1st December - World AIDS Day

1 December is a big day in Uganda, and in other countries where HIV / AIDS touches so many lives. The celebration event was organised by the National Association of People Living with HIV / AIDS. VSO helped with some of the organising and sponsored T shirts and drinking water. Staff from the VSO Uganda Office along with several VSO volunteers took part in the celebrations and the march which preceded them. VSO staff and volunteers on the march
Young people from an organisation supported by the Most At Risk Populations (MARPs) Network which Ian works for
Here are the brilliant volunteers from Touch Namuwongo, the group that organised the community clean up that this blog reported on in September
The celebrations took place in a primary school on the outskirts of Kampala, here children from the school perform a song they had written for the day
An exhibition of art work produced by Kampala Senior Secondary School students
Renate and her friend Romaine, catching their breath after the two hour march - both have the catchy title of "non volunteering accompanying partners" - load of rubbish - both are busy volunteers - Renate with the donor mapping work she's doing for VSO Uganda and Romaine is busy helping out at a nursery school near where she lives teaching "Jollyphonics" and supporting other teachers in the school to teach it as well.

A great holiday with our friends David and Gina from Sheffield

It's been 9 months since Renate and Ian arrived in Uganda - a holiday was due and their good friends David and Gina from Sheffield came out to visit Uganda during the last two weeks of November. A journey taking in Kibale Forest and the Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda was undertaken! Here are some images from the holiday.David and Gina's first full day in Uganda was spent relaxing in Entebbe by Lake Victoria and the Botanical Gardens are home to a clutch of Vervet Monkeys - who like to be fed
This baby was just two days old
From the sublime quiet of the Botanical Gardens to the manic rush of Kampala's taxi park - needs to be seen to be believed!
The view from the cottage / tree house accommodation in Kibale Forest - the evening sun is catching the density of the forest trees
Here, Gina, Renate and David are with Julius the guide from the community project that manages the Bigodi Swamp near Kibale Forest - this wooden walkway is 300 metres long and was constructed by volunteers from the nearby village. 50% of tourist fees are used to pay for community development projects in the village.
Chimps grooming each other in Kibale Forest
The tree house in Bigodi Swamp provides a great place to view the Forest canopy
Also a good place to relax and have a laugh!
Mother and baby black and white Colobus monkeys at Bigodi
Here's a croc with his gob open at the Kazinga Channel which runs between Lake Edward and Lake George in the Queen Elizabeth National Park in western Uganda. The croc's gob stayed open for all the time we were watching - at least five minutes!
A gorgeous Yellow-billed Stork at Kazinga Channel
Hippos wallowing in "glorious mud" in the Kazinga Channel
This is one seriously proud African Fish Eagle! . .
Moments later, he or she is flying over our heads with a catfish in its claw . . freshly caught!
The very graceful Ugandan Kob antelope in Queen Elizabeth National Park
Here are buffalos, Ugandan Kobs and Egyptian Geese
The wide open landscape of the Queen Elizabeth Park savannah with the Rwenzori Mountains behind - marking the edge of the western Rift Valley and the border with the Congo
Finally, just as breakfast was calling this lazy lion was spotted chilling in a tree - he was 200 to 250 metres away but our guide's amazing eye-sight spotted him

A visit to Annette's House

Annette and Edward take very good care of us in our compound of flats in Ntinda, Kampala - Edward is the caretaker and Annette, his partner, helps us with washing and cleaning. They have two children, Joshua and Joy - Joshua's four and Joy is coming up for two. Annette has been really keen for us to visit her Mum and Dad at her home in 'the village' 75 kilometres south west of Kampala. So a couple of weeks ago we set off with gifts of rice, paraffin and a framed photograph of Annette, Edward and the children which Ian took. Edward could not come with us as he has yet to be formally 'introduced' to Annette's parents - a serious custom that must be properly honoured. So one day, when Annette and Edward have the money there'll be an introduction party - and then he can go and visit!This is the picture that was framed for a present for Annette's Mum and Dad
It was a real privilege to meet Annette's family and they really went to town to entertain us - wrapping a chicken in banana leaves and putting it on to steam at 7.00 am - by the time we sat down at 2.30 pm it was tender, sweet and delicious. Annette's dad grows three different kinds of bananas - green one's for steaming, small sweet one's for eating straight after being peeled, and a kind that is more bitter that is used for making beer which, by all accounts, is quite lethal. He also tends coffee 'trees' and he struggles when the international price for coffee goes down a lot. Annette's dad is also really worried about climate change - during this rainy season which 'officially' started in September, there's only been two good days of rain at his land - this was at the end of October.
Annette's Mum and Dad, for all that their life is hard work, still make sure that they take care of each other and indeed of several other children who have been abandoned.
Here are some photographs taken on the visit.
Here's the family group with Annette's Mum and Dad standing between Renate and Annette. Joshua is in the front with the red shirt and Joy is in Brenda's arms on the right of the picture (she's the eldest at home)
Annette's got the children dancing in a groups and then . . .. . . all fall down!Annette joins in the dancing with Joy and Joshua - not sure they were too keen though!Renate admires a coffee tree

Sorry about the silence

It's been six weeks since our last post on the blog. Three reasons:
(1) Ian managed to catch a really nasty cold which laid him low - even had to have a week off work - when he did recover he's been busy catching up
(2) Things are coming to a head with fund-raising in Ian's placement and three key documents have had to be completed by Ian and Dr Geoffrey Mujisha (Ian's boss)- these are (i) a report of a nationwide consultation carried out with organizations working with most at-risk populations (in terms of HIV infection); (ii) a business plan for the MARPs Network; and (iii) a general funding proposal aimed at international donors
Finally (3) Renate and Ian set off on holiday today with first stop at Entebbe to meet their good friends David and Gina Hawkins who are coming to stay for two weeks in Uganda - so we've been rushing to get everything finished in time for holiday jollies.
This post is being written - after a swim and lovely dinner at the wonderful Boma Guest House in Entebbe (check it out - www.boma.co.ug) - we're bringing David and Gina back here tomorrow from their flight from Manchester.
Over the next two weeks we'll be visiting Kibale Forest in Western Uganda and will do chimp tracking and 'swamp walking' - then on to the Queen Elizabeth National Park where we'll have a game drive and a river safari - we'll be rounding the holiday off at a favourite haunt of ours - the source of the Nile at Jinja. We'll try and post piccies during the coming weeks.

