Uganda

Uganda.

I have been here for about two weeks--beginning in the capital, peeing at the equator and landing in the city Masaka. To begin, cities here are more like large towns. The image many of you chose to represent "city" is a misrepresentation. Masaka, Uganda consists of three main roads, unlike a Ugandan town having only one; 5 bars, unlike a Ugandan town having only one; a health clinic, daily food market and several other small businesses. A Ugandan town may or may not have any of these fixtures.

The rest of this post, in the strictest sense, will be informational in a strong effort to give you some factual background. This factual background may or may not help support some of the stories to come in the future.

My host family:
Agnes and Joseph: Agnes is a housewife and Joseph is in local politics and supposedly some photography work on the side, though i have yet to see any. Men frequent our house looking for him--i am pretty sure he is important. Agnes and Joseph have 8 children, four of which have been in the house since I have been here, two are here for the summer and another for as long as her job keeps her here. The youngest is in boarding school and not home and the rest are working in Kampala, the capital. The youngest is (I think) around age 16. John is 19, and about to enter Kampala University on a Governor's Scholarship (full ride) studying civil engineering. Joseph is going into his 2nd or 3rd year at the same university studying some sort of economics. Barbara is 22, just finished with Uni with a social sciences degree. She has a part time job, who seem to love her and her work. The family also raises and sells pigs. The pigs remind you of their existence about every half hour.

My host organization:
I am working with an organization called Community Welfare Services (COWESER). It was started and founded in 1996 by a doctor and his wife. They still run the place and it runs quite smoothly. Everything, including the buildings, they have built together. It currently has a in/out patient clinic where they treat malaria, pneumonia, asthma, etc. Their ward consists of about 10 rooms, about 5 of which have been in rotation since i have been with the organization. Today, I learned they also preform some surgical procedures and child birth. For example, i learned the procedure for a circumcision today. In conjunction with the clinic is a self run nursing school. It is a three year program with about 50 students total.

COWESER also has a medicinal garden, community sensitivity training for HIV/AIDS, free HIV testing and community outreach sanitation and nutrition programs.

I do not know of my project yet--have 4 more days of host orientation to decide, but have some ideas brewing.

I think thats about all the factual info. The rest of the blogs will be in story form. The first is of a my first Ugandan taxi ride....