Last Post From Uganda.

Today is Monday, and I leave for the states tomorrow night- it's been a good 2 months, a lot of work, play, and experiences.

I've learned a lot in the last 2 months- much of it to do with the practical difficulties of actually acquiring good quality data. The issues range from realizing the difficulty of collecting complete data on 1500 patients every month (from the clinic's point of view) to bringing the data back from the field. The analysis isn't as hard, but it's also something that I've learned a lot about this summer as well- Stata coding, and presentation of results. But as Sherlock Holmes says (reading the complete Sherlock Holmes tome at the moment), you can't build bricks without clay- and you can't build a house without bricks. If the data is bad, your foundation is rotten.

It's probably something that I didn't appreciate fully while I was doing my first year at Berkeley- the data sets were just there, and while I learned all the fancy techniques for analyzing data in my classes, the difficulty associated with getting good data and the limitations associated with it didn't cross my mind as strongly as it does now.

That in itself is a pretty valuable lesson I think- in my future, I'm anticipating seeing a lot of data, and it's good to have learned this lesson early- always question the quality of the data.

I haven't heard the full story from Apac yet, but Allen did mention that there was communication with the staff there while I was on vacation, and that apparently the entire staff knew of the filling in of the missing data after the fact- apparently Grant's request that 90% of the data be filled in was taken as an ultimatum, and they decided to meet that requirement in any way possible. Hopefully a solution to this will be found (either changing the way patients move through the surveillance system, or just accepting missing data).

On a different note, Sherlock Holmes might have made a pretty darn good Epidemiologist. At least, a few of his pieces of advice are pretty useful to keep in mind. His first good piece of advice is to not jump to conclusions, and don't form opinions until all the data/facts come in- he points out that this can lead to bias and ignoring of other possible explanations. His second piece of advice is that your conclusions can only be as good as your data, the output depends on the quality of the input.

The book is going pretty well, I'm about 300 pages in, and 1/3 to 1/4 done with the book- it's a pretty big tome.

This past weekend wasn't incredibly exciting, but a few interesting things happened.

While cooking rice, I exploded a ceramic pot. Pretty surprising, since the gas fire was on low, and the rice was pretty much done. Still ate the rice. Thanks for taking the picture Luisa!




Besides rice, I also ate this dish- guess what type of meat it is, I'll tell you at the bottom of the post.






USAID and a few other sponsors put up advertisements like this around the city:




On Sunday, Sam, Luisa, and I tried to go downtown to see a showing of Superman Returns, only to find that we were once again foiled by the lack of power. It was a rainy day, and Sam and Luisa decided to go back and wait in the house for the power to return (it never did) while I decided to just hang around, and try to make something out of the afternoon since I was downtown already.

I started to walk down towards Owino market, just to see how muddy the area had become with the day's rain, when I ran into a bunch of guys on the side of the street selling boxer shorts, socks, purses, and ties. I ended up sitting down with them and talking for about 2 hours.

One guy was from Ghana, and wanted me to be a businessman and send him purses and other cheap goods from China so he could sell them for me (everyone likes to ask where I'm from, and after saying "US" for a while, I got a few responses like "NO! You cannot be US. You are not white." So from then on, I started saying China, and everyone reacted even more positively than before...). Soon enough, I had 8-10 guys hanging around, talking about business and why I was here, and they tried to get me to sell their stuff to other mzungus. They all asked if I knew Jet Li, or Jackie Chan, or Sammo Hung- and it so happens that while I was doing wushu training in Beijing last summer, my coach Liu was students with Jet Li- when the Ugandan/Ghana guys heard this, they got really excited.

They really wanted to learn a lot of self-defense, and they had all sorts of mock sparring events with each other. From what they told me, it was pretty evident that they were used to street fights, and wanted to learn any tricks that they could use to defend themselves in a fight. Sadly, wushu is most definitely one of the least practical martial arts that exist for self defense... I might have to remedy that by learning some other style when I come back to Berkeley.

