Hoima sidelights

Hoima is where Lake Albert is.  Oil deposits have recently been discovered there.  But Hoima had no water supply for the days that we were there. When we got thirsty we found this pub operating despite the power black-out. The favorite drink of my colleagues was beer mixed with Coca-Cola.  I'll go for rum and coke anytime.


Swarms of grasshoppers were in the air.  They were even inside my hotel room. People catch and sell them, later to be fried as a delicacy. Trust me, when cooked, they look like fried shrimps; delicious.


 


Snakes make their 
appearance too. 







Ant hills almost as tall as a bungalow are a common sight.Trees such as these are almost everywhere. Those balls are not Christmas lights. They are the elaborately woven nests of the weaver bird.

The health care center of this settlement area was the beneficiary of our IVD volunteer work.
It's not all pants and t-shirts for volunteers.  At the evening reception, we managed to unroll some decent attire from our rucksacks.

Happy New Year.  May yours be what you wish for.

Some people don't seek fame or fortune

Stephanie is Canadian.  Below that smile is a pair of rubber shoes that could use a glue.

Stein is Belgian.  He passed around cookies which he says are traditionally served and eaten at home every Dec. 5.

Raja is Indian.  He shared ground betel nuts which he says are used as breathe fresheners at home.








 







Biboy, aka the Bush Man, because he always brings a pair of blue wellies.
He composes Tagalog songs and is a great fan of the Cascades.

Eve, Cindy, Bush Man, and Joyce are Filipinos.  They shared stories and laughter.

Wild berries of Lira, Uganda

                                Merry Christmas

International Volunteer Day

 
December 5 each year is an international observance designated by the United Nations since 1985.  The declared aim of this activity is to thank the volunteers for their efforts and increase public awareness of their contribution to society (http://www/worldvolunteersweb.org).

The UN t-shirts

The Peace Corps

The doctors straight from duty

The nurses

The Red Cross

The Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015:

Goal 1:  Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2:  Achieve universal primary education

Goal 3:  Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 4:  Reduce child mortality

Goal 5:  Improve maternal health

Goal 6:  Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Goal 7:  Ensure environmental sustainability

Goal 8:  Develop a global partnership for development



     No celebration is complete without a band. 

He, too, must be a volunteer

In Uganda, the International Volunteer Day was celebrated in the district of Hoima, 200 kilometers from Kampala, bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Send in the camels

As soon as the sun came out, we started to hike

At daybreak of Day-2 we started the hike to town with no idea how far it was.  It was again a beautiful morning.  You could hear the birds chirping but I wondered why swarms of flies were clinging to our clothes. No one was coming for us because the road was too soft for a motor vehicle. Had we been in a desert, some camels could be useful.

Hiking from nowhere to nowhere

Any water will do

"Bushing" the teeth

We made a few stops to wash our face in the creek, or look for that special bush that is commonly used as toothbrush.  After 4 hours of walking, we met the lorry that hauled us to town. I realized that we walked for 8 miles or around 13 kilometers and we would have walked another 2 hours if not for the lorry. By midday, the bus found us in town and brought us back to Gulu. Not too bad, as travelers from Uganda to Sudan could be stranded for 5 days.

Will this scene also inspire Fernando Amorsolo to paint?

Back to civilization

Be squeezed or be left behind

Getting in and out of the lorry had been difficult for me.  No one offered to help the women as they are expected to be as agile as the men.  I had to pause to get everybody's attention and hesitantly ordered the men and boys around me to give me a lift.  After all, I am a lightweight mazungu from a country where women expect to be pampered.

Mother and child with cargo were with us all the way

Stranded in the savannah

The mountains of the Karamoja region

I traveled with some students and their instructors to Kitgum, some 120 kilometers north of Uganda, near the border of Sudan.  The natural beauty of the savannah and the cool winds gave signs of a pleasant trip.

Uganda's bad roads are legendary.  The road could be good when it was dry, but quite a challenge when it rains.

Bus stops for personal calls

On our way back, our chartered bus got stuck and we created a slight jam.  The cars behind us were practically manually lifted so that they were able to pass.  When attempts to move our bus were made, everyone in the bus was ordered to go down but I stubbornly refused - afraid of the mosquitoes and avoiding the mud that clings and sucks the soles like a vacuum cleaner.  The bus won't move an inch and as we waited for outside help, my previous experience as Chief Crisis Officer came in handy.  I managed the flow of information as we made calls to get us rescued in the middle of the night, attempted to do a headcount and unsuccessfully introduced the  buddy-system. 

