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, 11 December 2010

The End of the Adventure

It is now almost three months since we returned home and we have been very busy catching up with family and friends, and slotting back into our lives in Scotland. It just seems strange that two such different worlds, both now very familiar to us, are separated by an eight-hour journey, it’s like Harry Potter’s journey from Platform 9 ¾  to Hogwart’s School. 



 

We feel that a year was the perfect time to be away. We were ready to return home and we returned with a sense of relief that we had avoided any significant ailment or injury.

It has been just great to get back to old friends and familiar places and possessions. Work is easier with a reliable power supply and the use of diaries and watches. We have enjoyed autumn, seeing the trees turning and having walks in crisp autumn sunshine. Now the snow has come and it has been a novelty at first although this may well wear off, and it is strange to think that in Uganda we would be enjoying warm sunshine and sitting on the porch after work having a  waragi (G&T) and watching the colourful birdlife as the sun goes down. 



















There is also a sense of freedom through the familiar and to walk on pavements (maybre not with the snow) in town and in the hills. Both our sons are getting married in the spring and we enjoy being close to our family and involved in our own family events rather than being on the fringes of those of others. It was fascinating and a privilege to be guests at Ugandan events, but it's good to be back in our native habitat, and rejoin our familiar family, social and community activiies. We enjoy the concerts, theatre and film on our doorstep in Edinburgh, and attending them with friends and family. We are so lucky.
However, we miss the day to day life in Africa, the people we saw every day at work and around our Ugandan home. We hope to keep in touch and maybe there will be the opportuniy to see again Chiseveni, his children and Florence and Maria  in Edinburgh or Uganda. They made our stay in Uganda so special. Also we are hoping that two or three of the nurses at Reach Out will be able to come to Scotland to visit and talk to Scottish community nurses about the low-resource nurse-led model of care they use to care for clients.
We have learnt that we are extremely priveleged to live in the "developed world". We'd like to think we always knew this but a year ago we didn't really know what this meant. We also hope we are more sensitive to some of the issues of identity. One aspect of this is the stigmas we create through many of our opinions which are affected by, possibly, a primitive reaction to appearance. ( I have just finished Barak Obama's "Dreams from My Father" and it has underlined my view of this - Bobby.)
We had a very enjoyable day in November when we were reunited with three of our visitors in Uganda.  We attended the graduation of one of the students who completed a project at Reach Out Mbuya and were joined by her supervisor and fellow student  from Queen Margaret University.



But for now we are looking forward to a family Christmas and the chance to meet our elder son’s fiancee’s family before their wedding in the spring. Then we have Hogmanay with a large houseparty in Portugal and our younger son’s wedding in February.
We were very fortunate to have had such a wonderful year with successful placements, great people, lots of visitors from home and a chance to explore such a beautiful and interesting country. We are also very grateful to have been so happy and settled while we were in Uganda, yet so pleased to be back home “among our ain folk”. 
 
“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” (George Moore 1852 – 1933)
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)