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.

Saturday, 13 February 2010

Between visitors

13th February, 2010
We are having a quiet weekend between guests - two have just gone and two more arrive next Friday. Trailfinders are having a surge of interest in Uganda as the hotspot destination for Scottish tourists.
We had a great time with Allison and Alison, who spent time in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and saw the gorillas twice, once on the official trek and once later as they and the gorillas were walking along a path. 


 We had a good trip with them to Jinja, and had  a great boat ride when we saw lots of colourful birds which seemed to be lined up for us at very close range. (I acknowledge that the better photographs on this blog are attributed to AW)





 The source of the Nile marker where the river starts its 4,000 mile journey to the Med.
 Giant Kingfisher









 Open Bill Stork (I was looking for Rod Hull!)

 
We stayed in Gately on Nile, a very nice homely hotel, with very fancy pebble showers.






We had a visit to the Ndere Centre to see dancing from different areas in Uganda which is always interesting, some spectacular. A week ago yesterday we had a class in Ugandan dancing in the VSO banda with the instructor who ran some classes for us before Christmas. They experienced all Kampala weathers, hot and sunny on arrival and cooler and wet when they left. On the way back from Jinja we stopped at Mabira Forest for a forest walk with Hussein, the same guide we had previously. We asked for a 2 hour walk. After 1 hour the sky darkened and the sky opened. Its amazing how we stayed dry for the first 5minutes but the forest canopy could not hold back anymore and we got seriously soaked. 

They had a morning at Reach Out and experienced the yoga and spiritual reflection and also spent some time in the clinic seeing a variety of clients. 





Then we had the usual late night departure routine of a trip to the botanic gardens at Entebbe, dinner at Gately Inn Entebbe before taking them to the airport. We had a relaxed evening at Sophie Motel and then drove back to Kampala the next morning.
Last night we joined other volunteers at the weekly rendezvous for drinks and a meal. It is a good opportunity to catch  up  with the other volunteers although we have not managed along for a few weeks.  Work continues to be very busy for both of us. I have been helping people to prepare and submit abstracts for an International Aids Conference in Austria in July. It was very time-consuming, and not helped by a very slow and fragile internet connection which made each on-line submission and  conference scholarship application a very lengthy process. However, it’s another good learning experience and either Reach Out staff have to learn how to do these things themselves, especially the managers and supervisors, or be very selective about which abstracts are submitted. However, it is difficult because they are just so nice and such wonderful nurses, and some of the best and most articulate are also unlikely really to be able to write English well and get to grips with modern technology. Also there is the usual issue of African time which in this case was at odds with a deadline given by super-efficient Austrians. Anyway it would be great if  we could see off a delegation of Reach Out staff, in their lovely African traditional dresses, from Entebbe airport. The somewhat dour and sedate Viennese would be taken aback I suspect. I am now agitating to fill the research officer post which I took over when I arrived. I am having to do the routine work with studies, abstracts and ensuring that the many students and some external researchers who come to Reach Out to carry out research conform to research governance procedures which I have strengthened and revised as well as trying to move the organisation forward. The way forward is to collaborate with academic institutions both local and international and there are March deadlines for outline proposals for two possible sources of funding, the Leverhulme Trust and Nuffield Foundation which both have international programme grants, the Nuffield specifically for Africa.
Bobby is meantime living and breathing databases. He is now being helped by a very able member of staff who has been transferred from the Reach Out Centre at Kasaala which was established one year ago. He is happy there are now a few very able members of staff to whom he can transfer skills and attempy to make a sustainable impression on the organisation. Wow 5 months down and 7 to go - time is flying by.
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