Coaching, Queen Elizabeth, and more

So it has been quite a while since I have been able to update everyone on my happenings. We have been without internet for about 11 days, and it has been extremely frustrating. Our work and my work especially relies pretty heavily on our internet connection and being able to communicate with Dr. Bangsberg back in Boston. In addition to the internet being down, our server crashed so we couldn't even access the majority of our files for a week. However, it appears that everything is up and running again. We will see how long that lasts...

A couple weekends ago, I ended up getting involved with coaching some soccer. Danny, one of the guys I went golfing with happened upon some kids playing soccer one day while he was out running. It turns out there is a boys team that is coached by a guy named Moses who described himself as a "Street Kid" growing up. He didn't have much and basically just hung out on the street, not going to school or working. He then met a gentleman named David who now runs a small orphanage in the neighboring town. Together, they have a handful of kids they take care of at a small house that serves as an orphanage. While the boys have a legitimate team and Moses as the coach, Danny has offered to coach practices for the local girls. Danny invited me to join him and his wife Lynn one Sunday afternoon.

When I met up with them at their apartment, they had been babysitting the youngest orphan, a 4 year old girl Putin. She was devouring a Cadbury bar and had been given a little stuffed animal. We spent ten minutes trying to get her shoes back on, as they were clearly about 2 sizes too small. We then took a small hike, about 40 minutes, through the valley to the orphanage where we were met by a group of boys and girls who were anxious to go play some soccer. Danny carried Putin on his shoulders the entire way, so that she wouldn't cut up her feet. We rounded up about 2o girls and 5-10 boys along our walk, inviting them all to come play soccer with us.

We then walked down to the field which was a large soccer pitch with varying lengths of grass. The middle of the field was mostly dirt with a bit of grass springing up here and there and some considerable dirt mounds sporadically placed across the field. Towards the corners and sidelines, the grass rose well past my knees. The goals were actually fairly legitimate in that they were made of metal, as opposed to most of the goals that are curved pieces of wood nailed together. We coached the girls for about half an hour running drills and getting some exercise before letting them scrimmage a bit. While Danny had the scrimmage under control, another volunteer in the area, Connor, and I played some pick up soccer with some of the locals on the other end of the field. It was nice to get out and play some soccer and run around.

Connor is here with his buddy Brian and Brian's girlfriend Annie. They all just graduated from University of San Diego and are here through their church helping to get a hospital going and getting involved with other projects in the area. Brian and Connor both play soccer and basketball, which has worked out pretty well so far. They met the coach of a high school basketball team in the area and when I joined all of them for dinner that night, we found out he also helps coach the university team and invited to go play with them the next day.

I had walked by the kids playing basketball everyday after work, but figured they were practicing. We played with them and between Connor, Brian, and myself, we impressed them enough to get invited back. We have been playing with them every Monday and Friday and having a good time. The court is in pretty terrible shape. No nets, broken gravel, and a busted rim. Nevertheless, it is a good time. There are some decent players and others that are not as much so, but overall I have been impressed.

That next weekend I got invited to tag along with some people to Queen Elizabeth National Park. We left early Saturday morning and drove through the beautiful green hills northwest of Mbarara. As we rounded one of the hills close to the park, the hills immediately evaporated and became an enormous savanna-like landscape. It is called the Western Rift Valley and I believe it runs through Uganda and down into Tanzania, but I could easily be wrong. Looking out across the Western Rift Valley, the Rwenzori Mountains (aka "Mountains to the Moon") emerge. They rise to a substantial 5110 m and are glacier capped. Pretty amazing to think there are glacier capped mountains virtually on the Equator.

When we arrived at our hostel, we headed over to the nice Mweya Lodge to meet two doctors who were accompanying us for lunch. We then took a boat launch to go see some buffaloes, hippos, birds (there are tons of birds here. it is amazing), and one of 11 fishing villages in the national park. The hippos and buffaloes really just ignored us as we got within feet of them as they floated in the channel. The channel connects the two main lakes in Queen Elizabeth, Lake George and Lake Edward. When we were passing the fishing village, all of the men were boarding their dug-out canoes to go out fishing for the evening. There must have been 30 canoes going out, it was pretty amazing to see this as they literally live right next to these hug pods of hippos and buffaloes. Nothing separates them at all.

We went on a short game drive after the boat trip and got to see some elephants and other antelope type animals. We also did a game drive early the next morning which was more exciting as we saw a female lion laying in the shade, a male lion saunter from one thicket to another, and male Ugandan Kobs bucking as they competed for territory.

