Travels in Italy...

We have had an incredible first week in Italy!  A complete (and much appreciated) break from Peace Corps Uganda!  We'll definitely write something up about the trip, but in the mean time, here's a sneak peak at  the pictures from our first week in Italy!

Pics from Soriano

Pics from Florence, Bagnaia, & Viterbo

Thanks for reading!

~emily~

3 Weeks in a Nutshell

Hi Everybody! Hope you are all doing well! I wanted to share about the last three weeks for us here in Uganda. If you missed my earlier post, feel free to check out the significantly less wordy account of our trip - pictures! But, if you are okay with a potentially largeish nutshell version of the last month or so, read on!

Our first visitors - my mom and dad - arrived in Uganda on January 17. We had been looking forward to their visit for months, and were so excited that they were finally going to be in Uganda with us! They arrived without much trouble, and actually flew to Uganda with the sister of another PCV.

It’s hard to describe the emotions of seeing family for the first time after almost a year! We waited with so much excitement to see them come out of customs and as they walked through we all just ran towards each other and hugged and cried and hugged some more! It was really amazing! We were just so overjoyed to be together and know we’d be spending the next two weeks in the same country!

After the initial excitement of having them here (I think we were up until after 2 the first night!), we spent some time relaxing and catching up in Entebbe, then headed out on our first adventure - Murchison Falls National Park. We had hired a private car and driver/guide to try to make transport a bit simpler, ensure safe travel of all of our luggage, and try to cut down on Mom’s chances of getting car sick. It seemed like such a good idea....Long story short, we had a flat tire, breakdown in the middle of the game park, drove off the road in an attack of tsetse flies, and spent the entire trip back to Kampala going about half the speed of the cars flying by us. In the middle of the ride back, our driver calmly pulled over, walked behind the car, dialed a number on his cell phone, and started yelling (literally!) at the guy on the other end. It went something like this: “You STUPID man, STUPID!!! You sold us a FAKE CAR! Why have you sold us a FAKE CAR?! You STUPID, STUPID man...” And on and on....On top of all of that, it was dry season and dusty was everywhere! The car, luggage, and every inch of our skin and clothes were absolutely covered in dirt! I honestly don’t know if I have ever been so dirty!!! Luckily we all found the adventure more funny than frustrating, and everyone had a good attitude about it!

When we weren’t busy dealing with car trouble, our time in the park was great! Murchison is a huge park with lots and lots of the classic safari animals. We managed to see most of them! We started with a boat trip on the Nile, headed towards the base of the Murchison Falls. Along the way we saw tons of birds, crocodiles, hippos, Ugandan kob, bushbuck, waterbuck, colobus monkeys, baboons, warthogs, buffalos, and my favorite - elephants!!! We had some incredible moments along the boat ride - crocodiles suddenly charging our boat, birds in the hundreds taking off in flight, and an elephant who had waded out to the middle of the river and walked back to the other side just yards from our boat. He was very old, and very huge and totally breathtaking!

The boat tour took us to the base of the falls, which was a great view. Then, we headed back downstream to the dock, seeing many of the animals again along the way. It was a truly unforgettable ride. Disney Jungle Cruise - you’ve got nothing on us!!

In the evening we headed out on ridiculous roads to see the top of Murchison Falls. The roads in the park are so bad it honestly feels like you’re on a really poorly done simulator! I kid you not. Thank God for 4 wheel drive! Anyhow, the top of the falls were really spectacular! Standing on the top and looking out, you get soaked by the spary and the power of all that water is truly amazing! Pictures don’t do it justice! But, we enjoyed the view as the sun set over the park.

We spent the night at a rest camp overlooking the river and woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of hippos crunching the grass outside our bandas. We had a short night in order to start the game drive early the next day.

Our game drive was good, though probably not the highlight of the park for any of us! (The boat trip was a hard act to follow!) We were able to see a gorgeous sunrise, giraffe, warthog, baboons, lots of deerish animals, and even two young lions. Although we didn’t get a great view of the lions, it was super interesting to watch all of the animals react as they knew that they were on the prowl! After we’d seen what we could, we made the long trip back south!

Back in Bushenyi, Mom and Dad enjoyed seeing where we live, meeting our friends, neighbors, and coworkers, walking to town and around our village, doing their wash by hand, and cooking peace corps style! We also played lots of games and of course talked and talked and talked! Mom and Dad also gave us an enormous stocking full of belated Christmas gifts each day - calling it the 12 days of Christmas! They were so generous in restocking our supply of American toiletries and giving us so many incredible, practical, and fun gifts - pam cooking spray, chocolate chips, American sweets, new clothes, yoga mats, puppets to play with the kiddos, etc. It made for a wonderfully festive belated Christmas celebration!

While in Bushenyi we also had the chance to track Chimpanzees in the nearby Kalinzu Forest Reserve, and visit a neat lodge on the escarpment overlooking Queen Elizabeth National Park. Chimp tracking was a crazy adventure. We hiked (and hacked) our way through an incredibly dense rainforest and were able to see chimpanzees, three different monkey species, and lots of really interesting plants. It was a national geographic worthy day!

