This is the blog for Rhona and Bobby Hogg's VSO experience in Uganda. In August 2008 we applied to do VSO and, following an assessment day in London last October, we were accepted as volunteers . Because of the strong Scottish links, we had set our sights originally on Malawi where we spent a week in June 2008 but joint placements are difficult to find and in February we agreed with VSO to open up the search. At the end of March we were delighted to be offered placements in Kampala, Uganda. We are to work for a HIV and AIDS initiative called Reach Out Mbuya (http://www.reachoutmbuya.org/) where, we hope, Rhona's community nursing experience and Bobby's IT experience will prove useful.

We are due in Kampala on 18th September and have committed to spend a year there. We are very excited about the prospect of living in a very different part of the world and working with Ugandans who, from many reports, are fun to be with. We expect there to be many challenges but our stay in Uganda should be immensely enjoyable.

We are indebted to VSO for giving us this opportunity. Our preparation, including 2 training courses in Birmingham, has been excellent and we are confident about the in-country support that we will get from VSO in Uganda. I understand that it costs VSO around £15,000 to support each volunteer. If you would like to make a donation to support our placements in Uganda please visit the Just Giving site through the link opposite.

Monday 21 December 2009

Living well


20th December
This weekend we have been getting ready for Christmas and the arrival of Hamish and Morven, our son and his partner. We can’t wait to see them on Tuesday. So this blog is devoted to life chez Hogg Kampala style. There have been rumours that we are a) living in a mud hut and b) booked into the Serena International Hotel for the year and demands for proof of the true scenario are increasing. Also, we have a fair few visitors booked in over the next few months. While we have offered the true volunteer experience, including bucket showers, to them all, we expected most to come for a cup of tea and make endearing remarks about our quaint lifestyle, before scuttling back to the Serena for power showers, air conditioning and all the mod cons which they (but we no longer) take for granted. However, they are all made of stronger stuff than we thought and it may be reassuring for you who are booked in, to see your accommodation. It doesn’t feature on Trip Advisor yet. 

We have a bright and sunny living room, spacious bedroom, now with wardrobe and chest of drawers, a second bedroom for guests, and a kitchen and shower room.


 


 




 
We are lucky to have nice accommodation and particularly to share the compound with a fellow- VSO volunteer, Bernard from Kenya, and the landlord who lives in a recently completed “big hoose” with his three children aged five, three and nearly two years, plus two maids, Florence and Maria. They are all lovely, and have made our experience truly African.

The maids speak very good English, and are very bright young women, they just have not had any education beyond primary level, and even that was very basic.
One maid is more senior, and is very committed to the children since their mother died two weeks after the youngest one was born. They do our housework and washing by hand and are great at coming in to put on our security lights when we are out in the evening etc. Florence works some afternoons as a tailor in the nearby market, and she us always stylishly dressed in her own handiwork.

 
During our in –country training we were told not to give our underwear to the maids to wash, so here is Bobby washing his smalls of a Saturday morning. 


 
The house is really nice and newly decorated and refurbished and we had to furnish it from scratch which was a hassle at the time but means everything is fresh and clean, and lovely to come home to at night.



We have a nice compound with grass and low hedge and in the evening it is very relaxing sitting on the verandah in the late sun, watching the birds and enjoying a Nile Special. Most compounds are very closed and private, but although we have high walls and barbed wire it is fairly open to the track leading to the village which is very busy with people and cars.  We still worry slightly about security, as most of out fellow VSO ers have a guard, but so far we have had no problems at all. We do have quite  regular power cuts, which in the evenings means our security lights go off as well. Bobby is very good at playing his fiddle during these slightly uneasy times, somehow I can’t imagine people breaking in to the tune of “Wha Wadna Fecht for Charlie” and that’s all that matters. It certainly stops me hearing imaginary footsteps on the gravel outside. His special power-cut party piece is a Shetland tune by the late Tom Anderson, “Da Slockit Light”, slockit meaning extinguished so very apt. We had a spell of water cuts, during which we stock-piled jerry cans, but we have not had any for some time. 
Our access road (track) leaves something  to  be desired - a surface - but its no obstacle to the 4WD. 
The view down from our black gate.

The view up past our black gate with a village at the top of the road.




 
All the VSO volunteers we know in Kampala have good accommodation, some with hot water and fitted kitchens. Up country it is different and in other countries I know that houses are much more basic and in poor repair. We have two gas rings which are very efficient and because Ugandan meat is very tender I can cook goulash etc in a very short time without it being tough. VSO does not supply a fridge or electric kettle, and few households have them, although most volunteers buy them and then sell them on. Given the heat, it would be very difficult to manage without a fridge, although most Ugandans eat mainly beans and shop daily in the market. The local supermarkets only have “Blue Band” margarine which does not have to be kept refrigerated and no cheese or milk. When we entertain it is all on a simple scale, with no oven and limited utensils, and no “good china”. I’m sure I will love getting back to my fan oven and microwave and using my granny’s silver teapot for visitors, maybe they will make up for the sunshine I will certainly miss, especially next Christmas.
We have also been very surprised at how few insects we have, there are very few mosquitoes and no cockroaches. We have occasional little lizards running up the walls but they count more as pets.
We hope everyone has a good and peaceful Christmas.


Friday 11 December 2009

An international week.

Saturday 5th December.
This week was very busy for us; Tuesday was World Aids Day and it is also  International Volunteering Week so for us who are volunteering in a HIV/AIDS Initiative it’s been pretty hectic. On Tuesday Reach Out had an amazing day for staff, clients and a whole lot of others who came.



After  registering, we were given The Tee Shirt. 















