when life hands you lemons....

Last thursday the SPH team (including wilfred, jessica, annie, kristen, morgan, me jen (at her first net sale) and Francis, our driver went to a village called Namasugali, up in the Kamuli district for a net sale and malaria outreach session. In case i havent explained before, SPH is a malaria outreach program that believes the best way to erradicate malaria is through prevention, as opposed to treatment. So: we go to a different village every thursday to give an education session on malaria, what it is, how you get it, how you can prevent it (the female anopholes mosquitoe transmits the malaria into your bloodstream where it matures in your liver, and then is released into your system attacking health red blood cells. To avoid malaria, sleep under a mosquito net as mrs anopholes bites mostly at nitetime when you are sleeping) then at the end of the session we sell insectacide treated nets for 3000 Ug Shillings the equivilent of 2 us dollars. We purchase the nets for 11,000 shillings, so we are not making a profit, instead we make the nets afforadable for the local villages. AT namasugali, it was utter insanity. They called and asked us to bring 15000 nets, which is more than the clinic has. WE brought 330 nets to the dismay of the people. over 350 people were at the education session and they were waiting for us when we got there early (this never happens!) after the session, they mobbed us, had us completely surrounded for four hours while we sold them te nets. here is a pictre of francis (our driver) as he tried to fend people off from crowding us or stealing nets .

After that stressful trip we decided that a trip to the hairy lemon was in order for a relaxing fun weekend. the lemon is paddlers paradise. it is a beautiful island on the nile, about an hours drive from bujagali. It is a 7 minute paddle downstream from the amazing nile special wave, which is an unbelievable world class play wave. because of chogm, the water had been high, which makes the special even better. even though annie had an ear infection, she was able to paddle out to the worlds squirliest eddy (think asci water park but worse) and take some sweet pictures. Morgan and i paddled 3 sessions a day, and had an awesome time with some british guys we had met at bujagali, al good paddlers. We tore it up and even managed to throw our first official blunts :a freestyle move in a kayak that is a vertical edge transfer where you start facing forwards and end facing backwards by the back of your boat coming up off the water- it was an amazing weekend. for info on the hairy lemon, check http://www.hairylemonuganda.com/ ( i believe.. i will double check). Heres a pic of me blunting... and then of me and morgan at the end of the session where we figured it all out. check out how huge our smiles were.. we were SO EXCITED!

After the lemon it was home to bujagali and more work at the clinic. Chogm starts today and Jessie arrives today with her mother so it is going to be crazy here for a while. Another net sale this thursday, hopefully it wont be quite as nuts as before. *All the pics are off morgans camera... for more of her pictures check her website at www.flickr.com/photos/morgankoons/

im going to try and start a website for mine soon.. ill let you know when....

knowing me...knowing you....

so i realized the other day that i have made a few passing refrences to people but havent really explained much about them or who they are. Here is a quick little cheat sheet so you can know who im dealing with, and what is going on in my life when i reference these people in further entries

here is a picture of all the sph volunteers: me, shannon, annie, morgan, jen, on the day of shannons education session on HIV which she presents to ugandan high schoolers

annie: SPH volunteer cordinater, jessie stones cousin, techically my boss .. .

jen: PA student from denver here for the month, working at SPH.

Shannon: intern with the foundation for sustainble development, working at sph

morgan: another sph volunteer my age, kayaker from oregon.

sheri and jim: couple from the states who are driving around the world in a 1995 toyota landcrusier named betty. they started in england and have driven all the way down the west coast of africa, up the east coast to bujagali.

