was Lydia's secretary, writing down info on a sheet. Charles came by quite often and told me what was going on and different stuff about the day. Apparently he overheard some of the ladies of the village saying they were quite impressed with how we had dressed, as we had worn long skirts like them. Thanks to those who gave us tips on that!!

Eventually all the children there were seen. Charles explained that since it was the team's first time to the village, the villagers were not sure if the team would show up and thus many did not gather initially. However, mothers would slip away from the group and tell their neighbours who would come back with their children. Lydia told us that in the villages, to have a disabled child was a great burden as people did not know how to treat them. In several cases, the disabled children are simply locked up inside their houses. It was quite disheartening.

Lots of children had gathered around the table at which Sarah and I were sitting and were watching us intently. I would say hello to them, but they would usually sneak away shyly. Haha. I stuck to smiling instead, so as not to scare them. Lydia told us they rarely see white people and they just wanted to check us out to see if we had the same body parts. Haha.

After packing back into the range rover, we learned that our day was not over yet and that we were off to have dinner at the village leader's (I think, probably not the proper term) house. Again, Sarah and I had to introduce ourselves and give a little speech since we were apparently the honoured guests. We were treated a meal of rice, cassava, cabbage, broth, and chicken. Of course I stillll wasn't feeling great and having not been able to eat much besides a few crackers most of the day, I was not quite up to the task of enjoying a feast (yes this is leading somewhere).

After giving yet another speech, Charles decided I looked like I had something to say (I didn't think I did, but he seemed to know better) and so I got to say something again. Shortly after this, we were served plates with cassava (called manioc in Canada we are told) and rice. And (SURPISE!) chicken gizzard! There were two even! One for both Sarah and myself. Again, my stomach was not pleased, so I tried to politely decline to Charles explaining that I had been sick, but he told me that I had to eat it as it would be disrespectful not to. So, yep, I ate it...well more like focused on swallowing it. But Sarah said she liked it! It was very kind of them to think of us in that way.

Anyway, the meal went on for quite a while and I had to give another speech just before leaving. (Sarah got off easy with just one, while I had to give three! So unfair.) As we were walking to the car, this really old man missing teeth and with slightly tattered clothes came running (hobbling really) toward us. He was making quite the racket and clapping away. We weren't quite sure what was going on, so we were a tad panicked and backed away a bit. It turned out that he was the father of the village and really happy to see us (thus the excitement on his part). And here we thought he was a witch doctor or something casting a spell on us! We did shake his hand and say yoga in the end.

As we took off in the land rover, all these kids (there had to be at least 30 around us) ran with us through the fields. It was really like a scene out of a movie. Like when the kids run beside an airplane or something as it takes off. Haha. They followed quite closely, that is until George stepped on the gas. We took off and they still tried to keep up. Hahaha.

Anyway, the trip back to the hospital was quite picturesque and we were able to enjoy our first true African sunset. The sun was bright red and passed through the clouds down to the ground. So beautiful.

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures that day at all throughout the day. I wasn't sure if it was okay and didn't want to offend anyone, so I just didn't (blame my lack of stamina).

Whew! Sorry that was such a long post but I wanted to try to convey the situation and surroundings the best I could such that you yourself might also have been there. Wish you were!

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna

Travel to Kumi

2010-02-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

Hey!

We are offically now in Kumi! The trip took the whole day, but we have made it here safely.

We had been staying with Sally while in Kampala. It was great to go to King's Daughters and spend a bit of time with them there. They were very friendly and warm. We greatly enjoyed devotions with them nightly. We wish we had their sense of rhythm!!

Our journey started at 7 am with a taxi to the post office where we were to take the post bus to Kumi. Upon arrival, we learned that the post bus does not go directly to Kumi (despite many sources assuring us that it did...including Ugandans!) The closest it went was to Mbale. So off we went to Mbale. Thankfully, the conductor of the post bus was very friendly and forgave us for having soooo much luggage. Haha. (We had supplies for the survey and groceries in addition to our suitcases.)

At one point, the guy that Sarah was sitting beside got off the bus to go to university. A short while later a different person who had gotten on with lots of supplies, including a mattress, got off the bus and we seemed to be stopped for quite a while. The conductor announced to us the following (while looking at Sarah), "We are arrested because the student took the mattress." We both looked at each other and were like what? We are getting arrested? But the guy didn't even take a mattress when he left...all he had was a backpack? We were quite confused. Anyway, the conductor had just meant to inform us of what was happening and that we were stopped (he chose the word arrested) because they thought the student had taken the mattress...which he hadn't (the stuff guy had had it all along), so we have no idea why they were all confused.

From Mbale, the post bus driver kindly offered to go out of the way and to the matatu stop for Kumi. We were so thankful!! There was another girl from Switzerland on the bus and she was going the same way we were, so she kindly helped us go the right way. We learned that she had been staying in Uganda for three years and teaching women textiles and fashion design. She had trained in fashion in Switzerland but had not felt fulfilled in her task, so when she learned from a woman visiting her church that there was an opportunity to teach women textiles she jumped at it and has been enjoying it ever since.

The matatu to Kumi was the fullest that we had ever been on!! They really stuffed it to the brim! There were 22 people! At one point the conductor got out of the matatu and took a boda boda (on each matatu there is a conductor who collects money and a driver who drives). We didn't know why, but the girl from Switzerland informed us he was getting ahead of the matatu to bribe the police man ahead so that he wouldn't stop us since we were so full. Oh dear.

