First Days

It has been one week since I left Bella Bella. It is my third day in the office and I've just finished enjoying tea on the porch with the women of the office. Learning moment: ground nuts and peanuts are the same thing.

My first morning I had a visitor in my toilet. Hola Senor Frog! I let the hotel know and they were far more upset about it that I was. They changed my room while I waited for someone to pick me up from CAP AIDS. It was during this time that I realized I could use iMessage and HeyTell to talk to people in Canada.

 

 

 

Joseph (CAP AIDS Driver) picked me up from the hotel and drove me to the office. It always takes me a bit of time to adjust to driving on the left hand side of the road. My brain has trouble realizing that it's not in danger and I'm always walking to the drivers side of the car. I thought I was to be moving into the room at CAP AIDS that first day but turns out it's still under construction. So I'll be at the hotel for a few more days. Photos of Graceland Hotel and my room.

 

This first day is kind of a blurr since I was very tired. I spent some time talking with Tracy (CAP AIDS volunterr) about the various projects CAP AIDS has on the go right now, but besides that I don't remember too much. I got back to the hotel and immediately fell asleep, even though it was only 5pm. Jetlag is getting the best of me.

Going to bed so early meant I woke up at 4am. When I got to the office on Day 2 I started the task of entering all the information from the Baseline Assessment Tool for Preventing Mother to Child Trasmission of HIV into an excel sheet. The best moment of my second day was when Naomi pulled out three wedding dresses from her suitcase. She brought these wedding dresses back from Canada for friends. These gowns occupied a whole suitcase :)  Tracy decided to try one on for good luck and Betty gave her some tutoring about how to walk in it. It was a very nice moment to end the day with. Seeing as during lunch Betty was giving Tracy advise on how to get a husband. She informed me that in Africa they have a saying "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach". I responded that is an all over the world saying. We had a good laugh about it.

 

This morning I had a meeting with Mr. Gizaw and Naomi about my workplan. Things I will be focusing on: creating a CAP AIDS Uganda Blog, Telling Success Stories, Creating Videos and YouTube Channel, Creating a Newsletter, Interviewing and Observing in the Field to be able to tell the stories of the people CAP AIDS is helping, creating a volunteer recruitment plan, and a few other projects. Stay tuned!

As I sign off I'm enjoy a nice snack of pancakes (dried casava root and banana cooked together into a disk) with Tracy.