Acholi Inn Hotel Gulu

Last week was an awesome week for team teaching. Alfredo and I had a lot of fun sitting under shade trees and planning our lessons for Far from the Madding Crowd. It’s hilarious to me that I would come to Uganda to teach a book that I could be teaching in AP Lit in the states. Not that I don’t love me some Hardy, but it would have been a treat to get to work with an African text. The week prior, though, Alfredo and I went through a test that ...

Since I’m now into more of a routine now, I thought I’d take this time to talk about some of the more general observations that I’ve made in the few weeks that we’ve been here. Let’s start with the good…
The Food: On the balance, so tasty. There are several typical Acoli dishes that we’ve sampled at our schools and around town, including: Posho-Ground maize that is cooked up to be the consistency ...

St. Joseph’s Layibi: The Lion, the Boy and the Deer

Though all of what I am about to write happened only yesterday, if you told me that it happened in 2007, I would believe you. Here is a good place to talk about how time has been passing. When I first arrived in Gulu, I asked the Teacher Exchange veterans how their time was moving. Everyone’s answer: “Fast, Slow.” Huh? I really didn’t understand what exactly they meant ...

The weekend of the 4th of July, we had the Teaching and Learning Conference with roughly 100 teachers, both Ugandan and international. It was a great introduction to what the schools would be like, and we met our Ugandan partner teachers for the first time. The conference gave us a sense of what life is like for teachers in Uganda. They have many of the same challenges and concerns that we do. They worry a lot about how to get to and from their schools (transportation ...

Week One--Part One...

The Market and the Hip-Hop Haven
The next day (June 30) we were told that this would be our main opportunity to shop. At a craft market. Those of you who know me well can imagine the gravity of this excursion. Let's just say that I had an excellent showing at our hotel craft-showcase when we finally got to Gulu. Everyone at the market was very friendly and as much fun as I had shopping and perusing, I had more fun talking to the women in the booths ...

Things are going good here. I have been pretty busy at the Gulu Youth Center. Every week I accompany the staff on a 3-day outreach to a surrounding village or IDP (internally displaced persons) camp where we offer free VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) and provide information on family planning, including condom demonstrations. On average, in one day our outreach staff of 10 locals tests close to 200 people from the ages 14-25. I have been ...

Greetings from London (OK, the airport). After walking around JFK for a couple of hours casting surreptitious glances at strangers hoping they would be my IC colleagues, I found Sarah Rainwater (awesome last name, awesome gal), and then the other five people shortly after. This was a relief as I was beginning to think that I had somehow ended up in the total wrong place. We were given a pictures-included directory, so the pre-meeting stalking was pretty hilarious--Sarah and I agree that ...

Just wanted to say Hi and let you all know that I'll be doing my best to keep track of what I'm up to in Uganda. I just promised my friend Dan that I won't be one of those, "and then I brushed my teeth and the water was warm, but not too warm, but not exactly cold..." type of bloggers. Mostly I ...

At 6am on Thursday, 2 UK palliative care doctors, a nurse, a Hospice driver and myself set off for Gulu, a town in northern Uganda. Dr Jane, Dr Mhoira and myself were headed to a Ugandan Medical Association conference and had been due to leave the day before; we were forestalled by 'Delhi (Kampala??) belly' and with Gulu a good 4-5 hours drive upcountry, we needed to leave before Kampala rush hour hit. I associate getting up in the dark in the UK most often with horrible ...