Mbarara, Uganda

2006-01-06T01:04:00.000+03:00

I LIED: That wasn't my last post. I decided there might be more fun things to post. Now that my brain is actually catching up with my body, I'm remembering more things to tell. Like Auntie's thoughts on our friends the Brits, or on smearing habanero paste on dogs' butts. Besides, I've realized some of my writerly friends actually read my blog, and, being the competitive med student that I am, I want to demonstrate that when I pay attention, I can actually write. I'll defer demonstrating that until later.

2005-12-27T17:56:00.000+03:00

SAVE A LIFE: This will be my last post until I return to Uganda. Until then, I wanted to let you know about a small foundation based out of UCSF that provides free antiretrovirals (ARVs) to Ugandans with AIDS. Currently, life-saving ARVs are too expensive for most families. The vast majority of Ugandans who take ARVs receive it for free through the Global Fund and PEPFAR. Unfortunately, these programs are still growing and only reach a minority of people who need medication. To help close the gap between demand and supply, the Family Treatment Fund, a foundation based out of UCSF, is raising money to provide a five year supply of anti-retrovirals to patients who need medication. The foundation prioritizes widows with children, in order to reach to the people most at need and maximize the benefit of each donation. Medication is guaranteed for five years to each recipient, since it is expected that enough free ARVs will be available in 5 years that recipients can be transitioned to another funding source.

A $1,100 donation will provide 5 years of treatment to one person with HIV. Granted, this is not a systematic response to the problem of poverty and HIV in Uganda, but sometimes when systematic responses feel too overwhelming, it's helpful to focus on the individual. All donations are tax-deductible, and the money is carefully monitored to make sure it goes where it's intended.

If you want more info or are interested in making a donation, please go to www.familytreatmentfund.ucsf.edu

If you are interested in supporting systematic solutions... this is harder. Support U.S. funding of free anti-retrovirals, HIV prevention programs that emphasize condom use along with abstinence and faithfulness, adequate financial monitoring, and...

Thanks for all your love and support the past 3 months!

Marissa

2005-12-26T17:18:00.000+03:00

PHOTOS: Now that I'm back in the States with high speed internet (a wonder to behold), I'm adding more photos to the blog. Adding some photos to previous posts, and also adding miscellaneous photos here.

Don't despair, I will have one more post after this one.

2005-12-20T09:29:00.000+03:00

TOURISTY TRAVELS: I spent the last 2 1/2 weeks travelling the country with my mom and Nate. Very fun, and very tiring. Here is a brief synopsis of our marvelous journey, complete with a summary of each event:
- Mom visits Mbarara and hospital: Go mom!
- Murchison Falls National Park: Hot. Giraffes! for birders: shoebill.
- Road from Murchison to Fort Portal: Is there a masseuse out there?
- Fort Portal and Ndali Lodge: Luscious accomodation, aristocratic Brit owner, Lord of the Rings view
- Rafting the Nile: more on that from Nate, so he can gloat about my excellent rafting skills and I can pretend not to be conceited.
- Mom leaves for the U.S.: Had fun! Nate and I are alone!
- Gorillas in Rwanda: Now I see what the fuss is about.
- Lake Bunyoni: R&R

Okay, here's the rafting scoop from Nate:

On the biggest rapid that is comercially rafted in the whole world, class 5 plus, we hit it straight on and everyone fell out except Marissa. The raft was literally more than vertical and shot up in the air high enough to lose contact with the water. The guides and rescue guys in kayaks all came over to give her five. Let's hope there's a picture of it. Had she held onto her paddle, it would have been even more impressive, but no one's perfect.

2005-12-18T09:31:00.000+03:00

KIGALI, RWANDA: Hi all, sorry for the huge break between posts. I got caught up yanking my mom and nate all around the country on a touristy blitz. More on that later. Weeks ago I went to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, with a Montefiore resident for the weekend to see the Genocide Memorial Centre. It is eery to travel in a country, and know that everyone has a family member who killed or was killed, if they themselves were not perpetrators or survivors. I look around at passersby, and wonder... I see a scar on the face, or arm, and don't know if it is just a scar? Does everyone have a mask covering a secret, or darkness, or wounds. We ended up staying at the Hotel des Milles Collines (the hotel on which Hotel Rwanda is based), which was also... eery isn't quite the word I'm looking for. To stand in the restaurant on the upper floors, and look out to the street below, and know that 11 yrs ago others looked out to see horror. One drives along the road through towns and villages, and not infrequently one sees that town's mass grave as a memorial.

