Juancho in Uganda

I finally have the notebook with me, so here are the stories from previous days...

MAY 24 Move to Iganga
Last night I ate supper at the hostel. It was a fish kebab with rice recommended by the cook. DELICIOUS. This morning I ate more than half of Megan's breakfast (she didn't want most of the fruit and the largest slice of bread that I had ever seen). We then proceeded to go to Entebbe by foot where she got some cash and reported home. After this we visited the botanical gardens that were not clearly marked at all (we spent about 30 minutes wondering around and everybody gave us a different set of instructions). The place was not as exciting as we thought and we didn't see any of the monkeys that were advertised. The best part was cooling off by the very thick and green waters of Lake Victoria. We walked back to the hostel were we I ate my first 2 chapattis (fried tortillas) with a whole bowl of Quacamole (yes... they spelled it with a Q). Just afer this the UVP staff picked us up along with the other people at the airport. We went from there to Kampalafor a quick break and then 3 hours on a bus to Iganga. The road that we took was paved but mostly with just one lane on side, which is bad since it is the export/route for this landlocked country. We had dinner with chicken, matooke (plantain puree), peanut sauce, irishes (regular potetoes since the sweet kind are just called potatoes), and a soda drink name Mirinda Fruity (purple in color). I am now in my own room with a very large double bed since the rest of the US volunteers are women and had to share. THOUGHTS: From the road the country looked a lot like very poor rural areas of Colombia with tin roofs and fruit sales along the road (they make towers of mangoes too!). For some reason I expected more poverty still, but I haven't been around Iganga and my village yet.

MAY 26 First impressions
They surprised me with the largest birthday card I have ever received and a banana cake. Today was a day of reflection were hard numbers just cut too deep. We heard from a former intern that is now working at the health ministry about a district (similar to a state but with only about 200K people) that had only one official doctor from the government. The brain drain is incredible and even the NGOs canibalize the market by offering better pay than the government. I am also part of the problem in the sense that I left my country too, but I still believe that I could help more through the path that I have taken so far. I have also seen plenty of microcredit institutions and even though they are very helpful, they seem to have very short payments schedules for what I have heard from some of the local interns. They seem to be able to repay, but there is no really a profit that they can make with such tight payment terms. This has been a positive reflection though, since I have also seen a clearer vision for my program and their emphasis in local and sustainable solutions. On a lighter side, I learnt to play "Matatu" (they said first that it didn't have a name but finally they came up with the same word as minibus). It was a card game similar to Uno, but with rules that surprised me and always seemed to be against any cards I had.

May 28 Walking through Bunio Village
I went to Bunio Village agiain and did a visit throughout with a local elder. I even pumped water from one of the wells, but found out that 2 of them don't work. They said that they had contacted the NGO that put them there originally (not UVP) and they haven't been there in 4 months. I heard of this before and still makes me mad that there is no training/procedure for the local population in case that something like this happens. Hopefully we can help in this respect and have a person in charge of this from the locals. I also heard a lot about land purchases by land investors, which worries me since they can encroach these communities and ultimately destroy them. I hope I am wrong on this! It has been wonderful to learn some Lusoga since the locals seem ammazed that a mzungu speaks some of their words. Spanish definitely helps a lot in learning the local languange and my goal is to be able to have a full conversation when I leave this great place. It was also nice to hear that we are the only NGO that uses interns that try to learn the languand and I hope that there will be many in the future that copy that. At least trying to learn shows respect for the culture and opens many many doors.