Namuwongo Clean-Up

VSO volunteers in any given country are grouped into 'clusters' to enable them to meet and have a say in the way the VSO programme is run in the country. Each cluster is also allocated a sum of money (typically £250) to use in the organising of a community project - something that will be of benefit to the community in which the VSO volunteers are based and which will also give them a chance to work as a team outside of their day jobs.

The Kampala VSO cluster decided to choose a project in the Namuwongo 'slum' which is next-door to the leafy suburb where VSO has its office. The "Als" - Alison and Alan Cowan, members of the VSO cluster live on the edge of Namuwongo and they introduced us to the most amazing community group you could ever wish to meet. This group - "Touch Namuwongo" has 140 community-based volunteers and their main purpose is to do outreach work in the community in order to get people to take HIV tests as well as promoting safer sex. When the group is not busy with that, they also organise wider public health days. We discovered from the "Als" that they wanted to do a community clean up - the drainage ditches in Namuwongo were badly clogged and with recent heavy rain they overflowed allowing sewerage to flow freely around people's houses and there had been an outbreak of cholera. However the Touch Namuwongo group were concerned that without proper tools and protective clothing they wouldn't be able to mobilize the community to get involved.Ruth, the amazing mobiliser / organiser of "Touch Namuwongo"

The Kampala VSO cluster was asked to get involved, and so Alan and Ian (as the 'cluster' chair) had a meeting with Ruth, the organiser of the Touch Namuwongo group, to see how we could assist. After listening to Ruth we agreed to ask the Kampala cluster to commit £250 towards the purchase of tools and protective clothing and also to turn up on Saturday 25th September to work shoulder-to-shoulder with residents in cleaning up the paths and ditches running through the community.

So, with just a degree of trepidation, fifteen or so VSO volunteers showed up at 9.00 am to be overwhelmed by the site of hundreds of residents ready and waiting to get stuck in!Here's Renate improvising with some bucket lids as shovels
A group of amazing women volunteers from the "Touch Namuwongo" group - who, we discovered later, had mobilized over 400 residents to get involved!
This railway line (along which we dragged the collected rubbish) runs from Kampala City Centre, through Namuwongo, to Port Bell on Lake Victoria - three goods trains a week use the line
A view from the railway line down to an area of the community that's freshly cleaned!
A group of volunteers and residents hard at it
Our neighbour Bob (a Dutch VSO volunteer) getting down and very dirty in the drainage ditch - which as can be seen is now clean and clear
Here's a huge lump of concrete that somehow people managed to lift from the drainage ditch - no wonder the ditch got blocked quite easily!
After the clean-up everyone went to the local Parish Chair's compound for a bit of a celebration - here the entertainment is some vigorous dancing and drumming - the tools bought by the VSO cluster can be seen in the foreground
After the dancing, the troupe (all members of Touch Namuwongo) presented a 'play' about the dangers of HIV / AIDS - funny, sad, angry, emotional - brilliant! Here's a dramatic moment . .
The audience is rapt - and here Alison Cowan (a VSO volunteer medical doctor at the International Hospital) sits with her three daughters - all of whom worked their socks off during the clean-up
A Namuwongo resident enjoys an extremely well-earned ice lolly
And these three seem quite pleased about it all as well!

Bayimba International Cultural Festival

On Sunday evening we went with our guests to the Bayimba International Cultural Festival at the National Theatre. Here are some photographs of the group 'Percussion Discussion' performing to a warmly appreciative crowd.
The lead male singer and the young boy who danced frenetically are both wearing 'bark-cloth' - made from tree bark and traditional clothing of the Baganda people from central Uganda
This little fella was enjoying a grand-stand view from dad's shoulders
Renate's chilling!

Lemon Drizzle Cake!

When Ian returned from Fort Portal he was greeted by visitors - VSO volunteers who work in the far south west of Uganda in a place called Kisoro. Poppy is an experienced sign language interpreter and trainer working with the Peace Education Trust and Chantal is training teachers in special needs education. They were both in Kampala to attend a conference on deaf education. On Saturday afternoon we suddenly decided it would be a great idea to make a cake!

But how can you make a cake with no oven? "Easy!" says Poppy - who went on to explain how we would need to nip out and buy three cheap cooking pots - each one a little bigger than the other. The first pot goes on the hob, next the pot with the cake mixture is placed inside the first pot - leaving a gap of about 1 to 2 centimetres between the bottom of the first pot and the bottom of the second pot. Finally the third pot is place on top to 'seal' the oven.

A basic sponge cake mix was checked out on t'internet and forty five minutes later a light and risen sponge cake appeared. Baukje, Poppy and Chantal then whipped up a lemon drizzle icing and 'afternoon tea' was ready.

By the way the cake was really very delicious!Here, the three chefs, left to right - Baukje, Chantal and Poppy are doing the baking businessHere's the cooked cake in its 'oven' potPoppy cuts the iced cake
The 'tea party' enjoys the result on the balcony in the warmth of a Kampala afternoon - spot on!