The Genocide Memorial Centre was extremely well done, and between that and a book I just finished I've realized how I understood nothing about what happened in Rwanda in 1994. I remember reading the NYT after the genocide, and being unable to figure out if Hutus or Tutsis were the minority group, and thinking they'd been at each others throats forever. I had no idea why the genocide really happened, and the role of the West in helping create conditions for genocide, and, in the case of France in particular, funding the genocide. I strongly recommend reading "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" by Philip Gourevitch. It is a journalist's non-fiction exploration of why the genocide happened and what happened after. It's lucid, and he does a remarkable job of creating a coherent account of a complex story.

I've attached a photo of the pool at Hotel des Milles Collines.

I promise the next post will be a more uplifting topic.

2005-11-26T09:17:00.000+03:00

THANKSGIVING: We had quite the Thanksgiving feast here at Nneka's dreamhouse. Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted potatoes and veggies, green beans, pureed pumpkin, mac and cheese, pumpkin pie, apple pie, the fattest whipped cream I've ever seen, wine... Yum! It was wonderful to spend Thanksgiving with friends when I'm so far away from home. So, here are a few pictures. Our turkey was free range until the very end, as you'll see.

2005-11-22T10:38:00.000+03:00

POLITICS: Last week was quite eventful, to say the least. The excitement began Friday, Nov 11 when students at the main university in the capital of Kampala- Makerere Univ- protested an enormous increase in student fees. The protest quickly became a riot, complete with burning of cars and looting of businesses, and the police were deployed. A fellow med student at UCSF and 2 students with whom I had just gone to Lake Mburo had all the windows of their house broken as students tried to break in. (They lived with a Makerere Univ professor/administrator, and the house was therefore targeted.) The riot settled down by Friday afternoon, with smaller flares over the weekend.

Things got even more interesting Monday the 14th. (As background, Uganda’s current president, Museveni, is just finishing two 10 year terms. He is up for re-election for a third term, having just changed the constitution to remove term limits. He led the army that overthrew the dictator Obote, ending years of government terror and brutality, and generally has been seen as a good president, although the recent constitution change has people rightfully worried about his democratic intentions.) Besigye, Museveni’s main opposition candidate (and former personal doctor and good friend),returned from self-imposed exile in South Africa recently to run in March’s presidential election. He was arrested Monday, charged with a 1997 rape and supporting a guerilla army based in Congo. The charges appear, shall we say, politically motivated. His arrest triggered further rioting in Kampala that lasted throughout the day. We were watching events carefully from Mbarara, a 4 hour drive to the southwest, uncertain if the riots would be confined to Kampala, or spread to other cities.

Early Tuesday morning, Nneka knocked on my door to inform me that military police were stationed throughout Mbarara, and to be prepared to leave for Rwanda should violence break out in Mbarara. (Rwanda, two hours by car, is the nearest border.) I promptly went into town to get money from the bank and refill the minutes on my mobile. At noon, about 20 military police were stationed in the golf course in front of my house, and at 12:30 pm I received an unnerving text message from a friend of mine with the following security alert sent by the organization for which she works: “confirmed rioting at Makerere and central Kampala 11:30 AM. Military police using live ammo deployed in central. Do not approach these areas for any reason”. Kampala quieted by Tuesday evening, and when I returned home from work Tuesday night, the military presence was gone.

Things remained quiet the remainder of the week, and have been quiet since. Besigye is scheduled for a bail hearing Nov 24th, which may also become interesting as other men charged along with him were released on bail late last week, only to be met by a heretofore unknown military group called the “black mamba urban hit squad”. (I kid you not.) The black mamba squad, dressed in black and carrying automatic weapons, tried to force their way into the court house to “arrest” the men who had just been released on bail. Newspaper editorials and the judges spoke out against this afterwards, as such military action obviously threatens the independence of the judiciary, harkens back to days when political opponents mysteriously disappeared, and discourages multi-party politics.

To add to these concerning developments, the police entered the offices of one of the two main national papers, saying that the paper was illegally publishing paid advertising for a fundraising campaign for Besigye. They confiscated many of that day’s papers, and delayed delivery to much of the country, specifically the region from which Besigye hails. So, to add to the intimidation of the judiciary, is intimidation of the press.

It is encouraging that editorials from the national papers, including the pro-Museveni paper, are harshly criticizing Museveni, and that the situation has been calm now for many days.

