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.