28 May 2007

Doing

In another life I was a holy roller, in another lifetime I flew / I have always kept a distance, this is what I do / This is what I do for a living, this is what I do / This is what I do, this is what I do
-Rhett Miller


But, what is it that you DO?

It’s a hard question for any Peace Corps Volunteer to answer…saying that you help your organization “build capacity” doesn’t mean very much to most people.

So this is what I have been doing (actually doing!) lately:

I now work mostly with Villa Maria Hospital, which is a little ways down the road from where I stay. The hospital has great HIV/AIDS services; I spend most of my time working with Frank, an awesome counselor.

First, some background information:
The hospital’s catchment area (the area for which they provide services) is huge- it has an estimated population of 214,764 people. The hospital provides HIV treatment not only on its premises, but also in 8 smaller “satellite clinics”- local health centers that have partnered with the hospital so that the HIV-positive patients don’t have to travel so far to receive treatment. The hospital staff members pile in to a vehicle along with loads of paperwork and drugs and go out to each clinic on certain days of the month. The counselors and health workers also do regular community sensitizations and lessons on HIV-related health issues, driving kilometers upon kilometers down bumpy dirt roads to go see people out in their villages. The hospital has also trained an extensive network of local “Peer Health Educators” (HIV-positive people who serve as role models for getting tested and adhering to treatment) as well as “Community Health Workers” (people who are willing to educate their communities about HIV, encourage them to get tested, and provide them with psychosocial support once they do).

Recently, through the Peer Health Educators and Community Health Workers, the hospital has encouraged HIV-positive people to form community support groups within their villages. Most support groups were started in the latter part of last year, and many are still getting off the ground. The great majority of our clients are subsistence-level farmers, and while the medicine and care is given freely, things such as the cost of getting to the hospital can be a problem. Thus, one area of interest for the groups is “income generating activities”— sustainable ways for them to make income to support themselves and their families.

While the groups have viable project ideas, (pig rearing, goat rearing, community farms, etc) getting those ideas off the ground is another matter. The obstacle in most cases is funding; the group needs some seed money in order to be able to start anything. So, what am I doing? Right now, I’m trying to help them get funding.

Under the guidance of the hospital, the groups are going to apply for a grant. I helped the hospital find a grant to apply to, and, over the course of a few days, the counselors met to translate the grant application into Luganda. (NOT an easy task- try translating the following sentence: “Describe the shorter-term objectives of the project; objectives should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.” Jeesh!)

The reason that we translated the application it is because we’re having each community group write their own proposal, which the hospital will then combine into one big proposal (in English) that encompasses everything. It’s a ton of extra work, but it will be a very good learning experience for each group. In some ways it’s frustrating, because I could do this by myself. I could ask each group their plan, type it all up in a way that would be appreciated by funding agencies, submit it, and their projects could be up and running in no time. But, the end result is not the whole point. (Actually, it probably is the whole point to the groups applying, but to me, the process of applying is just as important.) It’s so good for them to have to sit, think, discuss, argue, and really plan what they want to do. And, it’s good for me to be patient while they struggle to do that.

This past week we started handing out the translated application to all of the community groups, and last Friday, we had our first meeting with three of the groups, to help them start working on their applications! Everyone was very excited!

Oh! I didn’t mention the tent. So, being the awesome people that they are, what does the hospital staff do when their HIV/AIDS building is way too small for things like Peer Health Educator meetings and HIV education workshops? They set up a tent next to the building, that’s what! (Don’t you just love them!?) So, our Friday meeting was held in the tent:


One of the groups working on their project-
Tony, the guy waving, is one of my favorite Peer Health Educators! He lives in a village that’s only a 30 minute walk from where I stay- I’ve been to his house a few times. He and his wife have seven adorable little kids.

Proposal writing is a completely foreign concept to most people here, and the type of ongoing dialogue needed to thoroughly plan a project just doesn’t seem to take place very often. I was so excited to see them discussing their plans!

