Life in Kiboga so far

So after three days in Kiboga we're pretty settled in; we know our way around and are starting to get braver and so are using goat/cow paths as short cuts and are slightly exploring the town more, even though the language barrier makes it a bit hard.

(We decided to try a restaurant nearer the hospital today since we had to go back after lunch, and even though there was no one inside it looked very clean so we went in. They were EXTREMELY excited to have us, and the food was pretty good (best chapati in town!! and also cleanest bathrooms!!). However, once they discovered we were Americans they found an ancient tape of Celine Dion music videos to BLAST for us while we waited for and ate our meal. It was both awful and hilarious. Have you seen her videos? They're very much synopses of bad romance novels. And since this place was not the fastest, we were brainwashed by the end of the hour we spent there. We also might have PTSD because when were heard a neighbor blasting music this evening we both cringed and paled, fearing it was more Celine following us around town...)

Here's a view from the porch of the "best restaurant in town" which we eat at once or twice a day (yes, we're already tired of the very limited menu). There are big gorgeous green hills all around town, with banana and mango trees everywhere! The air is soooo much cleaner than Kampala, and so far it has rained a bit every day except today (and by rain I mean THUNDER-ELECTRICAL STORM-A-PALOOZA! they're pretty dramatic, but don't last more than an hour). The main highway through town is paved, but all the other roads are red dirt and extremely rutted.

There are farm animals all over everywhere. Most of them (except the chickens) seem to get tied up somewhere new every day, so we meet different animal friends on our walks to and from work (besides all the children who love to stare before eventually smiling and waving excitedly. We're also pretty concerned we'll cause an accident from people turning around on their motorcycles or turning and hanging out their car windows to stare and/or honk). There are tons of goats (and a family of cute triplet kids), a family of pigs that lives across the street from us, and lots of cows. Cows with MONDO horns! The horns are generally thicker and longer than my arms, so we keep away from the cows that aren't babies and lying directly in our pathway.

Here's a piglet we scared by sneaking up on it. Most of the buildings in town are brick, and there are piles of drying bricks everywhere. At least the red dirt that gets all over us and our stuff is useful!

While we have running water at the fancy guest house we're staying at (for $7 a day that includes a delicious breakfast-our favorite meal every day!) this is one of several water depots in town for the local residents. I'll try to snap a pic of the precarious ways people transport water to their homes...seeing a 10yr old on a giant bicycle with 6 gallons of water is both scary and impressive!

Our guest house is great--we're sharing a room and a bed, but as you can see it's pretty giant and has a super mosquito net.

The room has no furniture except for the small table (we had to ask for a second chair) but at least we have somewhere to work on our computers, and so all of our stuff is in piles on the floor around the room, and we're still mostly living out of our duffels.

The bathroom is funny, since it's just a suuuper tall shower head over the floor (and toilet), with a drain in the corner. But there's a hot water heater that gives you 2-4 minutes of hot water at a time, and it's nice to be able to shower standing up. The water goes out less often than the electricity, so we almost always have running water.



We've mostly just been having meetings to get introduced to all the VIP's at the hospital before we start on our projects, but since everything runs on Africa time it's been slow going. We got our first few interviews done with the HIV team today, which was wonderful--we don't feel like we've done nothing since getting here now.

We've also spent a couple hours each day shadowing in the wards. We've already seen some crazy stuff, and I'll do a hospital post soon to give you medically-interested peeps some more details.

Luckily the beginning of our stay here coincides with 7 Ugandan medical students' rotation here, so we've been getting to know them and they've been extremely helpful in getting us settled and introducing us to people in the hospital. We have a date to hang out with them Sunday night so I'm excited to chat with them more!

Off to bed for me--more meetings and hopefully time on the maternity ward tomorrow!