Pakwach

On my way home from Arua, Genevieve and I stopped in the small town of Pakwach. One of Genevieve's coworkers had an Aunt living there who graciously offered to put us up for the night. Turns out her house is right on the Nile River! Truthfully, when I heard the plan, I was a little worried we would end up in one of the thatched roof huts that dominate the area, but we were lucky; the aunt had a brick house. It was terribly hot and humid, and there where lots of mosquitoes, but we were treated well.

The Nile River as it flows by the western border of Murchison Fall National Park. We did not go into the park, but were able to have an evening walk along the road that cuts through.

We saw many elephants as we walked! This guy was just moseying along the main road. For the locals, this is a common sight, but Genevieve and I were thrilled.

Fishing on the Nile. This was taken from a bridge that crossed the river. The guy on the back of the boat was fishing with several lines tied to a central rope, no pole. The kid in the middle of the boat was in charge of scooping out the water when it got too much. Yes, they were leaking and thought nothing of it, just another day for them. And yes, crocodiles and hippos are in the Nile! We didn't see any but we could hear the hippos barking/grunting (whatever hippos do).

The Nile River, as seen from the Aunt's back yard. The local girls fetch water from the river every morning for use in their homes (the thatch huts). Just the night before we sat on the porch and listened to the hippos... this water cannot be clean or safe! But again, just another day for them.

Arua

I visited a fellow volunteer in Arua last week. Arua in the northwest corner of Uganda, affectionately referred to as West Nile (because it’s west of the Nile river). It is much flatter, hotter, and drier than my location, but still very nice. Thankfully, we are in the midst of rainy season, so it was not too unbearably hot.

These thatch huts are very common in the north. They are the traditional homes of the tribes in that region. Thankfully, none of the PCV's are required to stay in them, and it seems as though the wealthier Ugandans are opting to build modern structures for their future homes. Of course, wealthy Ugandans are quite rare so thatch huts continue to dominate the region. I have yet to learn why the tribes in the west do not build similar houses. I can only guess that the building materials are not as readily available, not to mention the suitability of these type of structures to hold up to the heavier rains we get in my location (the village people in my area mainly live in brick structures with metal roofs).

This picture was taken in the downtown area of Arua. In the city there are nice wide sidewalks! They also have bike lanes!!! Nothing like that near my village. In the picture I am wearing a head wrap made of Katange fabric that is popular up there. The perfect answer to a bad hair day. Ha, but all joking aside, the wrap kept my hair off of my neck and actually made me feel cooler. I guess the Katange blocks the rays of the sun better than a ball cap can... who knows.

Here I am with my friend Genevieve. She is a global health volunteer and Uganda is her third country of service. She is originally from the Philippines but became an American after meeting her husband during his Peace Corps service in her country (he's been to several countries to volunteer as well). So, this picture was taken at one of the education volunteer's houses where we were celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Quite a nice gathering since there are several volunteers that work in and around Arua. Of course we had Mexican food and drinks... awesome feast that came surprisingly close to actually tasting Mexican considering what we could find in the local market. The Ugandans were very confused by our celebrating the Mexican Independence Day :)

Arua has a hotel with a pool; a welcome relief from the heat and humidity. It's the first time my thighs have seen sun in almost a year! Ops, I forgot about my dip in the lake, so it's the second time my thighs have seen the sun in nearly a year.

DEAR Day at Hamukuku

Ever hear of DEAR Day? I didn't until coming to Uganda, but who knows, maybe it's a global thing and I was just out of the loop.

DEAR Day stands for Drop Everything And Read Day. It happens every year on April 12 (I'm a bit behind on creating my blog posts). It is a campaign to promote literacy and is not only held in school settings, but is encouraged to be celebrated in all businesses throughout the country. The participants are suppose to drop everything they are doing and read something for a minimum of 20 minutes. In my village we celebrated the day at the local primary school, Hamukuku. These are just a few pictures of the kids from the school.

This shot gives you an idea of how crowed the schools here are. Hamukuku has 125 first grade students for one teacher! It also shows that I am literally the only white person in my village. The children stare at me, they just never knew people came in different colors. I think little by little they are getting used to me and although they still stare, they no longer seem so afraid of me.

Many classes are held outside, which is a nice break from the crowded classrooms.

Colobus Monkey

This adorable monkeys were climbing around the trees behind the clinic. They are usually quite illusive but today the were happily climbing about in plain view. Sorry for the blurry shots... still hating my new phone/camera.

Kyaninga Lake

What a beautiful place!

There are many crater lakes in the western part of Uganda. They are formed by long ago extinct volcanoes. Kyaninga Lake is actually two extinct volcanoes so it is shaped more like a figure eight than a circle. A quick search of the internet will tell you that Kyaninga Lake is one of the cleanest lakes in the region. However, we have been warned by our Peace Corps doctors that no lake in Uganda is free of Schistomiasis, commonly referred to as snail fever. It is a parasitic disease cause by fresh water snails feeding of human and animal waste. Gross as all of that sounds, we swam!!! The water felt wonderful, especially after the hike down to water level; being an extinct volcano obviously it's a trek down.

