Getting to work

And so it begins. We are alone on the island, there are no more orientation excuses...

it's hard for me to know where to start. Currently i'm doing a lot of research...aka a lot of reading. Based on Stacy's feedback, i've decided to focus on creating a solid HIV/AIDS education program in a couple of communities, rather than spreading myself to many different communities. Hopefully this will work well. As a start, I am working on an HIV/AIDS survey, which will hopefully help me get a better understanding of where they are at, and what sort of program to create.

as for me.. things are still a little bit up in the air, awaiting a time when Ben, the agroforestry manager, and i can sit down and discuss our ideas. the agroforestry program is involved in a whole bunch of projects - such as a reverse slope terracing demo plot, the tree nursery on Bwama Island, pig lottery, community agriculture groups, and most recently, widows gardens - so we need to figure out where i'm going to focus my energy. i'm starting out with a bit of work on the widows' garden project, an effort started by the last intern. just recently, LBDC was able to lease land for the gardens, so we will be selecting widows and creating gardening groups shortly.

in the meantime, i decided to head over to the agroforestry nursery on Bwama Island to meet the agroforestry program staff and find out a bit more about what goes on over there. today was day 1. mostly it rained. but when it wasn't raining, i got to meet and hang out with Mzee William, William, Dick, Dennis, Justice, Sam and Ben filling planting tubes with soil. it was actually harder than it sounds.

As em mentioned, part of the agroforestry program involves a pig lottery. Happily, today was a give-away day! So, Bryony paddled over to Bwama to witness. The pigs are so cute!! So we took about a million photos (we will not subject you to all of them!).

Shortly after the pigs were taken, a rather violent storm had us all running for shelter - a 5m square hut. There were 10 - or possibly more (it was kind of dark) - in there, for about an hour, with torrential downpour on the tin roof. In our house, we can't watch a movie while it's raining because we can't hear the laptop, at full volume, over the water on the roof.... good times!!

i eventually decided to leave the island...it was still raining - just not as much...i needed to get back to work. Despite the fact that it wasn't raining as hard...the wind was deceptively strong, and i had unfortunately picked the smallest, and tippiest canoe (which was quite nice to maneouvre on the way over when the lake was calm). oh dear. let's just say i'm glad i can canoe or else i would have had a nice swim back to Bushara. Nevertheless...i arrived quite wet, due to the fact that waves were coming over the shallow dug out canoe. darn it.

my trip home was in much nicer weather... however, when i went to head home, my canoe had been borrowed. no problem. except that i was borrowing one of the Bushara staff canoes, which had to be home by 4 so she could go home... So, i borrowed Dick's canoe, hoping to catch him before he left Bushara so he could leave in his own canoe. Dick's canoe was curvier and tippier than the other i had been paddling. avoiding the "muzungu cork screw" (as people here call the pattern made by many first-time dugout paddlers) was further complicated by the fact that i was trying to talk to Mzee on the way home, while staying keeping my canoe within conversation distance without running into him... and, I ended up meeting Dick part way to Bushara...and switching in the middle of the lake. stay tuned for more fun with dug outs.

Waiting for the boat..

We've just gotten back from town, but are stranded on the mainland because of a storm. We can hear thunder, cows, and a lot of Rukiga we don't understand. So, we thought what better time to compose another blog entry.

Yesterday we were treated to our first true Ugandan meal. Norman cooked us a very tasty meal of rice and chicken. Norman is a teacher who has worked closely with Stacy this year as a swimming instructor. He also works with one of the orphan care groups in the area. He has taught this group of about 50 children traditional dances which they perform for tourists at Bushara. The children dance to one drum and their own singing, usually led by one of the older children. Amazing sound! The money collected from donations is used entirely by the orphans to buy things like mattresses, blankets and school supplies. We got to see them perform on Sunday - they were amazing! They varied in age from about 4-16. We hope to pick up a few moves. They have incredible rhythm.


This is the entire orphan group - Norman is in the blue shirt with his back to the camera.









This dance is kind of like a dance off.. with the girl calling other members of the group into the middle to dance off with her. It was awesome - some of them were quite creative..!





I think we're finally on the move....the boat is being loaded.

Beautiful Bushara

There's really no other way to describe it. The pictures don't do it justice. We're living on the tip of an island with an incredible view of the lake. It's small enough that we can see the communities all around, perched on steep green hills, which people trek daily carrying jerry cans of water. We've had to carry a bit of our own water, and let's just say the 30 second trek to our house leaves us winded and in pain..(we like to think it's the altitude - we're about 2500m above sea level). We were warned about Lake Bunyonyi being cooler than other areas of Uganda - just how cold, we were not prepared for. Wearing a skirt can be a bit of a stretch at times, as we often find ourselves in fleece and wool socks. We finally made it into the lake today - it is also quite cold.

Bushara Island is a tourist camp run by a local NGO called Lake Bunyonyi Development Company (LBDC). All profits go into community development. When we first arrived, we stayed in a safari tent and got the full tourist experience, complete with breakfast delivered to our tent, and hot water for our outdoor shower.