David (one of our really nice counselors) helping some Peer Health Educators with their proposal:

Frank (the wonderful counselor I work with) explaining things to another HIV support group:

There is only so much that I can help out with in Luganda, so at one point I took a break to hang out with the kids that are at the hospital getting treatment for HIV. This time I handed off my camera so that I could be in the picture too!
Sitting on the bench outside while they wait to go in!

Right now the hospital offers HIV treatment services to a lot of kids, but the kids pretty much get treated exactly like adults. We’re really busy with the community support group proposals, but Frank and I are currently brainstorming ways to treat the kids more like kids. They’re going to have to come to get drugs for the rest of their lives, but we don’t want the hospital to be a place that they dread. Something much more kid-friendly would be good…maybe a special day just for children's services? maybe a fun children’s center….? I’ll keep you posted!

25 May 2007

Sister

LAURALEW IS HERE!!!!!

She’s working with little kids at the deaf school over her summer break between college and grad school! Can Uganda handle the combined forces of TWO Wilson sisters? I guess we’ll find out… :)

15 May 2007

Tarzan

Some more pictures that I didn't get to put up the other day- when Maylea was here we went to the Botanical Gardens in Entebbe!



Us by a tree with giant roots:


Us in front of a huge tree with tons of vines-
We are cracking up because, since it was just the two of us, we had to use the timer on my camera so that we could both be in the picture. However, to get the whole tree in the picture, my camera had to be really far away, causing me to have to run quite a long distance in the 8-10 seconds before my camera flashed. As you can see, I barely made it!

And, if you are by a huge tree with vines, how can you not pretend to be tarzan? (This is where tarzan was filmed, too!)

Swinging:


Fun times! :) Stories from Maylea's visit (written by Maylea) will be up soon!

04 May 2007

Animals!

When I was a young warthoooooooog…
-from The Lion King

Everyone thinks that when you come to Africa, you are guaranteed to see lots of exotic animals. This is simply not true. When you live here, you do see a lot of birds (some pretty, but most pretty plain) and you might see a monkey, if you are very lucky. Unfortunately, living here is not like being in The Lion King.

National parks, however, are exactly like being in The Lion King! The other day, I took a day off of work and went to Lake Mburo National Park, which is about 100 kilometers or so west of where I live. I finally feel like I live in Africa, because I have finally seen wild animals!

We drove to the park in the evening, and spent the night in a nice banda. The next day, we got up early to take a morning walk, accompanied by an armed park ranger. Here we are before we set off:

Christopher (a local govt leader, he brought us to the park), Sarah (fellow PCV), and me!

We drove to a certain point, then set off traipsing through the bush! Our guide was great- we walked for over an hour, and saw so many animals just roaming around! My camera doesn’t have a good zoom lens, so my pictures from the walk look like we were far away, even though we weren’t- I took some better ones on the game drive later on, though. On our morning walk alone, we saw warthogs, zebras, impala, buffalo, and eland. That last one is a type of antelope- the largest kind of antelope actually- and it’s really rare to see any, because they’re pretty shy. We didn’t get pictures because we saw them so briefly, but it was really cool- you know it’s a rare sighting when even your guard gets excited about them!

Here are some buffalo from our morning walk:

At one point on our walk we were on a big hill and could see the lake in the background- there’s a lot of fog, because it was still early:


On the way back from our walk we stopped at the “salt lick”- there are salt deposits in the ground, so the animals come to lick and get their daily minerals!

Impala at the salt lick:


Some more impala:


After our walk we came back to the headquarters and had breakfast, where we saw monkeys! (They hung out around the kitchen area to see if they could pilfer any food.)

Vervet monkey:


There were also more warthogs nearby:
Warthogs are funny- in order to eat the grass (as you can see in the picture) they bend their front two legs so that they are on their knees! In general I think they’re just a funny animal- they’re kinda like a pig, but then not really, because they can run so fast! I got pretty close to this one, but overall I liked to keep my distance; when I was really little my grandma told me a story about getting charged by a wild boar, so I was afraid the warthogs were going to charge me, haha!

After lunch we went on a great boat ride on the lake, where we saw…

Hippos!


