Week 1: Kampala and beyond

Thus far our travel in Uganda has been effectively a vacataion. This has allowed everyone to get accustomed to life in Uganda, and also to overcome jetlag and ensure a healthy transition to our new home. We departed Comox on Saturday morning and arrived in Entebbe on Monday morning. Travels were long but realitively uneventful. We were met in Entebbe by a bus which took us to Kampala where we spent the first the first 3 nights. The bus also served us for our time in Kampala and transported us to Mbarara where we are currently staying. Our time in Kampala was spent at a very nice guest house and we occupied our time fulfilling tasks in preparation for our travels south. This included such tasks as getting the nurses registered, visiting our pipe supplier, and purchasing cell phones. We also made some tourists stops including the King's Tomb (*name?*).

Kampala is quite an amazing place for not only a newbie to Africa, but a newbie to the developing world. It is a city of over 1.2 million spread out over many hills. The downtown is quite developed whereas the surrounding areas look more like typical images of African cities. Poverty exists but not nearly to the extent most westerns have come to believe. Traffic is so utterly chaotic that if functions effectively. Garbage removal is all but non-existant and garbage is burned in the open created a general smell of smoke which can be quite pleasent from a distance due the high content of organic material. People are generally very friendly and normally willing to go out of the way to help. I look forward to further visits to Kampala.

I have unfortunately spent most of my time uploading the following pictures so the rest will have to wait. I am heading out to a rural community on Monday morning to see some of the past projects so I look forward to this and to the start of my work.

Until next time,
Ryan

Visit to the King's Tomb (*name?*)

A local artist comes close to selling me this piece. I told him I'd return in 6 months









Garden on the side of a street in Kampala







Streets of Kampala. Always very busy







One of the many partially completed structures in Kampala. Note the interesting, but very typical, scaffolding used.





Bikes are used to haul all sorts of large loads. This man is pushing sugercane.

After receiving some candy, a group of children pose for pictures. What no one ever photographs: the unimpressed looks from the local adults.

A child shows me his tic-tac







Very African billboard enroute to Mbarara







Stop at the equator








Water demonstration at the equator. South of the equator water flows counterclockwise, north it flows clockwise, and on the equator it flows straight down... Did u know?