Every once in a while, the guys would see these yellow and green pickups drive near, and they grabbed their stuff and prepared to run for it- they explained that those were the equivalent of law enforcement, and that they would confiscate their goods if they didn't get away. I ended up helping move their shop to a new location after the rains stopped.

I did pick up a bit of Lugandan (which I promptly forgot the next day) and I taught them Chinese in return (what little I know). I also learned a little about how matatus are profitable- they make roughly 50k a day, and the owner of the vehicle gets around 40k a day, the driver gets a fixed 5k a day, and the conductor gets 3k. It seems like a small amount for the driver and conductor, especially since I talked to a boda driver the previous week, and he said he could make 20k a day roughly. Sam and Luisa speculated that the driver and conductor could probably skim off the top, or something like that.

I also learned that they all pretty uniformly disliked America because they thought that America liked to invade countries and arrest people. Surprisingly, they all really liked China! Their reasoning was that China gave them cheap goods (clothes, shoes, bags, cars, etc.) while products from the US and Europe were way too expensive for them. Not only did Chinese goods make life more affordable, apparently there are a lot of Chinese engineers and construction workers in the country. I do know that the Chinese built a huge stadium for Uganda, and they have built other things as well for Uganda, but I never ran into any of these Chinese people. However, the guys all asked why my English was so much better than the other Chinese peoples', and why I was so much taller than them, and why my eyes weren't as squinty as other Chinese peoples'. Haha. It does seem to suggest that there are a good number of Chinese people, but that I just haven't seen them yet.

Well, that's all the news I have left to tell. Uganda's been a great experience, and it's interesting to see how my feelings progressed- from paranoia the first week, to hanging out with strangers on the side of the street my last week. Hope you've all enjoyed the blog, and the pictures. I'm not really planning on updating the blog once I get into the States, but if enough people want me to, I might keep it going. Alternatively, if my thesis does end up being on malaria, there might be a revival in the near future. Thanks again all, and hope your summers were great.


P.S.- Those steaks are cross-sections of crocodile tail- it was more tender than good chicken, almost bordering on the softness and flakiness of fish. It was much fattier than fish or chicken, and resembled beef in that respect (thin layers of fat in the muscle). Really really tasty, and I ate it at "Sam's" restaurant, off of Kampala Road. I asked the waiter if they were from the wild or from the farm, and he said that there was a farm for them- it had 1,000 crocs at any one point, and that the crocs were used for food between the ages of 5-6 years. Big ones might be too tough I imagine, and the point was made that they would be pretty scary if they were older too.

Flashbacks and Farewells

Flashbacks first, Farewells second.

Here are a few pictures of us after the Nile whitewater rafting trip.

Paula has no glasses: swept away into the Nile when her helmet got sucked off as well.




Group photo the next morning: From left to right- Luke, me, Paula, Sam, and Aliza.




We got a lot of souvenier shopping done in Jinja the next day (Sunday).

Now on to the sadder news- we lost Shereen the previous friday, and Aliza was leaving on Tuesday, and Paula on Wednesday. All the estrogen in Sam and my life was disappearing all at once. (We did get a new guest on Sunday, her name is Luiza (sp?) and her husband is coming in a week, so I guess there is still some estrogen floating around). We did have a good time the night before Aliza left.

What's that we're holding??!!




Sweet Jesus, it's a Fizz Pop!




Fizz pops are a candy that Aliza has a chronic addiction to, and apparently these pops are only found in Africa. After talking about it for the last 2 months, finding empty fizz pop containers in supermarkets, and being generally disappointed, Aliza finally found some ancient fizz pops in a supermarket at Kisamente. We say ancient because the powdered fizz compound in the center of the fizz pop seemed to have chunked up and fossilized, and fizzing from the fizz pops was erratic at best. Still satisfying to have found them.

Sam found these interesting potato chips: Prawn Cocktail. They smelled and tasted like salt and vinegar potato chips, only with this strange sweet aftertaste that made the chips disgusting enough to throw away.




Shereen, deflating your soccer ball so that Aliza could take it back for you was quite a task.




It made a great Fizz Pop dispenser though.