We then marched off to mass to the swinging rhythms of the Reach Out youth brass band. The day continued with a parade through all the areas Reach Out serves and lunch for a very large number of people. Things seemed very unorganised and left to the last minute, but it all worked out very well. Africans just seem to have the knack of doing things without fuss and they certainly like to party.
 
There were activities on all week to celebrate volunteering in and outwith Kampala. The theme was climate change and conservation. We could have gone to Soroto for parades and tree planting but we really don’t have time to do much as we are both very busy at work. 




However, we went to a barbecue in the very nice gardens at VSO headquarters and met up with VSO people, some of whom had travelled from up-country and we had not met before. As always, it was interesting comparing experiences which are very mixed. Some people have difficult living conditions, with houses no electricity. One couple rely on a hotel generator which is only on when there are guests staying at the hotel. They do not have a house as such but a collection of rooms round a courtyard and so have to go outside to go between the rooms. Others are two hours drive form reasonable shops where they can buy fresh food, apart from vegetables, such as milk and meat. Some have difficult placements - with no funding; colleagues who have not been paid for  months; working in very isolated conditions with no real plan or support. So once again we think we are incredibly lucky to have great and busy placements, a great work ethos in the organisation and nice house. The lack of hot water, the power cuts and occasional water cuts all seem somewhat trivial now and part of the fun (well, experience!). 


The highlight of the barbecue was an African dance performance by some of our fellow VSOers who have been attending dance classes. We went to the first class which was organised during (but not part of) our recent VSO in-country training. A few of the  Kampala based volunteers continued with a two more sessions to prepare a polished performance. They did a great job  providing a fantastic display and encouraging everyone to join in.
 





Last night we were at a cocktail party at a big international hotel where volunteer awards of the year were presented. Cocktail parties and VSO seemed a bit incongruous, but it was a great night – the Ugandans made sure of that. Prior to the cocktail part there was a meeting about climate change and its devastating impact on Africa. Some areas are experiencing drought and flooding for the first time, with loss of crops and subsequent food shortages.


A volunteer, Michael, from Reach Out received one of the awards and there were quite a group of us there.  Michael was obviously really thrilled at being recognised and we have nice photos, with Ben a VSO volunteer from Kenya who also lives next door to us, Lydia the HR manager and Faith, another volunteer.

Saturday 5 December 2009

Visit to Jinja on the Nile

30th November 2009 




We had our first trip out of Kampala to somewhere other than Entebbe.We went to Jinja for the weekend to see the source of the Nile 

















and the Bujagali falls. 













Jinja itself is interesting - it’s on Lake Victoria, 80 km east of Kampala.  It was mainly home to Asians who set up businesses but, under the Amin regime, they were expelled and their businesses generally were given to incompetent Ugandans. There are lots of grand buildings, some colonial and some Asian style, but most are in decay and look unsafe although there were obviously African families living in them - sometimes many families in one building. So parts resemble  a ghost town while some parts are well maintained. We stayed in a very nice place, Gately on Nile, with our own lodge 






overlooking the lake in very lush and colourful gardens and there was also a  good restaurant.
The driving was relatively straightforward as Uganda goes. We decided to go a longer scenic route which the Bradt guide (our bible while we are here) said took much the same time as the direct road.  However there were long stretches of speed bumps at frequent intervals (corrugated road) and the road was very quiet. We thought we had taken much longer than the direct route until we met up with others who had come the direct route and had been stuck in traffic jams almost all the way.  
The Nile is the only major river which flows from south to north. It takes four months to flow to the
Med and is 4,000 miles long ( I realise that there are geography teachers reading this who know
it all already -  or may wish to contest this - but we didn’t until Saturday). We met up with some
other VSOers for a boat trip on the Nile 

and then went back for a sundowner sitting on our own verandah overlooking Lake Victoria. It was wonderful and a nice birthday treat for Bobby. 
On the way back on Sunday we stopped at Mabira Forest Reserve and had an interesting walk with a guide seeing and hearing lots of birds. During the Amin years it was given to people who destroyed a lot of the trees which drastically affected the ecology of the area. It is now back in safe hands and boasts over 300 species of birds  and over 300 species of trees and bushes.
The main road back from Jinja was fairly clear until entering the outskirts of Kampala. We were back home about 3 pm. However that night on the stretch in Mabira Forest an MP was killed when his car ran into a tractor towing a sugar cane trailer. Typically these trailers are poorly lit and, since the accident, there has been a proposal in parliament to ban heavy vehicles travelling in the dark.  We also learned that there was a minbus accident at night on the Jinja Road at Nakawa - at the end of the Port Bell road which we live on. Three people were killed and several injured.  Night travel is best avoided. 

Wednesday 2nd December.
Hamish and Morven are setting out today for their African adventure, and coming to us on 22nd
December. We are spending a few days over Christmas on safari at Murchison Falls and Murchison National Park which should be different to our usual Edinburgh festive rituals.

They are meeting up with our niece Becky tomorrow in Nairobi, as she is working there. The three of them are going off travelling together, starting with an overnight train journey to Mombasa. A few years ago Hamish and Becky happened to be in Africa at the same time, and bumped into each other in a shop doorway in Dar es Salaam during a downpour so this time round they are more co-ordinated. The family will be well represented in Africa for the next few weeks. Hamish and Morven are coming to Kampala by bus from West Kenya. It makes sense for them to get off up the road from where we are staying as they will pass along that way and the bus station in central Kampala is chaotic and crime ridden especially just before Christmas. However, I feel we should be meeting them at an international airport with a brass band playing in the background, rather than off a bus opposite where we do our food shopping.