I am back in Ohio, I really hope that I always remember the trip and can do more to help with this and other missions. I want to go back some day for sure. We created a facebook group and there are tons more pictures posted there. I need to get the one of the cow on a boda, that's not something you see every day!
Facebook "Friends of Luuka"
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Safari
This morning we did a game drive from about 6:00am - 10:00am. We saw so many different animals, in addition to what we saw yesterday there were hyenas, hippos, and elephants! I took a short nap and then we went on a boat road up the Nile to a water fall. We hiked for about an hour to get much closer to the water fall and then took a bus back. It made for a long day and I'm worn out.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Finally some R&R
Sunday morning we drove to Jinja, there is some amazing shopping here and everything is quite inexpensive. The conversion from shillings to dollars is still confusing, but 20,000 shilling is about $5.70. I bought way more than I planned, some early Christmas shopping!
The places we are staying are much nicer, it's just that there aren't many options in the poorer region where we did clinics. I'm very sleep deprived at this point and wondering how work will feel on Monday. The food has been good, had some Indian food and Italian. I tried a new fruit called jackfruit, which is very strange in texture but tasted pretty good. There is a pineapple soda called Novida which is really good and I hope I can bring a few bottles back for my kids to try. Also tried some cooked bananas which looked like mashed potatoes.
We did a night time safari tonight and saw plenty of water buffalo, giraffe, birds, and things that resemble deer. We also saw a leopard and a python. It's very beautiful and relaxing. Tomorrow we are at also doing safari, hopefully I will have some pictures (my phone was dead today).
Oh - and one of my favorite things was a boda ride! A boda is like a taxi-motorcycle. It costs all of 4000 shilling for both Morgan and I to ride into town from a shop we were at (a 15 minute ride, barely over $1.00).
The places we are staying are much nicer, it's just that there aren't many options in the poorer region where we did clinics. I'm very sleep deprived at this point and wondering how work will feel on Monday. The food has been good, had some Indian food and Italian. I tried a new fruit called jackfruit, which is very strange in texture but tasted pretty good. There is a pineapple soda called Novida which is really good and I hope I can bring a few bottles back for my kids to try. Also tried some cooked bananas which looked like mashed potatoes.
We did a night time safari tonight and saw plenty of water buffalo, giraffe, birds, and things that resemble deer. We also saw a leopard and a python. It's very beautiful and relaxing. Tomorrow we are at also doing safari, hopefully I will have some pictures (my phone was dead today).
Oh - and one of my favorite things was a boda ride! A boda is like a taxi-motorcycle. It costs all of 4000 shilling for both Morgan and I to ride into town from a shop we were at (a 15 minute ride, barely over $1.00).
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Last Day in Luuka
We had our fifth clinic day today, it was so crowded. We pretty much ran out of the common glasses people need, so we are not able to do glasses in Jinja on Monday. The people are so grateful that we are here, I've had so many people thank for me with such deep gratitude that I cannot explain it. Really it's not that much that I'm doing, the need is so great here. It's been pretty exhausting, I'm glad tomorrow is a bit of break. We will be zip lining in Jinja, and staying somewhere with more amenities (like hot water).
Pics: the line that was there hours before we opened, a girl with her new glasses and school uniform, another girl in our group with a bunch of children, and a flag marked a visit by the king. I did not see the king but he visited the activities today. The last one is a make-shift OBGYN clinic that another group was provided along with what we were doing.
Pics: the line that was there hours before we opened, a girl with her new glasses and school uniform, another girl in our group with a bunch of children, and a flag marked a visit by the king. I did not see the king but he visited the activities today. The last one is a make-shift OBGYN clinic that another group was provided along with what we were doing.
Thursday, November 9, 2017
Little Things
I thought I'd write about a lot of the little things I've noticed...
The food has been good but simple. Every morning we have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The bread is good but I think a little drier than at home. For lunch a man name Pasquel has been coming with us and he makes rolex's (pictured below). They are very good but each one is pretty big, the bread is sort of a cross between a pancake and a crepe and there is an fried egg and vegetables. The egg seems to be mostly egg white and the vegetables vary day to day. This one had avocado. Dinner has been either pasta, potato, or rice with some meat and sauce. Last night was sort of a peanut gravy which interesting. I might be losing some weight :) I've also tried some pineapple soda which was really good. The kids gave me a mango but I think they were playing a joke on me, it was not yet ripe and tasted really strange, like spicy and bitter.
I've learned that when you wave at people - you need to keep your fingers open. I tend to open and close my fingers which means "come here" and is confusing to both of us. Ugandans have a special handshake, they change the grip back and forth a few times and tend to linger for a long time. I like it, remind me to demonstrate when I get back. Sometime they want to you grab their forearm instead of their hand, and a few times I've had them kneel in front of me. I guess that's a sign of respect and a fairly common greeting. Oh- and they have this way of saying yes which isn't a head nod, but they raise their eyebrows and say "mmm." That's catchy too, you might find me doing it when I get back.