On Tuesday, Paula and I went to the Speke Resort (Sam's recommended it as a nice place), which is in the lake town of Munyonyo. We saw something there that was really fantastic- Horses! Lots and lots of very pretty horses. And I thought that they didn't exist in Uganda. Paula said that this was her type of resort- namely, one with horses. (Look carefully, and you'll see that Paula has glasses again! We went into town, found an optics place, and they examined her eyes and ground her glasses the same day! And the glasses were cheaper than in the States- probably around 70 USD. Paula said that her eye exam was pretty neat- the guy had a whole shelf full of lenses, and a pair of glasses with slots in them, so that he could slide in lens after lens and ask if it was clearer or worse... good improvisation)




Riding the horses would have been too expensive, so we just sat poolside.




Wednesday, just before Paula left, we played with our housing complex's pet tortoise. He gets watermelon rinds and lettuce to eat from the resident who owns him/her, so we fed the tortoise a bit.






Paula's flight left at 4, and as we were driving to and from the airport, Paula wanted me to take pictures of the countryside. (She really likes butcheries- I'll have to get a picture of one later)

Construction with wooden scaffolding.




The yellow kiosk is the equivalent of a telephone booth- A person sits there with a phone, and takes cash from you when you want to use his/her phone. The phones they have look like normal land line phones that you would have in your house, but apparently they're all hooked up to cell phone receivers- in Uganda, cell phone coverage is almost everywhere, cheap, and easier to have when compared to wiring up the entire country.




One of the popular beer brands, Nile Special.




The following pictures are for Aliza- she wanted pictures of women sitting side-saddle on boda-bodas. Nuhu, the driver, didn't say anything while I was taking these pictures, but I could tell he thought I was acting strangely- when I explained to him that they were for Aliza, he cracked up and laughed really hard- it was just a weird concept to him, to want pictures of women sitting side-saddle. But here are your pictures Aliza.




Bonus picture- 2 females sitting side saddle on the same boda!




It's sad to have everyone leave, but the truth is, that I'm going where all of them went and I'm going very soon- I leave for the Bay Area on Tuesday. I'll see you all soon, and Sam will come soon after.

Murchison and Rafting

Two trips in one post! Since pictures speak louder than words, hopefully I make this post more images than text.

Paula and I left for Murchison National Park last Wed, and came back on Friday, and promptly left on Saturday for a whitewater rafting trip on the Nile. Murchison is famous for its big game, and while we were there, we went on a safari and a cruise up the Nile to Murchison Falls itself, which is extremely powerful.

Kayaking fun.








We saw elephants, hippos, leopard, antelope, giraffes, crocodiles, eagles, warthogs!, water buffalo, all the big game except for the lions! The leopards are supposed to be the rarest sighting, but lions are supposed to be pretty common- we just got unlucky on the lion part of the drive.


Sunrise on the Nile:




Bank of the Nile:




Huge Crocodiles:




Warthogs! Paula and my personal favorite animals. Paula also likes hippos too.




Paula's other favorite animal, the hippo. There's a mother and a baby in this picture.




Water buffalo:




The best tasting flesh on the savannahs.




Elephant herds, and more elephants.






Giraffes are tall.




Baboon porn star.



After our long trip to Murchison, we made it back just in time to see Shereen off to the airport, relax a bit at home, then pack for our next trip to go rafting on the Nile. We got picked up at 7 ish the next day in a matatu that was impossibly packed with people headed to the rafting site- max occupancy for a packed matatu is 14 passengers with a driver and a conductor. We fit 19 passengers. 20 people total, for a 1.5 hour drive- it was extremely uncomfortable, but all on board seemed more excited about exchanging Nile-Horror Stories to think about it.

The rafting itself was pretty fun, though the Nile did claim a few victims. Paula and Sam both lost their glasses to the Nile (fortunately, I had duct taped mine to my head, to the point where I could barely get em off- thanks for showing me that trick Amanda). I did lose a ring however, sucked right off of my finger. On the section of rapid where Paula lost her helmet (and therefore her glasses), our raft won the most spectacular crash and burn award- one wave crashed over our raft, and everyone except Paula and one other girl were disappeared (Aliza, Sam and I were submerged and spit back out downstream a good ways). The raft got stuck riding this turbulent wave, then it jerked and ejected Paula and the other girl- the video documentary showed Paula's spectacular ride at least 3 times.