I don't feel sick yet... keep fingers crossed that we all stay schisto-free.  

Very cool floating dock... and a strangle little sinking boat to the right of it. Even stranger, that was the only boat we saw out there... and we were the only people out there. Maybe the locals are smarter than us silly volunteers.

I'm third from the left, proudly wearing my beach bar T-shirt from Caddy's on Treasure Island.

Nutrition Training at Magunga

Hello everyone! I'm still having a hate-hate relationship with my new smart phone. I thought I had the blogger app figured out, so I typed up a nice long post, added some pictures, and hit save. Ha, it is three days later and the status still says "saving". Now I'm on the clinic computer and that post is nowhere to be found. I guess I will not be counting on the Samsung to keep my blog up-to-date.

One of the nurses from the clinic giving a health talk in the village.

 So anyway, finally, post about some of the work I am doing over here. I have been working with the Peer Educators on the tea estate to help the folks in the labor villages improve their nutrition. I have found that people are not starving over here, but they are severely malnourished. The local diet is very starchy. They fill up on posho (corn flour and water) millet, potatoes, or rice. They love fried dough (chapatti, which is like a flour tortilla and mondazi, which is like a very dry doughnut). The adults and maybe the older children eat beans, which is good, but little else for protein. The ones with some money have chickens, but in the labor camps, that's really only the village leaders. 

What their diets are severely lacking are vegetables. This is caused by their culture as well as their lack of access to fresh produce. Culturally, they were not raised to eat many vegetables and they are not, for the most part, adventurous eaters (like me). They eat the same thing every day and are content. When I have tried to introduce one of the locals to something different, they don’t like it. I have heard many times that my style of preparing food is way too spicy. The village women will cook one onion and one tomato to “spice” ten cups of rice. Yes, the food is very bland and that is the way they like it. Greens like dodo (the local version of collards) grow like weeds. I have them all over my garden and trust me, I did not plant them. I have eaten them sautéed with garlic, onion, red pepper (or any combination of spices I am lucky enough to have received in care packages from the US), and olive oil, and they’re not bad. The locals eat them too, but not in the quantity that could improve their nutrition. Of course, they do not add in all the wonderful spices, so if a local offers me dodo, I know I will have to swallow it fast because it is bitter cooked alone.

The lack of vegetables in the diet here confuses me a bit, because we have market day every Friday and the locals have piles of tomatoes, onions, carrots, pumpkins, and eggplant for sale. All of this is sitting beside the potatoes, yams, cassava, and beans. There are lots of bananas, pineapples, mangos, and watermelon too. The market sells baskets of stinky dried fish and fly-covered meat too, but I won’t encourage the consumption of that stuff; it seriously turns my stomach! So, why are the farmers selling all of this stuff and not eating it? And who are they selling it too? Lack of access is obviously not what is causing the country-wide problem of malnutrition.

Of course, I do not have those answers to those questions and I am only dealing with workers living in the labor villages, which, I’m told, cannot afford to buy from the markets. They fill up on rice, flour, and oil bought at the company canteen. Therefore, here is where I come in (to save the day… hahah, not hardly) I have been working with the Peer Educators to give health lessons in the villages. To support our nutrition lessons, we are planting gardens so the workers can eat what they can grow, no need to go to the market. Great solution, huh? Eh, we’ll see. First we need to teach them why they should eat vegetables. Then we need to teach them to garden and how to protect what they grow from the free roaming chicken and goats, not to mention the baboons! Yeah, the novelty of having baboons in my back yard has worn off. They are scavengers. The village people throw rocks at them to keep them away. I’m told they eat everything, even baby chickens and during avocado season they make complete pigs of themselves!

So far we have planted kitchen gardens in two of the eight labor villages. The fist one has a few things ready to harvest; the second one we have just finished sowing the seeds. The true test will be what the gardens look like a year from now. The people need to take ownership of their own tiny plot and harvest their own seeds for future crops. The initial seeds were bought by the tea estate, but I know I cannot ask them to do that on a continuous basis. One of my challenges here is to make the actions I initiate sustainable. Whew, big challenge!

Here are a couple shots of a health talk in the Magunga labor village. We just set up class under a tree and people wonder in and listen. The Peer Educators are a tremendous help. I could do none of this work in the villages without them (the language barrier is just too much). In this lesson the three with capes are the food “super heroes, Go, Grow, and Glow”. This is not the way nutrition in the taught in the States, but here it is very simple. Go is a starch; your carbohydrates that give you “energy to run and play all day”. Grow is your proteins that make you “grow big and strong”. Glow foods are the fruits and vegetables that “make your eyes sparkle and your skin shine”. This is how they teach it. It’s cute and it’s easy and all we ask is that people eat at least one item from each food group every day. Then we go through all of the local foods and test them on which group they belong to.

Our Peer Educators giving a nutrition lesson.

Our Food Group Super Heroes.

Working Hard

Still trying to figure out my new phone so this is only a quick post with a picture to test the blogger app I was able to upload. Actually, I have done a few small projects this past month. .. it's not been all laying back in the sunshine, but there has been plenty of time to relax.