Initial Days in the Program

 

We have just finished our second full day in Kampala.  We arrived Sunday afternoon after an hour delay in Addis Ababa to find a public health screening and then a long line for immigration, so it took several hours to get out of the airport.  The upshots were that that we saw a cute monkey and baby in the parking lot and that we arrived at the Ndere Center very close to dinner time!  After quick introductions between the Hopkins and the Makerere students, we attended Ndere’s world famous Sunday evening performance and buffet.  For many of the Hopkins students this was their first taste of traditional Ugandan food, although most choose the Ugandan barbecue over the traditional buffet.  The students very much enjoyed the show, which included traditional music, song and dance from different regions of Uganda as well as neighboring countries.

 

Monday we had a chance to sleep in a little bit before a big breakfast and then a few hours of team building.  Then, after lunch, we headed into downtown Kampala to visit the Owino market.  This also entailed out first experience of Kampala traffic, which allowed us to get to know one particular block of a main road quite well!  The students divided into teams and explored each section of the market.  They had assigned tasks in each section--from finding a food they had never seen before and asking how to prepare it, to finding the most expensive artifact.  Afterwards we returned to Ndere for debriefing and dinner.  Sunday evening we were joined by several public health and development professionals who talked about how they came to be in their current jobs and then took questions from the students.

 Today was another full day, with a welcome from Dr. David Serwadda (former Dean of the Makerere School of Public Health and founder of the Rakai Health Sciences Program) over breakfast followed a visit to the Musana Music Center.  After being welcomed by their brass band, the students spent time discussing topics that had been generated by the youth from Musana, and then ultimately ended up sharing songs with their new Ugandan colleagues before lunch. In addition to youth development through music, the youth there demonstrated what they call a tippy-tap: a device they have developed that allows one to wash hands after using the latrine without needing to touch anything.  They plan on building more of these and sharing them their neighbors. Some of the band members took us into their homes. Here is a picture of Jessica, who welcomed us into her home and talked passionately about how much she respects her mother's efforts for the family.

 

 

 

 

 After lunch we were invited into the homes of a few of the youth. We had the opportunity to learn more about the lives of youth and youth development in the Kampala area.  We then headed for a visit to the program Training of Rural Women in Uganda, or TORUWU.  We were welcomed by a second brass band and then had an opportunity to learn about their programs: making wine and crafts, cultivating mushrooms, handicrafts, sewing, and another brass band.  We spent an hour or so playing with neighborhood children and chatting with the youth before sharing dinner with TORUWU organizers and participants.  Finally, we returned to Ndere for our first reflection session.

 

During the reflection session students discussed their struggles with confronting stereotypes about Africa, poverty, the role of aid, and their perceptions of U.S. and Ugandan culture.  Many were surprised at the level of development they have seen.  The TORUWU project was cited as exemplifying the “triple bottom line” of demonstrating economic, environmental and social sustainability.  Both the Ugandan and American students have been struck by both similarities and differences between the U.S. and Uganda and between their cultures.  We split up into 5 teams to discuss public health topics of particular relevance in Uganda: Orphans and Vulnerable Children, Maternal Health, HIV, Nutrition, and Malaria and Childhood Illnesses. We ended the evening by hearing each of the theme teams talk a bit about what they had seen so far related to the five themes. Each of our next blog posts will be written about each of these five topics as we see them in more depth.

 

Tomorrow morning we leave for our homestay in Kalisizo, Rakai district.