The end of the rafting trip was at a section of rapid called "The Bad Place." When we got there, it started to hail. It was a very very bad place for a while. It was cold enough that the waters of the Nile felt like Hawaiian beach water- really really warm and pleasant.

That's pretty much the bare bones story- we all had a good time, but with the rainstorm/hailstorm that followed our trip, we were definitely freezing. After a meaty bbq dinner, we showered in open air showers that opened up onto a beautiful view of the Nile.

Unfortunately, no pictures of the rafting trip itself- digital cameras and Nile water don't mix.

P.S. - A few pictures of Paula and my wanderings around Kampala:

Makerere Vet School:




Bahai Temple

Back from Safari

Hey all, sorry for the 3 day absence- Paula and I took a trip up to Murchison National Park- It's in the central western part of Uganda (slightly north) and was in the LRA rebel sphere of influence a few years ago. As a result, it's on the US Embassy's "do not go to this place" list, but plenty of people do, and there reportedly hasn't been any trouble since military security got tightened up in the region. We saw lots of big game- elephants, hippos, giraffes, as well as antelope of all sorts, warthogs, baboons, eagles, and all sorts of neat fauna. No rebels.

I'd post pictures, but we (Aliza, Sam, Paula, and I) are leaving early tomorrow morning to go white water rafting down the Nile, and are spending the night in that region, so pictures and stories will have to wait till Sun night at the earliest, more likely to happen on Monday. Shereen just left today, and we saw her off before she got a ride to the airport. I'll probably see her in San Francisco when I get back into the States.

More on Monday, and have a great weekend all.

Hi everyone! This is Aliza writing, one of Vince’s friends also working here in Uganda. Vince was nice enough to let me use some of his blog space to describe my weekend gorilla tracking and traveling in Southwestern Uganda.

My weekend began at 5:45am Thursday, when I left the house to travel to the bus station downtown. Those of you who know me may be thinking that it is actually impossible for me to have been awake, let alone out and about, at that hour. But I managed, found a bus to Butagota, and waited for about an hour before it left. Thus is travel in Africa. The bus ride was not very eventful, and lasted 10 hours as expected. From Butagota I got a pickup truck to Buhoma, the town outside of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. I stayed in the Community Rest Camp there, a collection of thatched-roof huts and tents on the side of a beautiful valley with hot showers and cold beers. This was the budget option, and suited me perfectly. I got a dorm-style thatched hut all to myself, and sat on the front stoop watching the sunset while three Blue African Turacos flew by. Gorgeous.

Friday morning at 9am the gorilla trackers met near the front gate of the park, which was about 100 feet from the rest camp. We had a short pre-game session with rules, etc. and then we split into our three assigned groups. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has the largest population of mountain gorillas—which are extremely endangered—in the world, with a little over 360 gorillas. Of those, three groups have been “habituated” or trained to be accustomed to the presence of humans. I got the Mubare group, which was the smallest with 8 members—one silverback (adult male), three adult females, and four juveniles. On the way to the trailhead, the guide told us that this group had also been habituated earliest of all the groups 10 years ago, so its members were very accustomed to humans. We hiked up the hillside for about 45 minutes following a trail, with an armed guard in the front and the back of the group. Apparently some gorilla tracking tourists had been kidnapped in 1999 by a Rwandan militia group, and all trackers must enter the park with armed guards now. There were also 2 nature guides who were experienced gorilla trackers (one of them had helped habituate our group and had a large scar on his arm from a bite to prove it). Eventually we were told to drop our packs because we were getting close to where the gorillas had been the day before. We continued through the thick underbrush in a line.