Last but not least, we had the opportunity to head to Rwanda and spend a weekend in Kigali. Mom and Dad got the authentic public transport experience on this trip - overcrowding, delays, breakdowns, and even (almost) fistfights! One of the funniest public transport moments of the trip was when we had 10 people in a car the size of a Toyota Camry. All four of us and one (lucky) Ugandan were crammed into the backseat of the car. The driver was trying to get the door shut and just kept slamming it into Dad’s hip. The Ugandan tries to grab Dad around the shoulders and pull him in, the driver is shoving him from the outside with all his might, and Dad just can’t stop giggling! We all laughed a lot, and I had to try to explain to the four passengers sharing the front seats that we don’t really travel like this in America!!!

But, Rwanda was lovely - so clean and organized! We were able to stay with a relative in Kigali who was lived there as a missionary for the last 26 years! He experienced the genocide there in 1994, as well as the aftermath that followed, and was able to share many really interesting perspectives and experiences, having been in Rwanda (and East Africa) for such a long time. While in Rwanda we were also able to see the Hotel Des Milles Collines (the hotel from Hotel Rwanda), and a really beautiful, but really sobering genocide memorial. It was a really great trip - fun, interesting, and poignant too.

Then, last Thursday we sent Mom and Dad off again. They insisted on braving public transport alone (earning major kudos from our Peace Corps friends!) and flew out later in the evening. The time flew by, but we really loved every minute and are so thankful for the time we were able to spend with family.

Now...back to reality! Although the term technically started yesterday, our returning students are waiting for their exams to be marked (exams they took in November), and as such are not back yet. Since the government won’t pay for students to repeat a year at the PTC, they must first know whether or not they passed year one in order to determine if they should come back to school. So, they’re scattered all around, listening to the radio, and we hope that they will be here before too much time has passed!

We’ve been joining the staff for beginning of term meetings (3 days of meetings, to be precise) and been reminded of some of the frustrations of service that we managed to ignore for the last couple of months - poor timekeeping, low attendance, and a very different style of “running” a meeting. But, we are excited for the term and year to come. We have lots of new ideas and big plans, and we will be sure to keep the blog posted as the term goes on!

For now, thanks so much for reading! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, and know that we love and miss you all very much!

Much love,

~emily~

PS - February 11 marks the anniversary of our arrival in Uganda and the end of our first year as PCVs! We can’t believe it’s already been an entire year!!!

Update!

Yikes - it's been almost a month since we've written! The beginning of January was slow, but since then we have had an incredible couple of weeks! My parents arrived on the 17th and we had an absolutely fantastic time traveling together and just spending time in the same country! I have so much more to tell you, but for now let me give you all a much less wordy account of our last few weeks - pictures! CLICK HERE for a link to our facebook album from the week! I will be sure to write about it in more detail in the next couple of days!

Thanks for reading! Love and miss you all!

~emily~

Dear Jinja...

...Who are you and what have you done with Uganda?

We visited Jinja this past weekend and this was the thought that kept going through my head! Although we had an absolutely incredible weekend, it felt as if we’d suddenly left the Uganda we have come to know and love and were plopped into another world! It was a crazy feeling!

This trip was our first time traveling East of Kampala. We have a number of PCV friends in the area, and they had organized a trip out East during the time between our IST and upcoming all volunteer conference in Kampala. So we got to see another part of the country, hang out with friends, and take advantage of one of the big draws of the region - the Nile River!!! We had a really incredible time!!!

On Saturday morning we headed out early for a day of white water rafting on the White Nile. The company we rafted with took us on an all day trip, ending in a river side BBQ at the end of the day! It was such a great time to see a beautiful river and hang out with friends. The guides were great, the river was beautiful, the food was delicious! And, of course...the rafting was absolutely amazing! There is no feeling like it! The rapids on this section of the nile are known to be some of the wildest in the world, so it was a pretty high adrenaline, extreme experience! Some of the rafts in our group flipped at almost every rapid! So it was super exciting, super thrilling, and - SO MUCH FUN! At the end of the day they showed us a video of what we had just done, and I could not believe some of the rapids we all went through!!!! It was such a crazy experience. We loved it!

Then, Sunday evening we took a mellower route out on the river. We went on a two hour “sunset cruise” with drinks, appetizers, music, and great views! Although it was a lot less adventurous, it was a lot of fun!

Being in Jinja we got to see a completely different side of Uganda - a successful tourism industry! This was why our experience in Jinja felt so different than our day to day Uganda in Bushenyi! In our part of the country there is very little tourism, so being in an area that has built itself up on the tourism industry was quite remarkable! In Jinja there are local craft stores, a grid layout to the streets, and a number of restaurants that serve super good *nonlocal* food! While we were eating lunch at one of these establishments (Naan and hummus with feta cheese for me, a burger for Ryan! So not Ugandan food!), I looked around and realized there was not a single Ugandan eating in restaurant! It was a weird experience! Just because of where we are in the rural Southwest, this is a situation that would never happen to us at site! So, it was strange! But we really loved being tourists for the day! Because we don’t know Lusoga (the local language there) we really felt like foreigners, which I guess we are! It was just a strange feeling to be in the country I now call home and feel so much like a visitor. But, we enjoyed the brief hiatus as tourists and seeing a great town in Eastern Uganda.

