Volunteering in Uganda

For at least 12 months I will be descending on the poor people of Uganda. For as long as I can remember I've had the dream of going to Africa and now I'm going to get the chance!

As part of a new EU program I will be flying with 8 other volunteers to Kampala on the 2nd March. From there we will all go our separate ways to work on different projects around the country. The first group of volunteers are seen as pioneers as none of the projects have been worked on before and it's our job to do a kind of year long reconnaissance mission... talk about jumping in at the deep end.



We started in the capital Kampala which is hot and dirty and awoke most days with sore throats from the air pollution. I expected to get Diarrhea pretty quickly as the food wasn't great but later found out that due to the masses of chlorine they put in the water your relatively safe (at least from Diarrhea... Kidney failure may occur at some point however!). My diet consists of rice with beans, 'posho' (flour mixed with water) with beans, Matoke (mashed cooking Bananas) with beans or Chapatti with beans. Not exactly what I was expecting but it got better as we've started cooking for ourselves... as had the indigestion! One of the great things about the "big" cities is you can't get around without using "Buda budas" or motorbike taxis which, although terrifying at the beginning, become really enjoyable if you forget all the common sense you've ever learnt.



Getting around is generally quite an experience, and until now, one of the highlights! They pack the taxis (Toyota people carriers) twice as full as you should... every square centimeter gets used, usually the gap between and under your legs being filled with ducks, chickens, goats or small children who on occasion (children included) piss on the floor which doesn't seem to bother anyone. The best journey though was definitely riding on the back of an open topped lorry, sitting on sacks packed with peanuts and a group of off-duty soldiers who started bidding for one of the female volunteers in our group. I lost count of how many cows she was worth but it would have been good fundraising that's for sure!

We spent a few days in Jinja, which is right on Lake Victoria and it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Bananas, Mangos, Avocados, Coconuts, sugarcane and the lushest flora and fauna unimaginable. Unfortunately, as beautifully green as it is, also full of Malaria, as Helge (the volunteer I'm living with) would find out a week later even though he's taking the same medicine as me and he's hardly been bitten. Luckily though it's not as bad as it sounds- 1000 Ugandan Schillings (40 cent) gets you a blood test and for 9 euros you get 4 days worth of medication and that's it. Even his symptoms were very mild... light fever and an upset stomach which were all gone within 24 hours of taking medication.

The village where we are living is called Bukedea and is up towards the Kenyan border. It's much hotter and drier and a lot less greener but I'm told that will change when the rains come. It resembles a western ghost town with lots of empty buildings and only one road going straight through the middle of it. We have no running water and have to fill old palm oil containers with water from a well which then has to be boiled before drinking. It tastes, to put it mildly, revolting but we have no other choice. Showering or 'bucketing' as it should be called also takes some getting used too and we've stopped taking the torch to the toilet/shower in the evening because some things are just better not seen. We've also started learning the local language which is fun although we get the impression that the locals find it much more amusing than we do.



The tree nursery that I'm meant to be starting is at the moment an arid patch of land which is going to take a lot of work and the expectations from my boss are high... possibly too high but we'll see. At the moment we're just waiting for the rains to start so we can start planting seeds and try to establish ways to harvest water for the dry season.



Until next time...