I was walking 4^th or 5^th in the group. Suddenly there was a terrifying roar and violent thrashing in the bush to the left up ahead. I was ready to run back, but I was watching the guides in the front of the line, who were standing their ground and smiling in the face of the 500+ lb silverback. They remained calm, and eventually the silverback retreated to some bushes about 10 feet away and the rest of the group and I walked forward to get a look at him.

He had a gigantic round Buddha-belly, which he was feeding continuously as we watched him. Just sitting there in the bushes, happy as a clam, surrounded by food, glancing at us occasionally. It was hard for me to stop myself from thinking that this was not just a man in a gorilla suit.

Eventually, though, he got up and we could see his full girth—he was immense!

As he moved up the slope we followed him, and he brought us to a place where one of the juveniles was sitting. This little guy was 6 years old and had therefore been born after contact with humans has been established with his parents. Not only did he seemingly have no fear of humans, but he was also very curious about us.

After watching him eat for a while he stood up as if to move up the hill where his family was, but instead started moving DOWN towards us! I was right up at the front of the group, probably about 5 ft away from the gorilla, but the guide was in front of me and started moving his hand up and down as if to say “slow down.” Then he picked up a stick and waved that up and down. The juvenile stopped, watched the up and down motion, mimicked it with his hand, and then put his hand over his face as if realizing he’d done something wrong and registering shame. He then turned around, walked up the mountain away from us, lay down on a rock, and took a big shit.

Near the end of our hour with them, all of the 4 juveniles gathered together in a sort of clearing in the jungle. One of them climbed up a tree, and 2 of the others found vines to swing on. It seemed like they were putting on a show for us, swinging towards us, grabbing other vines near us, chewing on the vines, looking directly at us. Just as we were about to leave one of them swung toward us and continued moving toward us with an outstretched hand—trying to touch us! Amazing. I can say I came THIS close to shaking the hand of a baby mountain gorilla.

The whole thing only took a few hours (we were lucky that the gorillas were so close—other groups had to walk for hours to get to their group, and each group only gets one hour with the gorillas) and I walked around the nearby town in the afternoon.

I had been hearing about a celebration taking place nearby on Saturday from some of the other people at the camp, and a pre-med student from Columbia who was in my tracking group confirmed it. Michael, the Columbia student, was volunteering for the summer at the local clinic, which was set up and managed by an American doctor, Dr. Scott. Dr. Scott did a lot of work with the local pygmies (Batwas), many of whom were forced out of the forests where they lived when the national park was set up. He had organized a celebration to bring the pygmies together (and to the clinic in case they needed medical attention), and to showcase their unique culture. Of course, I could not pass this opportunity up and arrived at the clinic Saturday morning for the festivities.

There was a lot of talking, singing and dancing. I was expecting the pygmies to look very different from the other local people, but I couldn’t really see much difference except that they were generally shorter. There was a dance competition before I left, the winners of which received a cow.

Michael also showed me around the clinic and I got to meet Dr. Scott. The clinic was really nice for this part of the country, and included a beautiful little guest house for students and visitors. Dr. Scott also mentioned that in your 3^rd and 4^th years you can do rotations here, accredited through Columbia and Tulane. (Hint hint all you med students). Definitely something to consider.

I had arranged a private car to bring me, a guy I met at the camp, and a guy I met in one of the local shops to a nearby town called Kabale. It was supposed to come at 2 but arrived after 6 on Saturday. Nevertheless, it brought us to Kabale and then dropped me off at Lake Bunyonyi, a lake I wanted to visit. When I got there it was dark and I was exhausted, but in the morning I could see how spectacular it was. Unfortunately, I soon realized that my transportation situation was somewhat grim as it was Sunday and public transportation is sketchy on Sundays. I really wanted to be back in Kampala by Sunday night to be at work on Monday, so I asked the people in the office of the place I was staying what I should do. They told me there was a family leaving that might be going to Kampala, and I should ask them.