So...next up is the All Volunteer conference (all 200 or so volunteers together sharing ideas, networking, making friends!) an appointment with PC medical (do I have a parasite?) and then home sweet home (at last!) Our next term at Bushenyi PTC starts the moment we get back, so we’ll hit the ground running (or as much as anyone runs in Uganda!)

Love and miss you all!

Take care and keep in touch!

~emily~

2 years down and still going strong...

Hi Everyone!

Hope this finds you well! Ryan and I just got back from a wonderful vacation to celebrate our 2nd anniversary (Aug 15)! We had a great time seeing more of Uganda and relaxing with each other! I thought I'd write a little about it and also share a link of pictures from our trip.

All in all our trip went off pretty much without a hitch, but we did have some good adventures to share! We decided to travel further into Southwest Uganda to visit Kabale and nearby Lake Bunyonyi. On our way to Mbarara to catch the Kabale bus our taxi driver had a flat tire. That's never happened to us but we were amazed at how quickly he put on a new tire and went on our way. Even with the flat it was probably the most comfortable and efficient taxi ride we've ever had in Uganda! Then, we waited a good two hours for the bus to arrive in the Mbarara bus park. The conductors were making everyone buy their tickets in advance. (This is a little scary because you really have no reason to believe that they bus will actually arrive!) But it did show up, we got seats, and left without much more delay.

We spent our first night at a hostel in Kabale. It's a really neat place that has a hostel (maybe 7 rooms in all!), open air "nest" restaurant, and cultural museum. There's also lots of western travelers, students, and ngo workers, so we had some great conversations with some other "mzungus" while we hung out. We actually planned to spend the night at another nearby guesthouse, but the room we had reserved looked out onto a courtyard where there would be loud, Ugandan music played all night (thank goodness they let us know in advance). Our only other option was to squeeze into a *tiny* single room at the nearby hostel. We weighed our options and decided to squish for the night.

So, the hostel was really nice but this room was seriously tiny! It was in the shape of a triangle and was so small that the single bed wouldn't even fit normally and had to be squished sideways against a window. To make matters even more exciting, Ryan was chatting with his family while the power was out at the hostel and noticed that there was a mouse also sharing our tiny room! He tried to search for it in the dark, while holding a cell phone, flashlight, and weapon (plastic water bottle). When I came down later he was pretty sure it was gone. So I was sitting on the bed while we were talking and Ryan suddenly says, very calmly, "Emily...you should get off the bed. Seriously, get off the bed!" Turns out the mouse had popped up onto the bed with me and was about to run across my lap! So we had an adventure trying to get the mouse out of our room! In the morning we got to eat doughnuts at a real bakery (first bakery we've seen in Uganda!) and found a taxi that could take us to the lake.

I discovered our lake accommodations from some other PCVs who spent new years there last year. So, I blindly booked three nights on the island (only about $12 a night!) without having a very good idea what to expect! It turned out to be absolutely wonderful! There is a man who owns the island and has developed it for visitors, but chooses not to advertise. So, we were the only guests on the island! We had the company of 2 Ugandan workers who didn't speak a word of English, and 3 large Ankole cattle! Pretty exclusive, eh?

Incidentally, when they were showing us around the island and we got to the swimming dock we discovered a little problem. One of the cows had wandered on to the dock and, because these cows are HUGE, had broken the dock and fallen in. The Ugandan workers tried to grab it by the horns and force it to get out of the water but had no luck. Eventually, one of the guys climbs into the lake with the cow and starts pushing it from behind (no small task!). So, with the one guy pulling the horns and the other literally shoving the cow onto the bank of the island, they managed to get the cow out of the water and back on solid ground!

Anyhow, they set us up with charcoal and sigeeris, and we got to do all our own cooking. We'd splurged on a block of gouda in Mbarara (cheese is hard to come by!) and planned out lots of cheesy meals! We had a great log cabin with a view of the lake from bed, a shower with only 3 walls so you can enjoy the lake view while showering (and hope nobody happens to walk past)! We got to take out a local dugout canoe and canoe around the lake and nearby islands! The lake is free from hippos, crocodiles, and other dangerous water and inhabitants and supposedly (we're crossing our fingers) it's also free from schisto and other sketchy diseases and bacterias that inhabit most Ugandan bodies of water. The island has no running water or electricity, so has something of a rustic, camping feel - so quiet and peaceful! So, we swam, hiked, cooked, played games, listened to music, talked and talked, and had a great getaway!

We're home for a few days now, and then early next week we head off to Kampala again (ugh! we don't love Kampala) for two and a half weeks of training! We have IST (in-service-training) with our training group for the first week and a half, and then a conference for all the volunteers in country after that. In between the trainings our group is planning to go whitewater rafting on the Nile river (how cool is that?!) and take a sunset Nile cruise. Should be a lot of fun!

Thanks for reading - we love and miss you all!

~emily~