I spent 6 months in Liberia, Uganda and Kenya and learned some things about what is helpful to bring to a tropic, hot, developing world location from the Western world. If you’re going to stay for 1 week or 2 years, take a look at this list. If you’re going for just a week or two and staying at fancy, civilized places, than you might not need all of this, but you can use your judgement.
Water Filter
In most places that I visited you can buy bottled water. But I had a couple times when I couldn’t and I was very thankful I had my Sawyer Water Filter. I will also say that all the bottled water had outside seals on them so you know they’re good. And they were good. Except one in Kenya, Tiji. Even though they were sealed they had floating crap in them. Yuck. I whipped out my Sawyer filter for those!read more
Volunteers at Taata Kids Guest House. From left: Rushmi, Joelle, Me, Pablo, Peter and Esther.
I feel very comfortable here. I have my own room, my own space, my own bathroom, my own mirror, my own life. Mbale has a mountain to the East, supermarkets, lots of wifi bar and cafes, lots of good restaurants. It feels very safe, I have never felt anyone trying to hurt me or rip me off. How I feel now really makes me think that I’ll be coming back to Africa for a longer stay, maybe to Mbale!
It’s great that there are so many volunteers here at Taata Kids. The first batch that I met here: Esther, Pablo and Devon were young, fun, risk takers that helped me do crazy wild things like ride motorcycles, stay out after dark and climb insanely unsafe looking ladders. They have all gone now, though Pablo and Esther should return for a couple weeks about a month from now. I am looking forward to Pablo and Esther coming back for sure! This week, a Spanish girl helped cut my hair!
I found the safari to be pretty stressful actually. I has happy to get back to the hotel, the Rwenzori Internation Hotel. I was ready for some decompression time, journaling, sitting, laying, watching tv, drinking tea, coffee and wine, etc. I REALLY liked the hotel, for 50,000 shillings, which is about 15$ USD, I had a great room on a great property with really good free breakfast.
My room had:
me as the only occupant. For the last half of the weekend I was the only occupant in the whole building (since there were multiple buildings on the premises)!
a tv with two channels
an AC that was ok, it didn’t get super cold, but it was still nice
no bedbugs!
an extremely clean looking bathtub
a balcony, on the ground floor (so I guess that’s a patio), and if I sat down (on the floor of the patio,) there were bushes that totally hid me but even if I stood, there weren’t many people around at all
Relaxing. No bed bugs and a whole building all to myself! Heaven!
Sunday was an all day chill fest, which was very nice. I don’t even recall everything I did. I just REALAXED. I remember drinking some delicious coffee, instant with half water, half milk, both boiled, (which is typical for Uganda and me). I got a massage for 20,000 shillings ($5.88 USD), which was nice but probably not 100% sanitary. I tried to (and did) have lots of good alone time, meeting up with Luke for lunch, dinner, a walk, here and there. I thought a lot, journaled a lot and I think I got my head back to thinking about the professional and spiritual aspect of my trip, rather than the “It’s hot” “My feet are dirty” “My hair is a mess” and other cultural annoyances that I had been fixated on for the week leading up to the trip. I’m very happy for the realignment.read more
The model, shot 1. Most of the elephants were eating, walking or just doing their own thing. Not this one. She seemed to really like our attention and just kept striking poses.
The model, shot 2.
The model, shot 3.
Baboons.
(click on any picture to see a bigger version)
My last blog left off with me on the way to the hotel. The hotel was awesome, but I’ll talk about that in my next entry. The first night was uneventful so here is the Safari story.
On Saturday morning, at 6:11 AM we (me and a friend of mine, Luke, from the UK who I met in Uganda) head out to Queen Elizabeth National Park with Stuart as the driver. The vehicle is more like a mix between a minivan and small SUV than an awesome safari vehicle, but that’s ok for what we paid. We actually only paid 77$ for the safari, and that would have been each day if we decided to continue. That doesn’t include our 15$ a night hotel.read more
Uganda, with this adventure’s path drawn in yellow. Mbale to Kampala and Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) and back.
This is the first part of a six day adventure that included a safari…. I went to Kasese, a town next to Queen Elizabeth National Park, meeting a friend, (Luke, from the UK who is living in Southwest Uganda and who I met volunteering with Sprout Care Foundation,) to do safari. This is that story….
On Thursday February 11, I left TAATA Kids Guest house, which I call home right now, for the latest adventure. I had my big backpack and my messenger bag stuffed. I don’t feel comfortable on boda bodas (motorcycle taxis, the number one way that Westerner’s die in the third world) so I REALLY wanted to take a matatu (a minibus/van taxi) to the post office to get on my bus that would then take me 6 hours to Kampala. The bus was Posta Bus aka Post Bus, which is the bus service that the Uganda Postal Service has. The Post Bus seems to be the best bus in Uganda for two reasons: it leaves at a scheduled time and they don’t pack it full, so I have always had a free seat next to me when I’ve taken it. It’s a great no hassle way to travel. The biggest problem with Post Bus, is it only travels once a day, the other buses might have 6 a day.read more
The group at the school at the base of the mountain, before our hike.
Today I hiked Mount Wanale, which is just outside of our town of Mbale. It was the most challenging hike I’ve ever done (6864 feet, 2092 meters (Mt. Monadnock in NH was my highest before that, 3165 feet or 965 meters), it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and some parts were quite scary! Click on any of the pictures to see a bigger version.
Nat. Geo. ladder. Yikes. They didn’t tell me about this!
I wish I would have got more pics of the ladder, but once I was up it, I got away from it as soon as I could!
This ladder…. which I call 100% national geographic style, was about 20 feet tall, made with a whole bunch of sticks. Who knows how hold it was, and there didn’t seem to be any nails. At the ladder is where I said to my self, “Oh yeah, of course this isn’t deemed safe by the US Parks Dept or anything”. I was very scared, but only minutes earlier was I telling another girl, who was afraid of the heights and the steepness, that it’s all in the mind and you just have to power on and think about what you’re doing, not the risks. So, I tried to listen to my own advice, but I was thinking “Someone could die on this!”read more
Friday January 29 I arrived at TAATA Kids in Mbale Uganda. I love it!!!! (The Storm is Over is Taata Kids’ motto, and I think it’s a good omen for the storm I just went through!)
I was originally going to stay here for 4 weeks after 4 weeks at my previous place. But, since I was only at that place for 1 week, I’m changing this one to 7 weeks. But, if I love it and want to stay here and cross some other orgs off the list, I will. Frankly I am a little sick of moving around and showing up at an unknown place….read more
Right now it’s 6:15 am and my last day of one week with an org in which I did not have a good experience.
This week I have dealt with baby cockroaches in my toothbrush and mouth piece case, living in a storage room, bedbugs, mice (living in the home at peace with the family), compulsive lying and finding all my luggage had been looked through. I stayed in two different homes because I was not comfortable at the first. I would have been comfortable at the second, but that is where there were bedbugs were.
This is how I spent yesterday. All day. Busted my butt. Nice lunch, huh?
I don’t know if this org is a good one or not but I couldn’t work on the website when I couldn’t trust the information I was being told. While I was doing the website I realized that they had lied to me prior to my arrival too. I do have to say the org isn’t totally bad, some of the people I met were great, and I know this org is doing good work because I did witness some good projects. They are probably doing other great work too, that I didn’t get a chance to see, but I’m just done.read more