Enter the Nielsen family, some of the nicest people I have ever met. With huge smiles on their faces, they agreed not only to drive my sorry ass back to Kampala but also to stop in Kabale for a quick errand I had to run. There were three of them, mother, father and son (the attractive and charming Simon, who I got along with wonderfully), from Denmark, traveling for a week after working for a week in an area closer to Kampala. They were there to set up a project with a local primary school in the name of Simon’s brother Thyge, who drowned swimming in the Nile 3 years ago. Simon spoke much better English than his parents. He talked about Thyge, who was only 1.5 years younger than him, often, sometimes forgetting to put his words into the past tense. It was a sad story, but the family was happy and loving and there to turn a tragedy into something very positive. They absolutely refused to let me pay for anything all day long, taking me to another national park and paying my entrance fee, and buying me lunch. It was as if I was part of the family for the day. When we were approaching my drop-off point in Kampala I handed the mother some money and told them that this wasn’t for them—it was a donation to Thyge’s school library project fund. The mother started crying and I gave her a hug. I really hope to see them again some day.

That was the end of my weekend! It was nice to be home, and I was greeted by Vince and the lovely Paula, a new addition to our little family. You can see a picture from last night’s family portrait session below.

Now, back to Vince!

Southwestern Uganda and Paula's Here Safe!

I haven’t posted since last Thursday- Shereen, Hasifa, Nuhu, and I left for Kabale, which is in the southwestern part of Uganda- it’s mountainous and a mix of barren hills, verdant valleys, and empty plains- but everywhere you go, you can tell that this place is big on agriculture (will go in to depth more in a bit).

Our first stop was at the Kamwezi Health Center, which is a Level 4 facility (like the one in Apac- one step down from a full on national hospital). It turns out that many of the people we were looking for weren’t there, so we just mentioned the possibility of oding surveillance at the site, and then left. I did take a picture of this poster for Aliza, and her recurrent leprosy attacks.




After Kamwezi, we went to the Kabale Hospital (Level 5, full on hospital) to set up a surveillance project there. We got a chance to sit in and talk to a variety of people there too, but didn’t get a hold of the big boss in charge. They had already started surveillance at this site, and we were wondering if we should ask them to change to the new system that we had come up with at Kamwezi. We didn’t come up with any solid procedural change decisions, but discussed the option of using carbon copy books at the site.

It was still somewhat early, but we had no more work to do that day, so we went into Kabale town and looked for lodging. In a random store, I found a collection of dusty wine bottles, and was curious enough to pull one down- it ended up being a bottle of “Altar Wine” bottled in Kabale… which has no vineyards that I could see. It also had no date on it, and looks rather old- The text on the bottle says, “This Wine has been especially bottled for Church use having been approved by the appropriate authorities.” I don’t know who the appropriate authorities are, but I don’t think I’ll ever try to actually drink this wine.

The next morning, we went back to Kamwezi, and stopping here when more staff were present was actually quite productive- one of the staff members had a good idea to streamline the flow of patients through our surveillance system. Basically, instead of forcing the patients to register with the head clerk, then returning later to fill in the rest of their information, we came up with a way to just let the patients see the clerk once, at the end of their visit. This is really promising in that it cuts the number of people waiting to see the clerk in half, and at a facility that sees ~1500 people a month, cutting that number in half is a big deal. We also hope that if we can get this system adopted at other places (namely Apac) we can deal with the whole falsifying data problem- if the patients only see the clerk once, the clerk would not have any partially filled out info- it’s there or it’s not, and as long as that is true, it’s unlikely that he would have to “fill in” any missing data. If he misses a ton of people, it’s not as worrisome as falsified data, as long as the people who are missing are just a random sample of the population (ie, hope that people with malaria don’t systematically show up whenever the clerk is on the toilet).

After that, we drove over to Kanungu, which was a pretty big disappointment- it turns out that all the staff there were being transferred, so talking about surveillance to this group was problematic in that they would all be leaving in a week… but we did manage to save the head clerk from being transferred (Hasifa called his boss and managed to keep him at the Level 4 in Kanungu).