Anyway, we arrived in Kumi in one piece. The only unfortunate thing was that I (Jo-Anna) managed to eat something that did not agree with me and while we were waiting for the ride from Kumi Hospital to come and pick us up I found myself throwing up into a ditch (ew). Quite embarrassing. And I did not eat any crazy food off the street...the only difference between what Sarah and I ate was a cinnamon bun I got at Shoprite (a grocery store).

Upon arrival we discovered that the Kumi Hospital Guest House does not have electricity...not in the sense that the power is off (as is often the case in Uganda), but actually that they lack power entirely. This should be interesting. Charles, the head CBR (community based rehabilitation) worker at Kumi Hospital came over shortly after our arrival to discuss our project (wasting no time and not allowing us time to unpack in the last remaining hour of daylight). We put on a brave (though tired - and sick in my case) face and met with him. We also learned that the next day there would be an outreach clinic in a village. So we will be doing that tomorrow. We look forward to working with him in and the others the future!

This is turning out to be quite the adventure. Sorry for the particularly poor grammatical skills in this post.

Will keep you updated as soon as possible.
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Thoughts on Kampala, Mbarara, and Kumi

2010-02-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

Hello again!

As we sit here and type this it is mid-afternoon Feb. 12 in Mbarara and the power is out. And it is hot. While we had initially been quite thrilled with the coolness of Mbarara, the sun has again decided to show itself and it has become very hot. Not unbearable hot, but notably hotter. Such is life in Africa.

Yesterday we got to go to OURS, a program funded by Christian Blind Mission. It is in Ruharo. We opted to walk (about 40 from downtown) at 2:30 in the afternoon. It was hot. Things were pretty quiet there at the moment as it is February and students are just going back to school. It was nice to meet people, though, discuss plans and get a feel of what things are to be like come April.

As our time here is coming to an end, we thought this would be a good time to recollect our first impressions of Mbarara. Our conclusion has been to go for the ever classic pro/con list.

PROS:
- less busy (than Kampala - motorists still kind of aim for pedestrians though)
- more greenery (full fledged hibiscus hedges)
- closed sewage canals
- birds and butterflies!
- better cell phone service (yay!)
- friendlier university attendees (bad experience at Mulago library)
- decent restaurants
- easily walkable
CONS:
- dusty (have to close eyes and mouth when trucks pass by)
- no touristy things to do close by (this was too be expected - Mbarara is about the equivalent of Langford, minus the box stores)
- get harassed more per number of people (Forever hearing 'Mzungu! How are you?' You start to understand what it is like to have constant paparazzi presence. Children are cute, but adults shouting at you isn't as appreciated. We have also had songs on radios sung to us - with actions - as we walk past people working while listening to the radio.
- more power outages
- internet cafes few and far between (also affected by the outages)
- inflation of costs associated with being a smaller district (yikes! some foods are expensive compared to Kampala!)

That's all for now. The next couple of days will be spent getting supplies for Kumi. We are off to Kumi next week to start the survey! Hooray! It looks like things are finally taking off!

Hope you have/had a great weekend! (Depends when we are able to post)
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Since this is being posted so late, here is what we are looking forward to in Kumi...
- seeing villages
- the large market that we have been told is there
- starting the survey!!!!!!!!!
- cooking for ourselves
- unpacking (we have been living out of our suitcases for just over a month and it is getting sooooo annoying. finally we will be able to unpack without uprooting a short time later)
- biking (we hope!)
- more weekend trips to the surrounding areas

Pictures

2010-02-15T21:54:00.000-08:00

Previous Updates, as promised

2010-02-15T21:43:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

Here are two updates from before. Plus some pictures! These entries were pre and post ethical approval.

Ethics Approval! (Well, almost.)

Ethics approval. Just thinking about it is making me suffer from hyposomnia (though more likely it’s my long johns causing me to overheat).

Admittedly lacking the thrill of an ATV safari or ManU/Arsenal football match, receiving ethics approval has nevertheless been our primary goal since arriving in the ‘Pearl of Africa.’ After a failed attempt at approval through the Ugandan National Council for Science and Technology in Kampala, our second try through the Mbarara University of Science and Technology has so far been significantly more successful. Yesterday and today will have been spent meeting with Dr. Bitariho (head of surgery at Mbarara Hospital and project collaborator), Dr. Nosmo (assistant dean at Mbarara Univeristy in charge of research), Francis (biostatistician at Mbarara University) and Kordelia (OURS administrator and project collaborator). Though asked some tough questions, we were assured that the intention was to help us get the most out of our project – which has now been entitled a ‘feasibility study’ to avoid the need for further levels of approval.

We also learned some useful information: next time you are preparing matooke (therefore I assume this also applies to bananas), cook it with the peel on and it will retain many of the peel’s micronutrients! Another interesting fact: many caretakers will dilute milk so that it lasts a child throughout the day. Definitely a consideration for a nutritional project on calcium, though I’m not sure how many of these intricacies we can account for in our survey. Another example is that sometimes people will eat meat with the pulverized bone.

After going over the project proposal yesterday, today will be spent reviewing our consent form, questionnaire, budget and sample size. As for the maze of administrative hoops: we were informed, in mock apology, that we could partly blame Canada’s trendsetting in bureaucracy.

Thank you for all the prayer! I hope you will hear some good news from us soon!
Sarah and Jo-Anna
___________________________

We got ethics approval!!!

Hooray! Today we got ethics approval! Thank God!! We are very excited :)
As was described previously we had gone through quite the process (though quite a mild one compared to what it could have been, for which we are very gracious) and it is so great that it seems to have come to an end.