2005-11-09T14:53:00.000+03:00

OBSTETRICS WARD: Spent a morning on the obstetrics ward yesterday, and the rest of the day depressed about it. The ward, like the medicine ward, is open, with women lying on metal beds in 2 long rows down the room, with other women on foam pads on the floor. Very cramped, and definitely not sanitary. There was one young HIV+ woman on a bed in the corner, curled in the fetal position in pain, at term, who had chorioamnionitis. The physicians were unable to detect fetal heart sounds, indicating that the baby had probably died in utero. They wanted to take her (as well as 2 other women) to the OR for a C-section, but there were no clean gowns or linens available. By early afternoon, they were still waiting for the gowns. The chair of the department was also searching the hospital trying to find alcohol with which to better sterilize the OR, to no avail. He was particularly concerned about the two women who were scheduled to follow the woman with chorioamnionitis. I was talking with a physician friend today about the lack of linens, and she laughed, saying that if there were linens, there would be no oxygen, and if there was oxygen, there would be no anesthesia, and .... Apparently the problems of the medicine ward are exacerbated on the surgical wards.

And the actual delivery suite... I'm not even sure how to explain. Three beds, covered with black plastic, on which women are laboring. Blood on the plastic. Difficulty maintaining sterile instruments. In the U.S., when a woman is sutured after delivering, the needle is held by an instrument, which helps protect the physician against a needlestick. Here, instruments are often unavailable.

So... the maternal mortality rate in the hospital is just under 10%. The leading cause of death on the Ob/Gyn ward is septic abortion, as abortion is illegal here. Apparently, the stem from a cassava is often used for this purpose.

I admire the physicians, nurses, and hospital staff who work hard day after day after day with such limited resources.

2005-11-08T21:13:00.000+03:00

AUNTIE- PHOTOS: After much delay (and after many requests), I am posting a few photos of Auntie. One is a picture of her as I know and love her, with her favorite bandana head tie. The second is a photo of her dressed up for a family Christmas portrait. The third is a bonus. When Nneka and I came home last night, she had unexpectedly replaced her favorite head tie with a black Virgin Atlantic baseball cap with red brim, with the brim set jauntily to the side. Enjoy!

2005-11-01T09:13:00.000+03:00

AUNTIE: Auntie is Nneka's elderly (probably early 80's, no one knows her exact age) Nigerian paternal aunt. She is a kick- very intelligent, funny, opinionated, mischievous, and a pain in the rear sometimes according to Nneka. (I'm spared the pain-in-the-rear part, since I speak about 5 words of Ibo, and her English is rapidly growing, but not eloquent.) I wanted to share with you some Auntie stories, since she is such a delight.

First let me give you a mental picture. She's a slender woman, about 5 ft tall, with a phenomenal smile that ends in wrinkled dimples. She usually wears a print skirt, whatever random American style shirt she has chosen that day, and a bandana which serves as a head tie. The bandana is the piece de resistance (however you spell that in French), as it is white with green marijuana leaves on it. So far she has refused a photo unless she's dressed up, but I'll try to get a picture with the marijuana head tie for you.

When she was a girl, the leader of her clan passed a law forbiding girls from attending school. As a result, all of her brothers went on to earn PhDs, while she and all of her sisters did not receive any education. (One sister later achieved a 3rd grade education.) She is rightly angry about this lossed opportunity. To this day, seventy-plus years later, she starts and ends her day by cursing the leader of the clan and all his descendants. She curses the women with "may they never get married", and the men with "may they amount to nothing" (rough translation).

2nd Auntie story: One day I made a salad to accompany dinner- a typical salad with lettuce, tomato, green pepper, you get the picture. After offering some to her, which she politely refused, I started munching away. Nneka was also in the kitchen, and the two of them started talking. Later I find out the Auntie was horrified by my eating of the raw vegetables. Their conversation apparently, went something like this: "Look at her, she's eating vegetables raw ! Look! Just like a goat! She even offered some to me! Like a goat!" After eating my salad, I had nibbled on a few leaves of Nigerian greens, to which Auntie whispered furtively "Nneka, look over there, she's doing it again, raw leaves, like a goat!" I must say, I admire the politeness Auntie mustered in declining my offer of food approriate for a goat.