The following week, was the week without internet and work was very frustrating. I was able to get a little bit done, but it was extremely unproductive. I spent more time out at Mburara International school and got a chance to teach again as we talked about directions and a compass. I also helped P4 with their term project about the eye. They were looking for a way to spice up their presentation so we decided to make paper mache eyeballs. While Mr. Thompson took the lead and has been working with them, we will be painting and decorating them next week before their presentation day and last day of the term, next Friday, December 5th. I also got a chance to see the building plans for the new school and got to sit down at a meeting with the contractor. They have some very ambitious plans and goals and it will likely take a lot of work, but it is a very important thing they are trying to do. Miss K is very determined to make it happen and is getting worried that it won't happen while she is still around to teach. Nneka and I are confident it will get done, but were very much taken aback by the costs. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

This past weekend, I decided to go to Lake Bunyonyi which is just outside of Kabale, in the very southern most tip of Uganda which borders the DRC, Rwanda, and Tanzania. The lake is the only lake in Uganda that you can safely swim in because it is free of harmful bacteria and diseases. It also doesn't have hippos or crocodiles which is important. When we got there, we were taken aback by its beauty and tranquility. We took a dug-out canoe out to Bushara Island for the day and night. The lake is surrounded by beautiful and green hills with little villages scattered among them. The lake is littered with little islands that also have small villages on them. There are no motorboats or giant mansions and there is plenty of undeveloped land. We stayed in a cabin called the Treehouse and it looked out over the water towards another island that was used from the 1930s until the late 1960s as a leper colony. All the individuals in the local town who suffered from Leprosy were exiled to the island.

Bushara Island was extremely relaxing. It did not offer too much in the way of entertainment, except it did have a small rope swing that Connor and I spent the majority of the afternoon on, attempting backflips that never really amounted to anything more than painful back flops. The food on the island was excellent and we met some nice older people who have been coming to the island once a year for the past 8 years as they have helped to fund and build a hospital up in Kasese, a ways away from Lake Bunyonyi. In any event, it was a restful and relaxing weekend.

Well, I think I have caught up on everything now...quite a long post. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I will be having Thanksgiving at my Director's house. This is also my last full weekend in Mbarara as I have ironed out plans to go on a little tour of Uganda my last week and a half or so. Hope everyone is well and thank you to everyone who has sent me emails or comments or anything else.

Oh, and posting pictures doesn't look like it will happen at this point... I will make sure to do that when I get back to the States.

Golfing and Teaching...

What an adventure...golfing here was quite amusing and entertaining. I went with two other Muzungus JJ and Danny. We met up at the golf club thinking that they had club rentals because someone had said they did. Naturally, the woman working the desk had no idea what I was talking about. However, there was a Pastor there who said he had left some clubs in the back, but he wasn't a golfer himself and said we could use them. The woman brought out an amazing collection of clubs. She had about 8 different woods. When I say woods, I mean the old fashioned drivers that are actually made out of wood with big screws on the club face. Additionally, they had one putter, but the putter head was bent straight up and had clearly been welded back together. We ended up finding another club that resembled a putter, but wasn't actually one. We were then able to find 3 irons, a 3 iron, a 6 iron, and an 8 iron. Mind you these clubs are for three of us to share. We then were able to purchase one sleeve of balls (3 balls) because that was all they had. This meant we each had one ball for the entire round.

Because we didn't know the course and it wasn't clearly marked, we were given a caddie. A 10 year old kid who carried our clubs in his hands and pointed us in the right direction. As soon as we got on the course, 7 other young kids all emerged and helped to caddie for the rest of the round. Not only were they caddying, but they were also our ball finders as we could not afford to lose a ball. As soon as we stepped up to tee off (and I used that term loosely as there were no tees on which to place the ball), it started pouring rain, but we decided to continue because the storms come and go pretty quickly for the most part.

As we struggled to figure out where we were supposed to hit the ball as there are no flags in the holes and the greens look very similar to the fairway, we realized that there really weren't enough fairways for 9 holes. That's when we figured out that each fairway served as the fairway for anywhere from 1-4 holes. This meant we had to be very cautious of people hitting balls at us. We also had to hit the balls across roads with people walking on them. It was very much like one of those carnival games with the ducks going along in a line in front of you and you have to knock them down. Despite our efforts to hit people, we missed...kidding of course.

We had a great time and the kids were constantly laughing at us and our poor performance on the course. Surprisingly, we made it until the 8th hole (of 9) before I lost my ball. And I only lost it because it went into a yard with a locked fence. It was really a cool experience and we will definitely go out and play again. Especially because the whole round cost about 5 bucks each.

I had also mentioned that I would be teaching class at the school about using a Microscope. It was a great success as I explained everything about the microscope to levels P4 and P5. Some of the kids had remembered some things about the microscope as a volunteer had used it with some of them last year. The kids definitely enjoyed using it to look at a blood smear and plant cells. I explained to them some of the basic differences and had a blast. I then had to administer a quiz to them, which they all did very well on. It was clear some kids were more interested in others as they spent a lot longer looking into the microscope and asking me questions about it. Both classes I taught though were very engaged and were very excited about having me teach.

My supervisor, Dr. Bangsberg, was in town this week for two days. It is crazy what he does. Leaves Boston Monday morning, arrives in Mbarara Wednesday around lunch. He then works and has meetings straight through until Friday lunchtime, then starts the trip back to Boston. He spends 4 days traveling, and 2 other days working on site. We did have dinner together and several meetings and talking to him was great. He explained to me all about the projects and those that I will be working on and what his goals are. It means I will be busy doing work for the next couple of weeks, but I am excited about it. He is truly trying to do some things that have never been done, but could end up being extremely valuable and important. He also said he would put me down as an author on my major projects which is pretty exciting.

I did finally take some pictures of the school, however, the internet connection in my office is not allowing me to post the pictures. Later this week I am going to try one of the other offices with better internet, but unfortunately the pictures may have to wait. Hope all is well with everyone. Time is flying by as I am trying to plan some cool trips, including Gorilla Tracking in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.