During our final meeting with the associate dean and Dr. Bitariho we had to go through a little more ribbing. First, in Canada, we call the common potato a potato, but in Uganda, the common potato is known as an Irish potato. A potato to them is a sweet potato. Thus to differentiate we called the common potato white potatoes within the survey...Well, heaven forbid! Apparently participants would have gotten most confused.

As well, we listed 'seafood' as a meat possibility. Oops. Being land locked and all Uganda doesn't seem to have to much access to the fruits of the sea. The term lakefood was thrown around. Doesn't have the same ring.

Our final blunder was to ask whether the participant's parents were consanguineous within the survey. First off, Ugandans do not seem to be familiar with this particular word and thus we had to define it. Dr. Bitariho and the associate dean seemed to think the french influence in Canada must have been responsible for our word choice. Anyway, it was concluded that to ask this would quite possibly be offensive...pretty sure that those familiar with genetics might disagree, but that is okay. It has officially been control x'd.

Hope all is well and that things are going successfully for you all as well:) Now we are off to sleep because we were restless the majority of last night.

Jo-Anna and Sarah

Hello from Kampala again!

2010-02-14T23:50:00.000-08:00

hello all,

ugh. i was writing a blog post and the stupid computer reset. (becca, i thought of you in honduras when this happened). quite frustrated.

anyway, we are staying with sally at the moment and are off to kumi on wednesday. we will officially get a chance to start our survey, which we are very excited about.

we don't have the memory card on which our posts were that we wrote while in mbarara, so you will have to wait a little bit longer to find out about our time there. sure you are dying to know ;)

hope all is well,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Ethical Approval Obtained!

2010-02-10T23:35:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

Just wanted to let you know that yesterday we were able to obtain ethics apptroval through Mbarara University of Science and Technology with the assistance of one of Dr. Penny's good Ugandan friends. We have written posts on our computers, but unfortunately the computers here are quite old and do not have usb drives, so you will have to wait to get the whole story for a few days more!

Hope you are well!
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Mbarara!

2010-02-08T00:15:00.000-08:00

Hello,

We are currently in Mbarara, seeing people about getting approval for our project. It is much cooler here, which we greatly appreciate. There isn't too much to do here, so we are getting the lay of the land. It is much smaller than Kampala! On the drive over we got to take our pictures with the equator sign.

Hope you are well :)
Jo-Anna

Quading!

2010-02-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

Okay! On to ATV-ing. Can't remember the name of the company that we went with currently, but it was right beside Bugajali Falls. We got to get suited up in linen type jumpers, complete with helmet and googles. Oh, and a bandana to cover our mouths.

The trip took us through various villages. The children were cute and would run out of their homes and wave as we rode past, shouting various phrases including 'hello', 'jambo', and the ever classic 'mzungo.' They would jump and down and get pretty excited, too! Some villagers lived in traditional circular houses, while others in simple brick-like rectangular houses. Don't have pictures of either, unfortunately, as we always seemed to be whizing through. In their yards they grew various crops like maize, squashes, beans, what I (Jo-Anna) think were tomatoes (looked like the plant), sugar cane, and other unrecognizable stuff. I have to wonder how much they really appreciated us using their roads and kicking up all that red dust. Hmmm...

The ride also included a pit stop at a couple of lookouts. The first provided a stunning view of the Nile, facing back toward the Owen River Dam. The second was of the new dam which is being constructed. Our guide, Stephen, told us that that it was supposed to be done in 2012, but given the rate at which construction is occurring this is quite unlikely. He also mentioned that once the dam is built it will raise the water level of the area previous (the area where we had rafted). Made us wonder what would happen to some of village people, as it seemed there were some houses that were close to the waters edge. As well, there was so much lush greenery and it is sad that that would be abolished. All part of industrialization, I guess :(

Part way through the ride we had a pit stop during which we got to enjoy a refreshing cold (bottled) beverage from a local shop. It was at this point that we first discovered just how dirty we had become. See the pictures below to further understand. That red soil just gets everywhere!

The two hour trip ended with a trip down to Bugajali Falls, which as I mentioned earlier is more of a large series of rapids. It was quite neat to see such a large volume of water moving so quickly like that.

After the ride finished, we got to wash up (sooo much dirt everywhere, despite the jumpsuit) and made our way back to the Nile River Explorers camp where we got a ride back our room. We yet further discovered just how disgustingly dirty we were again. But it was fun, so it was worth it!

All in all, we without a doubt had a great time in Jinja and look forward to more weekend adventures in the future!

Hope you had a great weekend too!
Jo-Anna and Sarah :)

From left to right Jo-Anna, Katie, and Sarah on quads.

In front of Bujagali Falls.

Taking a break frpm quading (first discovered how dirty we were)

The after shot.

Ugh...So much red dirt :S

2010-02-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

Hello!

Today was a day of adventure in Jinja!

As you might recall, we had planned to go on a float trip and ATVing. Both of these were so much fun, but we are quite exhausted now. This post is going to be part one of two, detailing the float trip.

The float trip was our first activity. We left at around 9ish with Nile River Explorers. It was a quick drive over to our launch site at the bottom of the Owen River Dam. We realized during the drive that the bridge we went over yesterday and mentioned in our previous post was actually the dam. The drive took us through a little village and all the children shouted 'Mzungu, mzungu' and waved and ran along side the bus. For those who don't know, mzungu is the term for white person. We are called this at least a million times a day by passerbys.