We are the only people actually living on the island, apart from restaurant staff, which means that the programs we are involved in will require us to travel to different communities - by dugout canoe!! In the background of this photo, you can see Bwama Island.
Everyone we've met so far has been fantastic - extremely warm and welcoming. Brad and Stacy, who lived here last year, have done an amazing job orientating us. We have learned a lot from them. We've been practicing our Rukiga with Evas, one of the camp staff who laughs a lot with us and loves the little Rukiga we've learned. We're hoping to set up lessons with a tutor so that we can get past greetings and "hello, my name is..". We took a tour of Bwama Island, the island next door to Bushara. Ben gave us a tour of the agroforestry nursery where Emily will be spending a lot of time, and we visited the primary and secondary schools there.

Kabale is the closest town. First impressions are pretty good - it has a wide variety of things, and we get to drive the truck on a kick ass switchback to get there. Running errands takes a lot of time.. 20 minute boat ride to our truck, 30 minute drive into town, and then many different stops for everything. We quite enjoy stopping at the bakery for bread, the market for fruits and vegetables, and Royal Supermarket for everything else food and toiletry related. Town visits will soon take even longer, as we will soon be sharing boat fees and gas with LBDC when they make town visits for restaurant supplies.

After a few days in the safari tent, we moved into our house, Woodpecker Cottage. Meal preparation has proven to be the biggest adjustment. We have no electricity, and therefore no refridgeration. Happily, we have a gas stove and oven (unlike some girls we met from the UK who are cooking over charcoal!). This luxury, however, has proven to be a bit challenging for us, particularly with regards to temperature regulation.. we may or may not have burned both meals we served to Brad and Stacy. Hopefully it will be a fast learning curve, or we may be eating a lot of french toast (the only meal we seem to have down). In all seriousness, though, we're looking forward to learning how to cook, as you have to make everything from scratch and not all ingredients are readily available.

Brad and Stacy are leaving on Tuesday - after that, the real test begins. We're looking forward to brainstorming and getting started on our respective programs this week. It will also be good to sit down with Patrick, the General Manager of LBDC, to discuss some of our ideas on Tuesday.

First impressions: great. We'll stay.

Ca boom?

ca roule.
really, we should just let joel name all of our posts.
so we thought we should post a bit more because we probably won't be at a computer with internet again until the end of next week - on Monday, we leave Canada House and head to Rubingo (where Laura, Katie, Tanessa, Melanie and Graeme will be based). We'll be there a few days before heading down to Bushara Island on Wednesday with Valdean (an older woman who is volunteering there for 6 weeks). It will be nice to finally unpack and settle somewhere!

in the meantime though, we've been enjoying Mbarara. we successfully bought ground beef the other day (good thing there were pictures, or we're not sure what we would have gotten..ground beef doesn't seem to be a term that is used here..). we also quite unsuccessfully tried to haggle in the market...either we were getting good prices - or everybody has a set 'muzungu' price. we had to visit many stores and markets to try to find everything on our shopping list! we asked several people in the market how to prepare the beans that were being sold...all we got for an answer was 'yes yes, 400'...after getting the beans home we read up in a cookbook that they needed to be soaked for 8-12 hours prior to cooking...no beans for dinner that night! the curry prepared may or may not have been spread a little that night...good times. we also learned how to drive the white 4x4 toyotas we'll be using, and how to change a tire!

we have also been having language lessons in Runyankore-Rukiga (two dialects of more or less the same language - Rukiga is what will be spoken around Bushara). what a crazy language!! To give you a little taste... Naashemererwa kubareeba means "I'm happy to see you". Tinaayetagyereza means "I don't understand". not sure how fluent we'll be able to get, but we're going to try!! our taxi driver on our way into town today had a good laugh when we tried to pronounce the bakery where we wanted to be dropped off...he had a hearty chuckle...mmm - we tried!

hope you like the photos... sadly only one from Uganda. but we will get more up soon - we'll just have to wait a bit until the power is back on (it's been off every second day more or less... hopefully it will be back on again this afternoon - we ran out of water this morning and need the pumps to come back on to fill our storage tank!!).

murare gye!

Kasubi Tombs, Kampala

finally a picture from Uganda!!
this was the gatehouse - there was a similar structure (but bigger!) where the king lived and was burried, and then a big courtyard surrounded by smaller buildings that served various functions, including housing his many wives.

thank you for seeing us off in Vancouver!!

Stella, Bryony and Naomi at Vancouver airport. Naomi was in town for a conference...perfect timing!! Great to see you both!

after two hours...we finally found food in vancouver

kyla do you recognize anyone in this picture??

it worked!!!

this is the tin can that we took from comox to vancouver....even emily had to duck!

guess where we are??

hello!!!!!

we arrived safely and soundly in Uganda, after way too much time on the plane...and sitting in airports- we were happy to drive into Kampala early Monday morning. how to describe kampala?? well...wow traffic...lots of people...constant shouts of "how are you muzungu?"....people taking pictures of us (we felt like a herd of safari animals...people pointing etc)...red streets - however people managed to stay impeccably well dressed and clean (showing up all of us)...never seen a 25 seater bus do so many impressive 3 point turns/backing out of tight spaces - they know their vehicles! giant ugly stork birds...and new cell phones for all

yes. it's true emily and bryony have officially embarked on their first ever co-ownership of a cell phone. give us a ring: 011 256 75 2682952. (it is free for us to receive incoming calls - check out our link to find good calling cards)

we are going to attempt to post some pictures...however they may not work!

we drove many hours...to arrive in Mbarara. we crossed the equator - where we stopped and witnessed a 'science experiment' - and yes, the water really does go down the drain in opposite directions on either side of the equator (and straight down when you are right on top of it - who knew?)

it will be another week or so before we reach our final destination of Bushara Island.

talk to you soon??

We still have to say that tanessa has the best blog EVER!!!

And Katie and Tanessa are the most super fantabulous dessert makers EVER!!!

'we love kayak'

enough said.

we were still sitting all day...but i would take a kayak over a chair any day. saw some wildlife: seagulls, bald eagle, seals...other random birds.

some memories made.






lunch at the spit.

cheese buns = good.

food followed by random games to help us warm up - 'salmon, mosquito, bear' (poor David and his salmon) and 'SPUD' (who's number 6??)!!!





finally a shot where you can see everyone...well almost! nicely done Katie.

















Frank, Laura, Tyler, Justine, Nick, Emily, Graeme, Tanessa, Joel, Melanie, John, David, Katie, Bryony, Ryan




checking out the old shipwrecks.





tomorrow - last day for running around. lots of packing.

g'night.

the interns

we would have included a photo of everybody...but the one photo that we took...well - it wasn't worth posting it. if you can't see the camera....the camera can't see you - anyways...

some phrases to describe each intern...so far:

John "Wilson": Mongolia to herd horses...Hardy Boy...quick dry...mefloquine mondays...
Laura: gives you the straight goods...sustainability...lacking internal compass...
Ryan: creative when it comes to rules...Mr. unpredictable Fix It... fire-retardent pants
Graeme "Little G": the bearded baby...the token yank...the glue...
Katie: quick to laugh...knows where stuff is...good at filling awkward silences (ie. "whoopsies")
Tyler: born to be an engineer...passport photo winner...Mr. I Won't Do It (ie. Dukarol...blog...)
Joel: quebecois...trekker (ie. trying to keep up with his Aunts)...Uganda and beyond (ie. Tibet)...cabbage farmer...'say, "we love kayak"'...
Melanie: the local...laundry room songster...van DJ...eternal optimist...
Tanessa "the chief": crazy energy ball...'making memories' - aka breaking the couch

questions? okay...so there are some inside jokes. sorry. that should be an indication that we are all getting along - which is good.

this is what the interns say about us...
bryony: free with her fists (Barnga)...cackle...85% goodness...part-time hilarious...
emily: machine gun laugh...distracted/crazy driver...surprisingly short...

we're kayaking tomorrow...ryan doesn't actually think that we need sleep for that...but we disagree. in the words of joel: bonne nuit.

WRITE TO US!!!! (please)

our contact info in Uganda:

bryony and/or emily
c/o Bushara Island Camps
ACTS P.O. Box 794
Kabale, Uganda
AFRICA

orientation begins...

After managing to fit everything into our bags...we called a cab and headed to the South Terminal Vancouver airport. Unfortunately for us we seemed to have summoned the slowest and least able to stay in his own lane cab driver ever...not only that but we also got lost. One hour fifteen later...we arrived. We flew Pacific Coastal Airlines to Comox - pretty small aircraft...small enough for us to figure out that one of the interns had missed the flight. We picked out the interns pretty quickly....not too inconspicuous. In half an hour we experienced more service than Air Canada provided from Toronto to Vancouver!

We settled into the Shantz Haus, the hostel we've taken over (11 interns/volunteers). Headed to Uganda with us are...Joel, Graham, Tyler, Tanessa, Ryan, John, Melanie, Katie, Valdean, Richard, Jenny, Laura. First impressions?? good. Should be a good time...well actually, everyone is going to different areas so we won't see much of each other...more on that later.

Orientation: Day 1
sweet mother. Following 12 hours of sitting (most of which was interesting and informative because the interns from last year were present and sharing of their experiences, a travel nurse also talked with us...shedding light on interesting diseases...most of which we hopefully had already been vaccinated against), we were ready for a bit of a walk...

bryony is taking a bit of a writing break to take her dukoral (oral cholera vaccine). so gross. 2 doses, which involve drinking something that is supposed to taste like rasberries.. but in reality tastes more like.... ok. bryony's back now (looking a bit green..).


day 2.
mefloquin with breakfast (let the delusions begin..).
church.
hiking Mt. Washington.
eating delicious food.

the end.





us at the top.

Joel, Bry, Em, Ty

(and yes, we actually climbed - the chair lift wasn't working)