Aliza: israeli/american med student volunteering in kampala

kristen volunteer with another organization now doing some stuff with sph

ibra kristens boyfriend, local ugandan and instructor at kayak the nile

jessica and wilfred: married couple that is amazing, local ugandans who work at sph

esther cook at sph

annette nurse at sph

godfrey nurse at sph

dr dan dr at Sph

Judith dr at sph

CHOGM

....stands for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, and it is happening here in Uganda at the end of the month. Chogm means that the roads are being redone, causing horrendous traffic, and that the prices of everyhting are rising, because, the queen is coming. Jinja is right at the source of the nile, so the queen may be stopping in (it hasne been decided yet) but the possibility means that the entire area is going nuts. rafting trips arent allowed out on the 2oth (the date the queen will be here) etc.. Typical uganda.
After three weeks here i am starting to get my bearings and really figure things out. I have gotten more use food, the campsite, rea0adjusted to my tent, have learned a little of the local language (lusoga and luganda) been on most of the river, etc.. It is starting to feel like home here, which is nice. So far on this trip i cannot believe how lucky i have been in the poeple that i have met. Its sad that some of them will be leaving soon, so ive just been enjoying the time we spend together. My daily routine has become 7am yoga, bfast, work at the clinic, have lunch at teh clinic (delicious ugandan food prepared by Esther, our cook) do some data entry, maybe kayak a little, have dinner, and chill out at Eden rock, another campsite down the road. Its a nice schedule, which i am fully aware will be changing as soon as Dr. Jessie arrives the 2oth.
For now, things at the clinic are going welll. I gave two family planning lectures last week, complete with me putting a condom on an eggplant to the giggles of ugandans, and not knowing a word of what Godfrey , our translator and one of the clinics nurses was ssaying. Right now im working on a way to redo the family planiing information to make more interactive with annie and kristen, and then try and propose a joint sPH and Soft Power Education project revoling aound health /sex ed for teenagers. If it happens, it would be a great project, seeing as the majority of schools health ed programs here are severely lacking.
i love hearing all your responses and comments on the blog, so keep them coming. As they say here, ehy buga MO.. or im hot! so im gonna head on out and do some work before i jump in the rivah. Illl try and send some pcitures asap- stay tuned.

bujagali falls
you can run right or left... beautiful as you can see... so sad that it will be gone soon....

bujagali falls

so i realized the other day that i have been less than descriptive in discussing my new surroundings. Bujagali falls is the name of the major rapid and falls that is right next to the campsite where i am staying. Most things, food places, rafting places, etc.. are based around it, named after it, you get the picture. it is an amazing rapid, a class 4 or 5 for those of you who kayak, but amazingly friendly.. you can run laps on it, an ultimate park and huck. It is even sadder that this is one of the rapids that will soon be underwater due to the bujagali dam project. what that means for tourism in this area, no one is sure yet. The land and mud/dirt here is a rich red terracotta brick shade, and it is everywhere. even though it is the rainy season i have been lucky because it has stayed pretty dry. There are more types of plants and birds (esp. birds!) here than i have ever seen. The water is clear, the trees and plants are so green, this area just has this incredibly lush feel. It has been HOT, but not too humid.
Things are starting to pick up here, lots of data to enter and stay on top of, and two education sessions this week.. one of which i will teaching the family planning portion of *including placing a condom on an eggplant so wish me luck!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Things are going well here. After my first week, im starting to settle in here. I went on a few followups this week, where we basically walk around a village looking for people who sold bought nets from us to check on how they are being used, what condition they are in and see what type of information they have retained from the education session (where we teach family planning, a little nutrition, codom use, etc.. and talk about malaria). It can be frusterating at times given my lack of knowledge of luganda, and their lack of skill in English, but that is why we have the translators. i often feel like a hindrance, but it is a unique experiance to go into these villages, and see how people live here. At the education session this pas thursday, people litterally stormed us when it was time to buy nets, we sold out of a hundred and fifty nets, and could easily have sold more. The demand and the need for both nets and education in the more rural sections in astounding. After the education session, we were fed a filling meal of sweet potatoes, rice and beans, all typical ugandan fare. (think, heavy on the starch). Next week, more followups and some painting will be in order. seeing as i have minimal (read: none) medical training, i havent yet spent much time in the clinic. I will be helping to put together more famly planning stuff a little later on.
Walking through the villages is great, even when we walk in endless circles looking for a woman when there are two women with the same name living on opposite ends of the village. I have seen more chickens crossing the road here.. i never knew they actually did that! So . why did the chicken cross the road? Send in your best answers please, because ive run out!