3rd Auntie story: A week or two ago, Auntie was suffering from constipation. She left the kitchen to go to her bathroom, and after a few minutes, Nneka (also in the kitchen with me) starts laughing aloud. I ask Nneka what's so funny, and she says "Auntie is talking to her butt!" I, completely confused, ask "what do you mean, talking to her butt?" Nneka explains that Auntie is telling her butt "what's wrong with you, why won't you open up!?!" I'm practically crying I'm laughing so hard by the end of this explanation. The story gets better. To resolve the constipation, Auntie starts to eat large amounts of watermelon and papaya to help digestion along. A couple days later, she is having a particularly animated discussion with Nneka, complete with sound effects and gestures. By now, I have figured out when the story she is telling is particularly good, and this was clearly excellent. Again, Nneka translates for me. The story went something like this: "Nneka, I am lucky to be alive today, it is God's grace that has saved me. If the constipation had continued, I would have died. I just went to the bathroom, and you would never believe! I sat there and sat there, and I pushed and pushed. Women in labor do not push so hard or experience such pain. Finally, out it came, it was hard and black and this long (at this point she holds up her forearm to demonstrate the length). If it had not come out of me, I would have died." I must say, by the end of this story, I was on the floor in tears.

4th Auntie story: Not as funny, but charming. Every few days it rains a bit in the afternoon ("a bit" meaning torrential downpour). Which lends itself to a bumper crop of mushrooms emerging every day. Auntie loves mushrooms ("ero" in Ibo), so every day, like clockwork, she walks slowly through the yard picking every single last mushroom on the property. This amounts to about 2-3 lbs of mushrooms, which we eat, daily. I mean daily. I think her nickname should be "terrorizer of mushrooms", or "mushroom murderer", or "she who makes mushrooms quake". That's how many mushrooms she picks. They're not poisonous, as we have all established by our daily quota of mushrooms. I think we've started to send some to the freezer at this point.

I'll see if I can get a picture of her for y'all to enjoy.

2005-10-28T17:44:00.000+03:00

FOOD- PART 2: I am being introduced to new food every time I turn around. While talking with Nate on the phone a couple weeks ago, I was unpleasantly surprised by larvae-like things with tissue-thin wings flying in through the slit underneath the door. Actually, they weren't so unpleasant as much as the little ants that started congregating around them to devour them. (A wad of toilet paper stuck under the door solved this problem, and we returned to our conversation.) Wait, you're thinking, I thought this was a food post and Marissa is telling me about flying bugs? Exactly. The next day I learned that the larvae-like things with wings are called white ants, and fried without the wings make great eating. I was offered some last week unexpectedly, and after looking at the pile of critters in the tupperware container, decided to give it a go. They are surprisingly good. Taste kind of like roasted nuts (slightly oily, full flavor, crunchy) but with a soft center.

On to part two of this story. While speeding at night from my mini-kitchen to Nneka' main house a few nights ago (speeding in order to avoid the white ants that were clamoring around the outdoor lights) I noticed a huge 3 inch long bright green insect that looked a lot like a walking stick. I meant to mention it to Nneka, and then forgot until a couple hours later, when I walked into the kitchen to see Osa, her 3 yr old daughter, holding said insect tightly between her fingers. She was excited by this "grasshopper". Now, for weeks I've been hearing about how late Nov-December is the height of grasshopper season, and that bags and bags of grasshoppers are sold as a delicacy. I'd been imagining small cute 1 inch long grasshoppers, and thinking that I might like to try them. I never thought they'd be 3 inch long, 1/2 inch wide huge enormous insects of biblical proportions. I'm not really sure how they'll fit in my mouth. Are they cut up? do you double them in half before putting in mouth? I'll keep you posted.

2005-10-24T12:33:00.000+03:00

HOSPITAL IN MBARARA:
I've started observing in the wards at the hospital here, which has been quite an experience. The hospital is affiliated with the medical and nursing school in Mbarara, Mbarara Univ. of Science and Technology (MUST). To describe the layout... the teaching and patient care buildings are mostly separated from each other on the campus. Each department for patient care (e.g. surgery, emergency) is more or less in a separate building, with the buildings strewn haphazardly across the campus. Cement and dirt footpaths connect the buildings.

About 80% of the patients in the medicine ward are there because they have AIDS, many of the remainder suffer from injuries or trauma. The wards are "open wards" divided into men and women's sections. There are very few semi-private rooms. Patients' families bring blankets for the beds, and stay with the patient to feed them (the hospital doesn't feed patients). The hospital beds aren't the American idea of a hospital bed complete with buttons to turn on the tv and to raise and lower various sections of the bed; beds here are metal frames the size of a cot with a foam pad on top. The beds are right next to one another, with about 18 inches of space separating each bed, and patients sleeping on pads on the floor when they run out of space. Smells can be strong. It's hard to describe. I walked by the surgical suite the other day, and there were surgical scrubs and masks hanging to dry on barbed wire out front. There just aren't the resources for sterile disposable gowns, gloves, masks, etc. Surgical gowns and linens are bleached, boiled, and then washed before being re-used.