It was just the three of us and the guide in the boat, so it felt like quite the private tour. Our guide was a 25 year old Ugandan name was Kabos (sounds like Cah-boss, so we privately referred to him as 'the boss'). I (Jo-Anna) think the other guides who were doing actual white water rafting were making fun of him for being stuck with us on the baby rapids. Haha.
On the float trip we got to go down grade 1 and 2 rapids. These are really small comparatively, as rapids on the Nile go to grade 6. Sarah and I sat at the front of the raft, while Kabos and Katie sat at the back. The raft we were in was the typical raft that one would go on for white water rafting. We actually had to paddle, too! The float part of the title was slightly deceiving. The trip was a total of 6 km long, and took just over an hour (we estimate) to complete.

I personally think that every rapid that we went through aimed for me. I got my entire lap legs wet on the first rapid, while the others got sprayed. On the second, the wave splashed on my shirt and got my lap and legs soaked all over again (they had almost dried). Sarah also got her lap and legs wet while the others got splashed a little. The third left both Sarah and I drenched, as the wave came over the front and got us head to toe; Kabos and Katie's legs got quite wet at this point (thank goodness!). The final wave completed the package, as Sarah and I had our shoes drenched. Lovely. Somehow they had avoided serious soaking up to that point.

During the ride we got to enjoy the wildlife, which consisted mainly of birds. There were egrets, two types of comorants, sandpipers, kites, and two other birds that I can't remember the name of but started with African. The comorants were neat, because they kept popping up from the water beside the boat after diving down to do some fishing. As well, we got to come right up to them on the rocks at one point and were literally less than a meter away. So cool! They didn't even flap away! In BC they fly away before you even get too close. Oh, there was also a large lizard that was climbing up a hill...can't remember the exact name of that either.

The trip ended just before Bujagali Falls, which aren't really falls so much as a large series of rapids. If you have seen Niagra, or even any of the slightly larger waterfalls on the island, you would definitely agree. The Nile itself is slightly greenish in colour. It was quite refreshing when it splashed on us. With some imagination, you could say that we bathed in the Nile. Along the shores, there we Ugandans swimming about and doing their laundry. As well, we had the opportunity to sit and watch some fisherman pull up and throw out their net.

At the end of the trip we got to enjoy a cool drink (Coke and Fanta) at the top of a look out point. It was quite serene. We had just over two hours until our next activity, so we simply relaxed and took in the view with our lunch. It was a great way to spend the first half of our Saturday!

Next post will detail ATV-ing which was super fun, having neither of us ever gone before. It was also super dirty though (what the name of the post is based on). Sorry, you will have to wait for further details.

Hope you are all well :)

Jo-Anna and Sarah

Looking down the Nile.

Jo-Anna and Sarah while rafting. Getting ready for some very small rapids ahead.

Jo-Anna and Sarah at a lookout above the Nile. (Where we spent our afternoon)

Off to Jinja :)

2010-02-01T03:41:00.000-08:00

Hello from Jinja!

Today we (Jo-Anna, Sarah, and Katie) travelled to Jinja from Kampala. Jinja is a small town located at the source of the Nile! Our plan is to stay through until Sunday afternoon, at which point we will go back home to the Betts.

We are thrilled to be out of Kampala as the city atmosphere was starting to get to us. Kampala has nice things about it, but all around we find it too crowded, busy, dusty, dirty, and smoggy. The approximately 100 km trip was made from Kampala by matatu. The matatu ride was quite smooth, with the exception of the random indentations and speed bumps intended to slow drivers down. The drive here took us through fields of sugar cane which was really neat. We also got to drive over the Nile (on a bridge) :) And the air quality became notably better!

While Jinja is not necessarily considered small here, it seems quite quaint compared to Kampala. There are lots of clean little shops and a more modest taxi park, comparatively. Oh, and sidewalks that are quite well kept. This is much appreciated. The temperature seems a bit cooler; however, given all the walking that we have done in the sun this is easily forgotten.

We are planning to go on a float tour down the Nile in the morning, lounge at Bujagali Falls for lunch, and quad for the afternoon! We are quite excited about the adventure that awaits us.

Another update will be up tomorrow on our adventures!

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna and Sarah (and Katie!)

A day of pampering!

2010-02-01T03:11:00.001-08:00

Hello!

We had a fun day of pampering today. We were invited to come by Joseline's (a King's daughter) beauty school and have a manicure and a pedicure. It was very relaxing and we had a great time. Joseline was very professional and did a great job :) See the pictures of her wonderful work below.

Off to get ready for our weekend away!

Bye for now,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Joseline and Jo-Anna - post make up.

Joseline painting Sarah's nails

Sarah getting a hand massage prior to manicure.

Joseline looking very professional.

Jo-Anna getting a pedicure.

First official visit to King's Daughters

2010-01-27T03:24:00.000-08:00

Hello again!

We are well and hope that you are too :)

Today we spent the morning filling out forms for ethics approval for our trip to Mbarara next week. The later part of the afternoon was spent at King's Daughter's Ministries.

This was our first actual visit to King's Daughters Ministries (KDM) itself, as last time we only drove past and got to see Sally's apartment. We met many, many people and wish we could remember the names. It was great to see pictures come to life.

For those of you who don't know what KDM is, it is a ministry started by an Ugandan woman named Sally. She started with 14 girls (though there are now about 35 girls). The girls come from various unfortunate circumstances. At KDM, they are able to learn about God and His infinite love for them. As well, they are provided with a home, food, skills and an education. It is supported by Brentwood Anglican Chapel (Jo-Anna's church).

