Collaboration
on Hoggs in Uganda (Uganda), 02/Jun/2010 18:00, 34 days ago
31st May, 2010We have had a busy month with more visitors. Two students, Carolyn and Danielle have been over from Edinburgh for four weeks working on Reach Out Studies fortheir MSc dissertations. They are studying at the Institute of International Health and Development at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, and their coming here is thefirst step towards a collaboration between Reach Out, Makerere School of Public Health here in Kampala and IIHD.Carolyn and Danielle stayed with us the first weekendso that we could show them round and let them get orientated, and then they moved to Red Chilli, which is  a great place for meeting up with others, including a good fewworking on research projects. We took them to Ndere Cultural Centre and then took them to a dance class so that they could try it out for themselves. They have had anamazing experience here, and it reminds us just how special an organization Reach Out is and what an easy place Uganda is to live in, perfect lush climate, safe and fullof lovely gentle people. Then Carol and Bregje came, both previously research fellows working on studies with me and now friends of ourselves and of one another. Carolcomes from South Africa and Bregje is Dutch and has spent a considerable amount of time in Malawi, so we had lots of comparisons. They stayed with us for a weekendto do Kampala, including a trip by boat on Lake Victoria to a local market. Then  they went off on safari including gorilla-tracking at Bwindi and game watching in Queen Elizabeth NP for five days and we all went to Jinja for theweekend before Carol went home. By coincidence at Jinja we met another VSO couple, Renate and Ian who were also staying at Gately on Nile. Renate is originally from South Africa so Carol and Renate had a lot to discuss. They have a people carrierso all six of us were able to go to the Source of the Nile and the Bujagali Falls together, which was fun as usual with lots of birds to see.(The falls are due to disappear in the next few years when a new dam is constructed down river)On our return to Kampala on Sunday we made our customary stop at Mabira Forest. We had a 2 hour walk with a great guide. He showed us where we could expect to see snakes basking in  the sun but none put in appearance for us. Our most dangerous encounter was with this strangler fig but we moved too fast for it. (I reckon we would have moved too fast for the snakes if we had encountered them!) Bregje stayed on three days to meet people at Makerere School of Public Health and Reach Out, and we had some very productive meetings and made plans forcollaborative working and to apply for funding to facilitate the process.On Sunday after our gym and swim regime, we went for lunch with the same twp VSo ers and also Debs who is a public health doctor working in Lira in the north of thecountry. VSO have put a good few new volunteers in Lira and Gulu to give support to the people there now that the war is over and there is a need to set up health care etc.It is very different working there and conditions seems more challenging than life in Kampala where we can shop in supermarkets ( and even see Sex and the City 2 on Saturday evening). I think Iwould have to try it out to see which I prefer for a year. However, recently we have had a lot of power cuts at home and work and our computers at work were affected by a viruswhich has made the last two weeks very unproductive and frustrating.Now we are getting extremely excited about the arrival of our son David tomorrow evening. On Friday we go off on safari with him to Queen Elizabeth Park NP for a few days, having done the other big gamereserve at Murchison Falls with Hamish and Morven at Christmas.Looking up the Nile from Bujagali towards Jinja and Lake Victoria