In addition to the inpatient internal medicine ward, the only other department I've seen so far is the outpatient HIV clinic. The clinic is always swamped with patients. It's actually incredibly encouraging and uplifting to compare the inpatient medicine and outpatient HIV clinic. While the inpatient wards are filled with people suffering serious complications from AIDS- gaunt, very sick- the outpatient clinic is filled with mostly healthy people on anti-retroviral drugs. These patients come to the clinic with a common cold or to get refills, sometimes with side effects from their HIV medications or HIV, but generally are about as healthy as people in San Francisco on anti-retrovirals. It is truly amazing to see the difference treatment with anti-retrovirals makes.

While the limited resources and extent of human suffering can be depressing, it is also inspiring to witness the dedication of the staff here, who day after day care for the patients here. Also, the slowly growing access to anti-retrovirals has brought fresh hope.

2005-10-21T09:16:00.000+03:00

FOOD: I wouldn't describe the food here as delectable. It never tastes bad, but couldn't be called inspiring, either. Every meal is based around a starch staple. A favorite is matoke, which is made of boiled, mashed banana and is pastey in texture, but not sweet. It tastes best when warm. Posho, a white polenta-like staple made from finely ground white corn is also common, but is very bland and the data manager in our office refuses to eat it because it was served with every meal at boarding school. That pretty much sums up posho. I had it once, and don't see the point when other options are available. Cassava, sweet potatoes, white rice, and Irish potatoes (usually truncated when ordering to just "Irish") are the other common staples. All can be ordered with "g-nut" (aka groundnut, aka peanuts), beans, peas, or meat (beef, chicken, fish, goat). G-nut is surprisingly good, and brightens up the staples. My favorite combo so far is beans, peas, matoke, and rice, with some g-nut added in. Now, the fruit situation here is a whole different matter. The pineapples are the best on the planet, and a bargain at 50 cents for a large one and 30 cents for a small one. Avocados the size of papaya are everywhere (my grandpa would have loved Uganda just for that), as are mango, papaya, bananas... There's a young man who sells pineapple on the road in front of the hospital, and I'm always on the lookout for him. Aah, and African tea! Quite delicious. Tastes like Chai, and very rich since it's made with whole milk and not water. I prefer to make it with both milk and water, and a little lighter on the sugar than normal.

The food situation at my guest house is wonderful. I have my own kitchen, and am regularly harvesting basil from the garden to make pasta with tomatoes and basil. The garden is also awash with celery, parsley, swiss chard, corn, a Nigerian green whose name I can't remember, dill, mushrooms... quite the feast. Nneka is my host, and her elderly Nigerian aunt loves to cook. I suspect she's trying to fatten me up, so she's always feeding me wonderful items like chicken soup and greens with mushrooms. Nneka herself is a fantastic cook, with a pineapple upside down cake to die for. She whipped up a quick "casual" meal for some Nigerian friends the other day that consisted up the aforementioned cake, a delicious tomato-based beef stew, rice with carrots, fried plantain, and greens with mushrooms. Yum yum.

Of note, everything- from veggies to meat to dairy- can be bought fresh. When we made chicken for some dinner guests, we bought live chickens, slaughtered and plucked them, and cooked them up. It's definitely more work than Safeway, and my carving skills leave a bit to be desired, but fresh chicken can't be beat.

I almost forgot!!!! You can buy a bag of about 15 passionfruits for 50 cents. Passionfruit juice is delectable, straight from the gods. Spoon out the fruit, stick it in a blender with some water, and finally sieve it with sugar to break up the pulp. Voila! Fresh passionfruit juice. That, my friends, ends my food post.