We basically bummed around the rest of the day- I ended up wandering around, went to a drug shop to see what anti-malarials they had, and then wandered my way into a pool hall. Pool in Uganda is pretty different from that in the States, mainly in the size and quality of the balls coming out of the coin-op pool tables. Fortunately, I had time the day before in Kabale, and had found a pool table there to play on (and get a feel for how the balls roll). The balls here, instead of being numbered and being nice and heavy marble pool balls, are made of much lighter plastic, and are painted either red or yellow (with one cue ball and one black eight ball). They have a variety of different rules too, so after standing there and watching for a while, I got a hang of how they played.

The entire time I was there, I heard a lot of jokes and laughing, most of them with the phrase “mzungu” or “foreigner” in them- it seemed pretty good-natured, and I didn’t really mind too much. It wasn’t too long before one of the natives challenged me to a game, and even offered me the handicap of shooting twice to every shot he took! Thank god Dad taught me everything I know about pool, and how to play a semi-decent game. After a sank my first ball, everyone was laughing and yelling, and after I sank the second ball, they were really getting excited, probably because they expected me to suck big time. I managed to win that game, and after 3 more challenges, broke even with a 2-2 record. The local pool shark (he was by far the best player in town, and I only won against him when he sank the 8 ball on the break) surprised me when he yelled to me, “mzungu! I want to kiss you!” followed by another comment a while later, “mzungu! I love you!” He was a pretty friendly guy, and we all laughed, but when I mentioned what he said to Hasifa later, she was pretty shocked. Apparently being gay is against the law in Uganda, and even jokes about it are shocking to some.

Pool buddies: guy in center was the first to challenge me, guy on right is the pool shark.




The landscape, as I indicated earlier, is really hilly/mountainous, and very pretty. Here’s a sample of a few different landscapes we saw along the way:


Mountains:




Green Hills:




Desert plains:




Rock Quarry:




Reminds me of the San Jose hills- as I'm driving down to Hoser's house (Miss you guys, we'll definitely get together after I get back)




I had overheard some previous conversations while I was in Apac that the ground was so fertile in parts of Uganda that it seemed that Uganda should be even more of a breadbasket for Africa than it is now- that it could really stand to develop more of the land that was just lying there unused. While this might be the case for Apac, it seems that Kabale and Kanungu are serious about their agriculture. At many of the places we drove through, there were little signs all over indicating that this plot was a site for developing better varieties of irish potatoes, or plantains, or other types of agricultural products. They had acres and acres of plantain trees all over, and produce stands all over the place with dirt cheap produce. Nuhu and Hasifa took a bit of time to buy bulk groceries here (like a Costco trip- the entire pickup bed was full with food by the end). Hasifa said that she had bought enough onions to last her the rest of the year… 5 months of onions in one go.

Plantain Forests




Hasifa buying onions:




Matoke (Plantains):




After all the surveillance work was done, it was Saturday morning, and we left to get back to Kampala in time to pick up Paula, who was arriving on a 9 pm flight. After a minor car breakdown problem, we made it back by mid-afternoon, and later that night Nuhu came back to get me and we both went to Entebbe to pick up Paula, who got out of security 5 minutes after I got to the airport.

Car Breakdown (front right tire, gasket seal leaking grease).




Paula ended up sleeping in till about 2 pm (the construction and the roosters kept her up for part of the night, and with jet lag on top of that, it was to be expected). She was really funny about the entire thing- she told me about how wonderful her flights were, and that when she was in Dubai airport, she thought “I want to come back to Africa!” even though she wasn’t even here yet!

And yes, Africa is rather beautiful:




We walked around town, and she was way more comfortable with Africa relative to the way I was my first week here. She wasn’t put off by the staring, and she really had a good time on the boda-bodas. It is a pretty fun way to get around town, but we’ll probably go back to matatus to save money and our lives for the next few days in Kampala. Our plan for her stay here is Kampala for 3 days, Murchison National Park for 3 days, Jinja for 2 days, then she leaves after that. I leave a week after she does- it’s been a pretty eventful summer in Africa.

P.S.- Aliza survived her gorilla trek, and if we ever figure out how to get the pictures off her camera, she'll do a guest posting.

Last picture of all of us- the big family: