May and June Update

Boy, what a hard couple of months it has been. Nobody says that Peace Corps is easy and I feel like I have experienced that. They do say it will be rewarding and I think I have received some small rewards.

We had our first event in May with a Health Fair held in a nearby village. Around 500 people attended and over 100 people were tested for HIV/AIDS. It was a fun event with people of all ages. TASO (The AIDS Support Organization) came and did a play plus drumming, dancing and singing about how to prevent HIV/AIDS and the importance of being tested. We also sold subsidized mosquito nets (75 of them) plus immunized children. The villagers are still talking about it. Since then I have also met with youth in that village and talked about health, using condoms and how to prevent the spread of HIV. A few pics of the health fair in Namyeeso.






In addition, I helped to redesign the water system at Tess’(another PCV) site, health center. The health center services 150 people and only a few of the taps are currently working. The whole repair will cost less than $500 and we will be fixing it in July. Caleb, another PCV and civil engineer is my partner in crime for this project.



While at Tess’ site, we went to her supervisors house for dinner. He has a boarding school and we wanted the kids to show us dances from different parts of Uganda. This led to us then teaching them different American dances including the hokey pokey, chicken dance, head shoulder knees and toes and others. A great time was had by all!!




This month also found me in Kenya visiting my dear from Rachael. We were able to go to one Kenyan National Park called Hells Gate. It is one of the few parks where you don’t need a guide to take you through it. Instead, you rent bikes and ride through on the dirt road. It was so amazing because on the side of the road there were all these zebras, warthogs, gazelles, and water buffalos(yes they are supposed to be dangerous but seemed ok as they stood 20 ft away looking at us!). We also saw a few ostrich, giraffes, and baboons. We biked 8km to the far end then went on a super cool hike that took us through all these canyons which were just beautiful. Lava flows very close to the surface in this area, and the geothermal power plans supply 10% of Kenyas power. There were also a bunch of natural hot springs and I washed my hair in one natural hot spring water fall! The whole day was great and on the ride we also drove past Lake Nakuru where there are said to be over a million flamingos! There are all these patches of pink which are quite incredible too!











After writing this update, I feel like maybe things aren’t as bad as they sometimes seem. I think that coming I though that it would be easy to do cool, impactful things, but after being here, I am finding that it takes a lot of patience, and that I cannot do it, but have to be a more encouraging voice to help Ugandans develop their country. I think that a lot of times we have easy solutions (that often take a lot of money) but they aren’t always the best solutions. This has certainly been a great learning experience!