2005-10-13T10:18:00.000+03:00

QUEEN ELIZABETH PARK: Had a stupendous trip to a national park in SW Uganda last weekend, with Mindy and her husband Luke. We were at Brown together 10 years ago, and had a close mutual friend in common. Mindy is a medicine resident at Montefiore, and we ran into each other for the first time in 10 years crossing the street in front of the Mbarara University hospital. The journey started out auspiciously when I saw Uganda's national bird for the first time- the crested crane- wandering in the field in front of my guest house, with feathered mohawk bending in the breeze. The drive to the park was beautiful, complete with tea farms, and reminescent of the hills in Ecuador. We spent Saturday day on a tour boat exploring the river, and viewing the wildlife: hippos, elephants, water buffalo, African kingfishers, crocodiles. At dusk, we went out in our rented car looking for wildlife, and came upon numerous groups of elephants, one of which was right next to the edge of the road, 10 ft away from the car. There were 2-3 adults, with two younger ones. It was so close we could smell them. They were ripping grasses out of the ground with their trunks, eating continuously the entire time we watched them. Crazy to be so close to hear the swish of grass as they moved, snorting... Hard to explain. It was truly magical. When it got dark, we went to the fancy lodge overlooking the river, and had a scrumptious dinner, surpisingly preceded by my favorite Irish butter. I almost died when I saw it, and provided much amusement for the waiter. Sunday, we got up early to look for lions, but didn't see any. However, the bushback, Ugandan Kob, with their hair glowing in the morning light, warthogs were more than enough entertainment. I think warthogs are my favorite, after the elephants. they have this thin tail, about a foot long with a small tuft of hair at the end, that they hold straight up in the air as they run. Delightful. I didn't get a good picture of one, though. Then we drove by another lodge and saw a family of monkeys, then to a forest for guided walk with a ranger, Caleb. Caleb was incredibly knowledgeable and a fabulous storyteller and teacher. I've been very impressed with the knowledge and dedication of the ranger guides. The hike took us to a bat cave. It was probably 40 feet wide, 20-30 feet deep, 20 feet high and literally coated with hundreds of thousands of bats, quivering pressed up next to one another. They emit this unnerving high-pitched whine/screech. We got so close, we could see a few mating, and others with babie clinging to their bellies. Honestly, it gave me a bit of the heebie-jeebies. And, the ground underneath was coated with 6-8 inches of black scat/guano (whatever you call bat excrement) that looked like boiled lava where it curled under at the edges. To top it off, there was a huge python lying resident in the cave, who chills there and eats bats whenever hungry. The whole thing was quite a sight, altho I was happy to leave. The trip ended with a beautiful drive home on Ugandan Independence Day.

2005-10-03T09:59:00.000+03:00

Hi all- ok. no pictures yet, i will post some soon. After a whirlwind 3 1/2 days in the capital of Kampala, arrived yesterday afternoon in my home base of Mbarara, a small-ish (40,000) town in SW Uganda, about a 4 hour drive from Kampala. Highlights of Kampala included passionfruit juice with every meal, watching the movie Goal (a movie about a Mexican immigrant in the US who ends up playing professional soccer in the U.K. Not a great movie, but satisfied my soccer and underdog wins requirement, ok, I admit, got teary-eyed at the end, but I am a SUCKER) at the Garden CEnter, a new downtown shopping center. Other highlights... also drove by the craziest market i have seen in my entire life. Not even sure how to describe it. Everything imaginable sold there. Streets full of pedestrians, taxis for hire, matatus (minibus taxis), boda-bodas (scooter-type motorcyles). The taxis for hire are easy but expensive; the matatus are less expensive but you have to know which one starts where and goes where, which at this point is a bit daunting; and the boda-bodas, which are the least expensive and go anywhere but require a serious faith in the afterlife. As a pedestrian, they are quite unpredictable and bold. Oh, and people drive on the other side of the rode so I have to remember to look the right way before crossing. Now about Mbarara- definitely quieter, a bit greener. Haven't explored yet. The guest house I'm staying in is extravagantly nice, my friend called the compound it's on "the palace on the hill". 4-poster bed with lovely mosquito net, table, chair, clean bathroom, internet access, a garden, my own little kitchen (the gas stove was a new thing to learn), and a porch area to sit on. There woman who owns the compund is a UCSF employee who runs the research here. She and her daughter and elderly aunt live in the main house, which is large. Also, there is woman who lives there who cleans, cooks, etc. I need to figure out how to include paragraphs in this thing. Oh, and on the drive down saw ankole cattle with the longest horns imaginable- 3-4 feet straight up with a slight curve. I'm told their gentle,but after my close encounter with the bull in MExico, am not taking chances.

2005-09-10T20:08:00.000+03:00

My going away party was a blast. Here are some pictures of my dazzling guests, and Nate's salsa smorgasbord.

2005-08-30T19:43:00.000+03:00

the flag