We took matatus from Makindye to Namerimbe (where KDM is). We had our first mishap with a matatu :( Our matatu was pulled over by a traffic officer (which is relatively routine so far as we can tell) and it just so happened that our driver was driving without a valid license. Ugh. Stupid driver. So we had to get off and decided to walk the rest of the way to the taxi park. Which reminds me, we still don't have a good picture up of how nuts it is, but google search 'Kampala taxi park' and a decent image should come up.

Anyway, Sally and Andrew picked us up at Mengo Hospital and drove us to KDM from there. We were sitting across from the dental clinic at the side of the road in the shade waiting for Sally when a guy comes and sits down beside us and says hello. We said hello back, as people are always saying hello to us. We did however feel a bit weirded out as the individual did not leave, but stayed there. The next words out of his mouth were something like, 'Okay, so we are going to drive you now.' And we were both a little puzzled, but caught on quickly, that this was Sally's friend (Sally was turning the car around which we hadn't noticed being busy playing bounce on our phones). Apparently Andrew likes joking around like that and enjoyed retelling this tale when we arrived at KDM! Haha.

As I mentioned, at KDM we got introduced to several friendly, friendly girls. They were all very welcoming and we felt very accepted. Joselyn, Pastor Mark and Lyn's daughter, asked us each what our favourite colour was. This was followed by her disappearing and coming back with a necklace for each of us in the corresponding colour. So touching! We currently wear our necklaces with pride :)

Linda and Joselyn, as well as others, gave us a tour of the compound. Complete from worship room, to the girls rooms, to the shop, to the kitchen and more. And we met the turkey that lives on the grounds. It was fun to talk with various girls and take some pictures! (see below)

Joseline and a daughter named Linda walked us back to the main street where we took a matatu back to the taxi park and made our way back to Makindye from there. We look forward to visiting again!! Sally has invited us to her and Alex's wedding on May 14 and we will be attending. This actually corresponds perfectly with when Sarah and I will back in Kampala towards the end of our survey. We are super excited!! I will take lots of pictures for all of you Brentwood Chapel people. Especially, Jeremy and Linda, as I know they wish they could be there themselves.

Sarah, Katie (the Betts guest from Switzerland), and I are going to be going to Jinja this weekend for a weekend trip. It is here that we will get to see the source of the Nile and we are all looking forward to it.

Hope you enjoy the pictures below!

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

The King's Daughters Ministries sign.

Us (in our beautiful necklaces made by Joseline) and our friends. (From left to right Linda, Rosie, Jo-Anna, Joseline, and Sarah).

A group gathering for the camera!

Another day of work

2010-01-26T00:24:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

Today was quite successful in relation to our research project. We went to Makerere University to meet a Ugandan child development doctor we had been in contact with. From here we found out that Makerere medical school is not actually on campus, but rather located at Mulago Hospital. We opted to walk over to Mulago and took a little detour in the process.

The doctor was quite friendly and helpful. He even drove us to meet another Ugandan woman who is a nutritionist! We now have her contact info and will be in touch from here on out.

We have some other good news, too. Our project was approved at CoRSU Hospital, which means we can survey patients there. This will be integral to our research as their patients will make up the people we survey with angulatory bone deformities.

After a long, hot day we came home and played soccer with Henry and Katie. Henry won as usual. Quite the player!

Tomorrow we will be getting together with Jeremy and Linda and going to King's Daughters for the late afternoon. Later this week we will be going to Albert Cook, the large library at Mulago Hospital in search of previous survey data similar to our project and other useful information.

Well, now you are officially updated.

Have a fantastic day!
Sarah and Jo-Anna

How to post a comment...

2010-01-24T23:31:00.000-08:00

Hey All!

Thought we would write a quick post for how to post a comment.

1) At the end of each entry, you will notice something little that says 'comments.' Click on this and it will take you to another screen where it should have a box at the bottom to post a comment.
2) Write your comment in the box.
3) In the drop down menu beside 'comment as' select 'Name/URL.' A box will pop up.
4) In the name spot, enter your name. Leave the URL spot blank and then hit the 'Continue' button.
5) Finally, hit 'post comment' button and you will be all set.

We look forward to hearing from you :)

Another update from Kampala...

2010-01-24T05:10:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

An update is overdue! This post will combine the last few days into one. It has been quite a bit cooler as of late, which we both appreciate greatly. It has also been raining quite a bit in the mornings. Lots of thunder, too!

A quick note before we take off, we have had internet access at the Betts' house over the last while which is why there have been so many updates. Once we are in Kumi and Mbarara, we do not anicipate having such service available. As well, it is possible that there might not be pictures since the USB we have does not seem to work in the internet cafe computers. Guess they are too old. We do promise to try to update as often as possible though!! Back to the blog...

During another trip downtown we realized that the 'pterodactlys' nest in the median of the road. They look rather harmless here, like a heron more than anything, close up. But they look like pterodactyls in the sky! Honest! See below for a picture.

We spent yesterday at the Uganda Wildlife Educational Center. All the animals had been rescued, so they were true African animals! They had everything from various kinds of ungulates to snakes to birds to lions to giraffes and more! See a few pictures below. Unfortunately, Jo-Anna's camera ran out of batteries at the beginning. Of all the animals, Sarah's favourite were the rambunctious monkeys outside! They ran about and played with the garbage. Very amusing!!

Today we travelled with the Betts and their other visitors (Katie, Steve, and Anne) to the island of Bulago. Bulago is located in Lake Victoria and accessed via boat or plane. We opted for boat. On the island, we wandered on two hikes and experienced incredible views. There were also quite a few species of birds. Quite fun to look at. Jo-Anna really enjoyed the pied kingfishers which would fly above the water's surface and then dive in all of a sudden to catch a fish. They were cute black and white little things and reminded her of a David Attenborough video! Again see below for some pictures (but not of the kingfishers).

Well, we should be going off for dinner now. Please do feel free to leave comments. We love to read them :)

Hope all is well with you all!!
Jo-Anna and Sarah

At the top of Bulago. (From left to right: Anne, Debbie, Henry, Philip, Sarah, Jo-Anna, and Katie)

For some reason all of the pictures are in reverse order and not letting us name them like usual. Sorry! Hope it makes sense :)

(1) Bulago view - from top of hill we hiked. (2) Egrets flying away. (3) Henry on boat ride over. (4) Mr. Betts and Henry. (5) Jo-Anna, Henry, Katie, and Sarah (after getting some sun). (6) Boat dock in Entebbe. (7) Rhino. (8) Shoebill (endangered). (9) Crown Crane (national bird). (10) Crazy monkey. (11) Pterodactly/crane that flies around downtown Kampala/is found everywhere. (12) Entebbe Road (I think, or Jinja) in downtown Kampala.

Rain and power outage

2010-01-20T02:04:00.001-08:00

Hello all!

Today two firsts occurred for us that are Ugandan norms. It POURED and the power went out.

First the rain...It had rained quite hard before, but never quite poured like that before. Everything was soaked and there were huge puddles! Water was streaming off the roof, but it only lasted maybe fifteen minutes. See the picture below, but it by no means does it justice. There was thunder in the background, too.

We went out with the Betts’ driver David to the Lugogo mall. It is quite a nice centre, and has a Shoprite (Zellers-like) and Game (Wal Mart-like). Here we bought our treated mosquito nets for about $7.50 (a steal compared to Canada). We also thought it would be a good time to have a snack. Sarah opted for some Doritos, while Jo-Anna thought a Dairymilk by Cadbury would be best. Unfortunately, the chocolate tasted like Uganda smells (not a compliment). Can't wait to bring some home for you all to try. A chance for you all to experience Uganda first hand without the labourious journey.

After returning home and having lunch, we went out for coffee with Mrs. Betts and one of her friends at a centre called Quality Hill (though commonly known as Quality Cuts) – it is very nice and started by Belgians and has a butchery, hotel, patisserie (the coffee shop we went to) and restaurant. It was a fun little outing!

The late afternoon was spent playing soccer (or football, as they refer to it here) with Henry (the Betts' five year old son) and Stephen (their gardener). Henry LOVES football!!! Henry and Stephen had already been at it for probably at least an hour, but we still joined in for close to another hour. And of course, Henry and Stephen continued on playing and when Mr. Betts came home he joined in too! Henry has sooo much energy! But he is absolutely adorable.

There are more guests at the Betts' house now. A full house in fact! We all had a lovely dinner outside by candle light. Mrs. Betts made a new recipe and it was delicious. Complete with grapes from South Africa!

The power went out that evening just before we went to sleep. It remained out until the next morning, so can't really complain.

Time to go now.

Talk to you later,
Sarah and Jo-Anna

I bless the rains down in Affffrriccaaaa...

Sarah in her snazzy ensemble. She is showing the Ugandans how to dress! Starting a new trend, perhaps?

A day of business...

2010-01-20T02:01:00.000-08:00

Hello Again!

Today was our first official business day!

First we went to The Surgery (the doctor's office). We only got enough malaria pills for two weeks at the advice of Dr. Penny, as he had assured us that malaria pills cost much less in Uganda than Canada. Wow! Was he ever right! We got 100 of the exact same pills that we got in Canada for about five dollars. Of course in Canada, we paid 25 dollars for 12. We also picked up two test kits for malaria, such that if we feel feverish we can whip out the kit and test right then and there by pricking our finger.

From the surgery, David, the Betts' driver, drove us to Garden City. Garden City is the shopping mall here in Kampala. It was neat to see and we both discovered that we love this cute little store called Banana Boat. It sells merchandise that is much the same as the African Craft Village. Again, we resisted the urge to pick anything up but know where to return in the future.

From here, official business began as we set out to find the ethical approval branch. Believe it or not, we found it quite quickly. Even in the absence of proper street signs! We spoke to a woman there who told us that our application had not yet been received. Unfortunately, to get any information out of them you have to ask lots of questions. We learned that there is something called an IRC (Institutional Review Committee), which must review your application before the ethics approval people okay it, although if the IRC okays it you pretty much get an automatic yes from the ethics people.

To get IRC approval, we will need to get in contact with a university as this is usually how it is run. Thankfully, we do have contacts at a couple universities, but things here seem to go on Ugandan time, not Canadian. In other words, let's hope this moves sort of quickly. Our task now is figure this all out :S Should keep us busy. Oh and there are other forms that we need to fill out too. Of course there were no instructions on their website. Goodness. Please pray that this all gets sorted out as it is being annoying currently.

The highlight of the afternoon was being able to meet up with Jeremy and Linda Pryer (from Brentwood Chapel - Jo-Anna's church - and important people with King's Daughters Ministries). Molly, a King's daughter and my (Jo-Anna's) good friend with whom I email came to pick us up and off we went. It was super exciting to meet Molly and I look forward to getting to know her much better in the next while. We also got to see Sally, her fiance Alex, and several others. Alex had just graduated from medical school at Makere University so there was a celebration that evening. It was neat to see two people from home in a place like Uganda.

Sorry no pictures to post this time.

Got to go! Miss you all!
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Church!

2010-01-19T06:21:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

We went to Kampala International Church this past Sunday. They have a website, so feel free to look it up for more details. Services are held at Heritage International School, which is where the Penny girls went to school. We both thoroughly enjoyed the pastor and worshipping with the people there. The message was strongly Biblically based and greatly enjoyed.

That afternoon we opted to wander round the Betts' beautiful backyard and Makindye. The fauna pictures below are from their backyard. We have since learned that the tree Jo-Anna liked (the purple one) is called a potato tree, as it is from the potato family. It produces funny little fruits that hang but are not edible and not particularly visibly appealing. Walking in Makindye was a tad hot so not too much to say there.

Hope all is well,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Sarah in front of KIC.

Heritage International School courtyard.

Sarah and Jo-Anna at Heritage.

Becca's flower :)

Sarah sharing a moment with Ellie (the Betts' dog).

Sarah in front of the Betts' house.

Pretty flower from the Betts' garden.

Banana tree leaf.

Experiencing Kampala

2010-01-19T06:20:00.001-08:00

We had our first day in Kampala yesterday. And experienced our first matatu ride from Makindye to downtown Kampala. A matatu is like a combo between a taxi and a bus. Each has a particular destination, but is a van and only has enough room for about fourteen people when filled up. The alternatives are boda bodas and private hires; a boda boda is a basic motor bike on which one is expected to sit on the back (usually helmetless), while a private hire is more like a true taxi. The difference between these three modes of transportation is the cost (boda boda < matatu < private hire).

Our first matatu ride was a good one to ease us into things. It was seemingly new and was not overloaded with people (comparatively). While there appear to be basic rules of the road, a set of unwritten rules seem to take precedence. It is okay to make up your own lane, honk you horn at whim, and whip in and out whenever deemed appropriate. Of course, this is all in addition to people walking on the sides of the roads and boda bodas and some stray bicycles whizzing into every open space.

Anyway, during our first trip to Kampala, these factors were minimal. Traffic was pretty good, too, as we reached the outskirts of the taxi park without much delay and disembarked. We had passed Shoprite on our way in and opted to walk there first. From Shoprite we got directions to the nearest Barclays bank. We had a bit difficulty determining where we were on the map, as street signs are few and far between, but were able to ask a couple of the boda boda drivers what road we were on.

Describing the atmosphere of Kampala itself is not an easy task. There are vehicles going by constantly, lots of pedestrians, people selling various good at the sides of the street, lots of shops, and some beggars. Dirt here is red and it covers the sidewalks. I guess I would compare it to walking down a somewhat run down Fort Street in Victoria, as there are occasional tall buildings and lots of stores. Just add a bunch of somewhat disorderly people. The one funny thing that there is is all these birds that circle in the sky above. They look a little like less derived pterodactyl, as they are dark black with a sort of forked tail. Will try and get a picture of one next time.

Once we completed our business at the bank, we felt much more confident about our abilities to navigate and opted to try and find the African craft market. Without much difficulty, we were able to do so and were quite glad that we had. The various crafts were quite beautiful and there were lots of wood and stone goods. And not so much super tacky tourist stuff that one would expect to find. Though we did not purchase anything, we by all means intend to return. We figured that with it being so early in our trip, to buy something now would be slightly silly as our luggage is so full to start!

As we continued to attempt to find our way back to the taxi park, it started to rain. Upon landing on the sidewalk, the rain drops were pretty much an inch in diameter! We continued on in the rain, while most Ugandans opted to take cover under overhangs from buildings. The rain was actually quite refreshing considering how hot we had become. Our only complaint would be the red dirt splattered our shins.

On our way back we managed to miss our turn off and walked a bit too far. We had hoped that we would be able to recognize some buildings, but this was not the case. However, this did lead us past Watoto (the church where the African children's choir can be found). We eventually did make our way to the taxi park, though the directions given to us by different people were often contradictory. We found the matatu back to Makindye and made our way home.

Upon our return, we enjoyed a long afternoon nap and hope to beat our jet lag soon. The time difference between Victoria and Uganda is eleven hours (night and day!).

Tomorrow is Sunday and we are going to go to church with the Betts. Our plan for the afternoon is to take it easy...roam around the Betts' backyard, wander a bit in Makindye, and whatever else strikes us at the time.

Hope you are all well :)
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Arriving in Uganda

2010-01-19T06:18:00.000-08:00

Hello again!

We have arrived safe and sound in Kampala!

It is 8 am on January 16 here, which means it must be 9 pm January 15 in Victoria. Sarah is still asleep, but I, Jo-Anna, am of course wide awake. It is very confusing as our bodies really don't seem to know what time it is at all.

There was some sort of mishap relating to the luggage that was on the plane, which resulted in our plane leaving an hour late. We arrived in Entebbe just after eleven; by the time we got our visas and luggage, it was a might bit closer to 12. David, the Betts' driver, was ready and waiting right there when we got off the plane and off we went. It is hard to believe that today we are in Africa, yesterday Europe, and the day before North America. Continent hopping!

Early this morning there was thunder and a bit of lightening, which was exciting. As I looked out the window this morning, I discovered a beautiful tree with lovely purple flowers. Am quite looking forward to going out in the backyard later and exploring. There are lots of birds calling. Quite exciting.

I don't have any thoughts that are too insightful currently. Blame the jet lag.

Will write more later,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Heathrow!

2010-01-19T06:03:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

We are sitting in Heathrow at the moment watching planes load and waiting for our flight. It doesn't actually leave for another two hours, but we wanted to make sure we were here super early. It is foggy outside, so we can officially say that we have seen a London fog!

We got in with no problems yesterday at close to 4 pm London time. Our plane was quite late, but that's okay. The service provided by British Airways was impressive and we look forward to flying with them again. They were quite attentive - we got two meals and were continually offered drinks.

Our checked baggage went straight to Entebbe, so we didn't have to pick it up when we came in. We found the bus to our hotel without any trouble and it was free. We used a local bus to the perimeter of Heathrow (about 100m from our hotel) instead of the Hotel Hoppa, which would have cost us four pounds each way.

After checking in and dropping of our stuff, we took the bus back Heathrow and took the Heathrow Express to London. There was a great deal on the fare! We got transport downtown and back for just over 19 pounds and a day pass for the Tube for just over 5 pounds. Usually the Heathrow express (which takes 15 mintute to get to Paddinton Station) cost 32 pounds round trip.

From Paddington Station, we located the Bakerloo line and choose to get off at Oxford Circus. It was right around 7, so there were lots of people everywhere. There were lots of stores and the buildings were really pretty architecturally. Everything was lit up and there was a nice ambience even though it was later and quite cold.

We wandered quite a bit and eventually made our way to Picadilly circus. We saw the statue in the centre and there were quite a few tourists and a guy playing a saxophone. His playing was actually quite impressive and Sarah took a video. Unfortuntely, my (Jo-Anna's) camera does a horrible job at taking pictures at night without a tripod, but Sarah's little video camera was used to take some fun videos. There was so much going on everywhere, that it was a little like sensory overload.

From Picadilly Circus we walked all the way to Buckingham Palace! It a little ways away, especially since it was SO cold. Unfortunately, her magesty was not in. Again, the buildings were quite well lit and looked really cool. Some of you might recall that I had mentioned possibly taking in a show...since we got in quite late we opted to just do our own walking tour. We used three different tourist maps and did quite well!

From Buckingham palace, we walked to Hyde Park, where we took the Tube to the London Tower. Here we had our first (and only) mishap when I got on a train, but the door closed before Sarah could hop on too. There really isn't much warning about when the doors are going to close. Anyhow, I got off at the next stop and Sarah took the next train to the next stop, so we were reunited in about three minutes time. Haha. Oh dear. It was our cliche movie moment.

The London Tower was really neat to see and we decided to keep walking over to and across Tower Bridge. The Bridge goes across the Thames and the skyline was quite pretty. Again, the lighting was quite respectable...like the Legislature buildings downtown. The only unfortunate thing was that the side of the bridge closest to the tower was under construction.

From the Tower, we made our way back to Paddington Station, Heathrow, and to our hotel by about 11:30. We were quite tired by this point, despite that it was only about 2 pm Victoria time.

Well, that's about all. Sorry, that is quite report-y, but sleep deprivation is taking its toll. We are looking forward to getting to Entebbe and sleeping!! Pictures are below.

Talk to you later,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

Buckingham Palace

Sarah with her Cinnabon (American, but irresistible) at Picadilly Circus.

Tower Bridge.

The Tube.

Wellington Arch.

Waiting in Vancouver International...

2010-01-13T19:45:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

We are currently enjoying the complementary WIFI provided by Vancouver International. Our first flight from Victoria to Vancouver went well. The airport security were almost even friendly! The flight over was a bit foggy, so there wasn't much to see but clouds. Neither of us have never been in the international section for flights going outside of the US before, and it is quite nice...very clean and there are lots of waterfalls. An aquarium even! See pictures below. And of course, lots of Olympics memorabilia and signs. (Goes without saying)

Just before takeoff to Vancouver. (The before picture)

Sights around the airport! Yes, we are a tad bored at the moment.

The aquarium! Fancy.

Free wireless! Hooray!

Unfortunately, our flight to London will be late and we don't leave until 9:30. Oh well!

Things are going well and we are keeping safe.

Until next time,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

PS - Feel free to leave comments!! We would love to hear from you. Our email can also be found on the side of the page.

Updated proposal now posted!

2010-01-11T20:00:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

Just wanted to let you know that we have posted an updated version of our proposal under the 'Introduction' post. Click here to get there right away. The other one was pretty basic and this one will give you a much better idea of what we are going to do. Included is a bit of an introduction as to why this type of research would be beneficial, a review of current literature, objectives in conducting this study, and basic methodology.

Once again, we cannot thank everyone enough for their continual prayer, emotional and financial support, and kind words. We really, really appreciate it. Knowing that there are people back in Canada who support us has been reassuring as we waddle along. We cannot wait to share our adventure with you all.

With warmest regards,
Jo-Anna and Sarah

One Week!

2010-01-06T22:44:00.000-08:00

Oh my!

At this time in one week we will be in the air on our way to London. From London, we will get a connecting flight to Uganda.

Time has been flying by in the last little bit and we are trying to cover all the little details before we depart. There isn't too much new to report, but stay posted as there will be further updates soon.

We are super excited for the adventure ahead.

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers :)

- Jo-Anna and Sarah

And thus the countdown begins...

2009-12-13T21:38:00.000-08:00

It is officially one month until we leave!!

Thanks so much for everyone's continued support.
It means so much :)