Golden Ark Hotel Soroti

... village. They all clamboured around the plane while we were getting sorted. After about 20minutes - we started up the engine and took off! It was all really surreal - both for the villagers - and for myself! <br><br>The flight was cool. We flew over Lake Victoria and took a different route back over Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha - two ...

... standing, holding on to a roll bar on a road that would challenge the shocks of any ATV. It was dirt, and had large rocks, huge trenches, and was at times mearly a foot path. It was incredible to have the wind in our faces racing accross the bush. We dropped the first two chldren off and then stayed with the last family. To put their home into perspective their were three mud-thatched huts with a baren wasteland srrounding it. Each hut was maybe 8 feet tall and a diameter of no ...

... well rested, and people are visibly excited to be here. 25 hours in the air is a looong time. It is good to be grounded. We have been through Jinja and Mbale on our way to Soroti. They are both places we will visit again. Jinja is the source of the Nile, and it was a powerful site (white water rafting on the 27th...stay tuned) Mbale is home to Mt. Elgon, a dormant volcanoe that rises ...

... turn to cook so we settle on a vegetarian sweet and sour and try and get what ingredients we can in the market at Jinja. A few of the group hike the waterfall at Jinja but with the leg still dodgy I opt for an afetrnoon kip and then getting a start made on the dinner. The evening ends with the camp shutting the bar at ten, leaving eight of us looked in and having to scale the roof to escape.

... and saying good-bye....I don't think it has really hit us yet that we will be returning back to the US soon. On Thursday morning, we started our adventure to Murchinson Falls. Since Ugandans don't travel to Murchinson, there is no direct public transportation available to the area and most tourists head up there in travel groups. As all the tour operators turned out to be extremely overpriced, we decided to pack up all our ...

... aside, we finished the surveys as of yesterday, Tuesday, and today had a few meetings with other NGOs in the area doing work w/regards to HIV/AIDS to get a better picture of the options available for testing, treatment, etc. We've begun data analysis, which will continue for the next few days as we pack up and say our goodbyes. It's strange to think that our time in Soroti (and Uganda in general) is coming to a close - it really feels as though we've just arrived ...

... awareness -- a couple of surveys over our target sample size. We have begin to do some formal analysis of our data in preparation for our report that we will submit to the different organizations we have recieved scholarships from, as well as potential publications and/or international health forums. Will keep you posted.....

... Stuart's mom found the rat poison and died. Somehow, when we weren't looking, she crawled out from under Nicole's chair, turned on her back, and passed away. Stuart, however, is growing bigger every day. On Sunday morning, we were taken to church at 7AM in the morning where a TPO staff member helped lead the congregation. We were seated next to the town mayor and chairman who were preparing to head up north to Gulu for the peace talks there. It ...

... chairman makes a speech to the community and introduces us, and then we begin our work after being given permission to continue. Oh, and handshakes are this long, complicated, 3 handshakes in one thing that I have yet to master. In other news, we went to Katakwe the other day. This sub county is northeast of where we are and one that has been most devasted by the LRA insurgency, but also by the neighboring Karamajong warriers ...

... LRA. As such, many of the IDP camps in the area have been decongested. Instead of looking at the prevalence of drinking and it's impact on HIV/AIDS transmission rates in the IDP camps alone, we are comparing the habits of those in the camps and those recently returned to the living in local village. The worry now is that the IDPs that had been living in the camps will continue their drinking and sexual habits in the village ...