The scenery was beautiful… (Oddly enough, these hills surrounding the lake reminded me of driving through the South Dakota hills on a road trip last summer!)

Then we saw more hippos!

And fishing eagles:


And even more hippos! (There’s another fishing eagle in that tree, too!)



Our boat drivers said that there were around 200 hippos in the lake, and I sure believe it- there were hippos after hippos after hippos- I should have counted, but I’m sure we must have seen about 50!

On our way back to the starting point we also saw a young crocodile (Not the best picture- look to the left of the big weeds/grass!)

As we pulled up to the shore, we also had something to greet us…
This snake was really beautiful- blue and green- but apparently it’s pretty dangerous! Our guides chased it away with a big stick.

In the afternoon, we drove around on the trails, where we saw more impala, and more zebras! Our guide from the morning walk told us there are about 4000 (four thousand!!) zebras in the park.

Impala (we were so close!):


Zebra!


A big group:


People are coming! Run for cover!


After our game drive, we headed out of the park, back home to our respective non-Lion-King-esque villages. We continued to see zebras and other animals for a little while after we got outside the park- while the park does have an official boundary (on paper), there is no fence, so the animals roam freely in and out of “the park.”

And… that was our day! Normally I’m not necessarily a tourist-attraction type of girl- I’d rather really get the feel of a place than just go for a tour... I guess that’s one of the reasons I wanted to join the Peace Corps. But, that being said, it was great fun to take off work and just be a tourist for a day!!! (Although, I guess hiking around a national park isn’t “touristy,” in the Walt Disney-sense, anyway. It just seems touristy to me, because it’s something that foreigners always do, and something that locals hardly ever do.) But maybe the tourist thing isn’t so bad after all… I’m definitely doing it again!

PS- Sarah also wrote about our trip on her blog!

01 May 2007

Exhilaration

When you're drowning you don't say, "I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come help me," you just scream.
-John Lennon
-
Having a visitor means you get to do the fun stuff that you wouldn’t regularly do… like going rafting on the Nile! Maylea and I went a couple weekends ago, and it was INTENSE!!! The Nile boasts grade 5 rapids (grade 5 = ahhhhhhh!), and we rafted them! Actually, it has grade 6 rapids too, but they won’t let you do those- they’re too dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing!

Basically, it goes like this: you are in a big inflatable raft with 6 other people and a very skilled and hilarious guide. You enter the river at a flat spot, where the guide teaches you all of the commands, i.e. Forward hard! Back paddle! Grab the rope! Get down! etc., and then you’re off!

As you are coming up to rapids, the guide explains what grade the rapid is, what his commands are most likely going to be, and how likely you are to flip. (Flipping is likely!) And then, you go for it! As you approach the rapids, you are sitting on the edge of the raft and paddling, but when you’re about to hit them, the guide yells, GET DOWN!!! at which point you grab onto the side rope and squat down in the raft.

We actually only flipped twice the whole day, which I think is less than normal… but oh man! When you flip… well, you try to hang on, but it’s darn near impossible. I did manage to hang on one out of the two times, but I think only one other person was left hanging on with me.

When you flip, the guide is amazing- while you are busy drowning, he somehow climbs onto the flipped-over boat, counts heads, and signals the rescue kayakers. Yes, the rescue kayakers… the equally amazing people who come and fish you out of the rapids. Meanwhile, you are underwater for what seems like ages, being pummeled while choking and heaving and swallowing the Nile and not knowing which way is up. Luckily, you are equipped with a helmet and a heavy duty life jacket- if you didn’t have the latter, there’s absolutely no question that you would drown. I can’t even describe how huge the rapids are. After you make it over and back into the raft, you look back and think, did we really go over and through that and survive?!!! It seems impossible.

You can’t take a camera out on the water, but this is us at the end of the day- unfortunately I don’t think you can tell how soaked we are!

Maylea still in her gear, me drinking a Nile Special at the Nile! :)

So, that was my first time ever rafting… I had SO much fun that I really don’t think any future rafting trips can compare. Well, except when I raft the Nile again with Lauralew, and then again with Min… they’re in for it! :)