We loved company until they were gone

It's a tractor.  Not the marines that I hoped for.

Finally, a tractor arrived and there was jubilation in the dark.  The tractor gave up - either because it did not have the horsepower to pull the bus or the crew was too intoxicated as they came from Uganda's independence day celebration.  I tried to doze off to accept our momentary helplessness when I heard a banging on the floor.

The bushes provided relief

With the light from my cell phone, I saw the driver trying to crash a big cassava so he could share it with the rest. Some people in the bus did not sleep hungry.  They had a small piece of the raw cassava. We spent the night in the bus, with too many mobile phones without airtime, no food, no drink.

Volunteers age too

Volunteers may not age fast here because the days are slow - but they do not forget birthdays and anniversaries.

Angie's birthday

When Angie celebrated her birthday, she had a bash. The cake she is blowing was steam-baked by Liz, while the solitary candle was my contribution. She cooked the traditional pancit, a Filipino or Chinese dish made of rice noodles or vermicelli fried with a mix of meat, seafoods and vegetables.  Since rice noodles are not available, she used pasta garnished with vegetables.  She will definitely have a long life because it tasted so good.

Liz's birthday

Doug's birthday

Next came Liz's birthday. She did not bake a cake for herself, so Sandra commissioned an instructor from the school where she is assigned to bake it.  We had pizza, red wine and lemon juice.  Doug (Sandra's spouse) had his 66th birthday.  The cake was steam-baked by a newly arrived vol, Marian.

Jenny and Andy's wedding anniversary

Eve's birthday

During our recent training in Kampala, a couple in my batch of vols celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary.  The cake came from a bakeshop, this time.

My birthday came. There would have been no celebration except that Liz baked a cake.  So I shared it with my house mates but not before blowing the candle. I then cut the cake, and offered the first slice to Jacob, our scullion.

My lone guest, Jacob

He surely got a big surprise that I served him first.  I think he felt so honored by the gesture because the following day, he brought me 2 pieces of sweet potatoes from his village.

Cooking is such sweet sorrow

Being invited for a meal is a welcome treat - but these occasions are few and far between.  This desire is not about frugality but lack of motivation to prepare what to eat.

  My breakfast tray

For breakfast, I have learned to eat avocado sandwich, but most often, it is these small buns where I put a bland spread and a trickle of honey to taste.

The spread is called Blue Band, whose packaging looks like a dishwashing cleanser or a laundry detergent.
I have long foregone the craving for brewed coffee.  I remember that Starbucks used to advertise that its coffee beans come from fair trade Africa, so I thought I had a worthy substitute - instant coffee - Africafe or Kilimanjaro both packed in Tanzania.  I am about to finish the two cans but I have yet to experience the taste of real good coffee. I am not sure whether the taste is spoiled by the water, sugar, or coffee mate.

A supermarket called Mega Shopper recently opened in Gulu and I am glad that it carries frozen bacon, cooked ham, and canned meat loaf.  These are my meals on weekends, and coupled with coffee spread over rice, it is quite a feast for me.  Eggs, I avoid because the egg yolk is anemic.

I have also forgotten the taste of fresh fish and seafoods that abound in the islands of the Philippines.  Since Uganda is a land locked country, the fresh fish (mostly tilapia, catfish, and perch) comes from Lake Victoria, a good 8 hours travel to Gulu.  Because of scarcity, smoked fish is a common substitute - but it tastes awful.

The smoked fish

At present, I am already delighted with sardines -  either fried or fresh from the can.   The sardines are manufactured in Thailand and packed for the United Arab Emirates, and exported to Uganda.

Cooking is not one of my skills to share.  To date I have burned two saucepans because I cannot fine tune the gas stove when cooking rice. 

Tip:  To avoid burning, mix cooking oil with water

As usual, I experimented and discovered that I can cook rice in a frying pan. To avoid the ever-present stress of cooking it right, I cook rice good for one week, store it in the refrigerator, and have fried rice at each meal.  (For a volunteer, a rice cooker would be a luxury, but a ref is a necessity - even if it costs more than your month's allowance.)

For the time being, I have set aside the quest for gastronomic delight.  In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I am in a place where the basic needs of food and shelter have yet to be satisfied.  I am already happy digesting the aroma of Angie's cooking,  as she is very creative in the kitchen.