They call us (white people) "Mzungu" and it feels a little like being a celebrity. They think we are all rich, and from their point of view we are. There are 34 million people here and 1/2 of them live on a $1 a day. I was talking to one of our interpreters, Livingston who is 26 years old. He wants to be a pediatric nurse but has to pay for university as he able to save money. His monthly take-home salary is about 2.5 million shillings (only $128). College costs about $740 a semester.
The food has been good but simple. Every morning we have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The bread is good but I think a little drier than at home. For lunch a man name Pasquel has been coming with us and he makes rolex's (pictured below). They are very good but each one is pretty big, the bread is sort of a cross between a pancake and a crepe and there is an fried egg and vegetables. The egg seems to be mostly egg white and the vegetables vary day to day. This one had avocado. Dinner has been either pasta, potato, or rice with some meat and sauce. Last night was sort of a peanut gravy which interesting. I might be losing some weight :) I've also tried some pineapple soda which was really good. The kids gave me a mango but I think they were playing a joke on me, it was not yet ripe and tasted really strange, like spicy and bitter.
I've learned that when you wave at people - you need to keep your fingers open. I tend to open and close my fingers which means "come here" and is confusing to both of us. Ugandans have a special handshake, they change the grip back and forth a few times and tend to linger for a long time. I like it, remind me to demonstrate when I get back. Sometime they want to you grab their forearm instead of their hand, and a few times I've had them kneel in front of me. I guess that's a sign of respect and a fairly common greeting. Oh- and they have this way of saying yes which isn't a head nod, but they raise their eyebrows and say "mmm." That's catchy too, you might find me doing it when I get back.
They call us (white people) "Mzungu" and it feels a little like being a celebrity. They think we are all rich, and from their point of view we are. There are 34 million people here and 1/2 of them live on a $1 a day. I was talking to one of our interpreters, Livingston who is 26 years old. He wants to be a pediatric nurse but has to pay for university as he able to save money. His monthly take-home salary is about 2.5 million shillings (only $128). College costs about $740 a semester.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
My First Day at Clinics
The bus ride to the clinic was through narrow red-clay roads, at one point the bus came closer to tipping than I would have liked it to, we took a wrong turn and got one bus stuck for awhile. We finally arrived at a church to set up for the day. It's so strange to be stared at by everybody. The kids especially always want to crowd around us. We saw close to 500 people and the eye glass stations (where I worked) was busy for 8 hours straight.
Dinner included singing happy birthday to one of our tour guides and dumping water over his head (which we are told is a Ugandan tradition). We got back to our guest house and had containers of hot water we could use to clean up with (the shower is COLD only).
Monday, November 6, 2017
The Best Laid Plans...
A few things have not gone as planned, our team of 21 is staying in 2 different locations. Morgan & I shared a room last night at the "new" location the team had never stayed at before (this is by far the largest group to do this trip). The rooms were what I expected, very basic to say the least. Getting the luxury of a western style toilet is very hit or miss (even at a gas station with more than one "stall" there will be a mixture of styles). Long story short - that place is over booked so Morgan and I moving to the other guest house for tonight. We were very startled at just after 5:00am this morning when the mosque right next door started prayer (we did not know it was there). It was extremely loud playing through speakers and unexpected. I'm happy to be away from noise for tonight.
The team headed out without me this morning, a nice woman from Ohio took some medicine that made her feel unwell and seems to have made her quite drowsy. All three doctors agreed she is OK but someone needed to stay back just to make sure and provide supportive care, so I volunteered to do that. I'm so thankful to at least have WIFI as I'm hear by myself for the entire day. Hopefully she will be back on her feet tomorrow and we can both join the group.
Both of these pictures are from the guest house where I am staying. There is such a long group it's going to take time to get to know everyone.
The team headed out without me this morning, a nice woman from Ohio took some medicine that made her feel unwell and seems to have made her quite drowsy. All three doctors agreed she is OK but someone needed to stay back just to make sure and provide supportive care, so I volunteered to do that. I'm so thankful to at least have WIFI as I'm hear by myself for the entire day. Hopefully she will be back on her feet tomorrow and we can both join the group.
Both of these pictures are from the guest house where I am staying. There is such a long group it's going to take time to get to know everyone.
First Day in Uganda
We had a very long bus ride after we landed, but along they way we tasted some local food (grasshoppers and little bananas). Yes I ate a grasshopper (only one, and it wasn't bad, it was nicely seasoned and the legs and wings were removed). Morgan tried some ginger candy which was very spicy and too sticky for her liking. First impressions of Uganda - you see armed security everywhere, the ground is RED, and it was very crowded.
Dubai - a nice place for a layover
We had 14 hours in Dubai, most of which was over-night but that did leave a few hours for sight seeing. We visited the Dubai Mall, which is the largest mall in the world. There is an ice rink, aquariam, and a full size dinosaur skeleton, not to mention the shops and restaurants. Had a beer and some of the best hummus *ever*. Right outside the mall we saw the fountain show at the Burj Khalifa (photo below - world's tallest building).
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