Exciting News!

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The exciting announcement of my rural placement and placement partners couldn’t have been a better birthday present on the 24th of Jan!

I will be located in one of the most rural villages (Kigandalo). It is so small…it doesn’t exist on the map. I will be in Mayuge district.

See map:
http://international.egmont-hs.dk/nudipu/uganda.jpg

My placement partners will be:
Nationals: Timothy (from Sudan), Rose (from Kampala)
Community Volunteers: Samuel and Peter (from Kigandalo)
International Volunteer: Me (from Holland)

They are all lovely!

On my Birthday we went on a day trip to the source of the Nile. A lovely treat! The sun set over the Nile as we danced on the shores to cheesy Ugandan hip hop. I tried to master my African bum shaking...it was a great failure.

Training, Training, Training

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Considering my rather persistent sickly state over the past 2 weeks, I’ve still managed to have a rather smashing 2 weeks. Training has been very interesting. At the start of the two weeks we split into two separate technical training fields.

-Livelihood (Focusing on farming, entrepreneurship and group development)
-Sexual Reproductive Health (Focusing on adolescence, STIs and HIV & AIDs)

I was in the latter.

Both of the groups have also had extensive training on gender equity, facilitating sessions, non-formal education techniques, training stakeholders (people who will continue the work we are doing when we leave) and finance.

Our training on HIV and AIDs has been very intensive. We have focused on the methods of transmission (including in depth study of Mother to Child Transmission) and the preventative methods. We have also been looking into how we will offer support and referrals to those who are living with HIV and AIDs. We did extensive sessions with TASO that informed us all about ARVs, ART, counseling and other forms of treatment. We were lucky enough to experience a TASO workshop where HIV+ people expressed testimonies that were very sad yet very hopeful.

Yesterday we went to visit a health clinic in one of the rural placements. It was a great opportunity to see how we are going to work along side the health clinics to provide support and advice for the people in the community.

The Training Centre

Training on how to repair a punctured tyre

A Little Tropical Disease

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Precisely this time two weeks ago a strange little disease hit me. Personally, I found the fact that I managed to catch Malaria in my first week in Uganda quite impressive! The amusing side of the misfortune started to fade as too many sleepless nights, coughing fits and funny tummies made training quite tough. By day 9 of grossness I started to get a little worried. Once again I was taken to the local health clinic. Testing positive for a second time, I was quickly dosed up with another Malaria treatment package. A few days later symptoms were persistent and multiplying, I started to question whether it was just Malaria. On Friday I was whizzed to a clinic for the third time. Blood tests showed that I was also carrying a bacterial chest infection. Fun, fun, fun! Lots of new colourful shiny pills were passed across the counter. I am currently taking a grand total of 14 pills a day. A rather unpleasant task, as I am possibly the world’s worst pill swallower.

Yet, I’m still all in jolly spirits! Everyone has taken GREAT care of me.

Today I even treated myself to a bit of western food (however…it didn’t stay in me for long!)

Welcome to Uganda

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I didn't merge into a white snowy landscape anymore. I was a snow flake in a tropical green paradise. The dense vegetation of Uganda took me by surprise.

                               5 minute walk from our training centre!

Kasange training centre is located 45 minutes (by car) east of Kampala. This is where 7 international volunteers were brought on a lazy Sunday morning. It is also where we met the 28 Ugandan volunteers for the first time. One by one we greeted the strangers that we would live and work with for the next month.

I was expecting quite a relaxed and civil induction week...oh how I was mistaken! Our days have been filled from 9:00-5:00 with intensive sessions. It's all been very informative - from the tedious yet crucial monitoring and evaluation session to the heated discussion on cultural myths and misconceptions. In the latter I discovered that The Netherlands is believed to be the place of racial segregation and female circumcision...hmmm, not quite.