Welcome to Uganda!

After several flight delays, I have finally arrived in Entebbe, Uganda on Monday August 25.  I stayed the night in Kampala the first night.  The following morning I took the Post Bus which is basically a bus that you take with the post office that goes from Kampala to Gulu.  On the way, we passed by the Nile River, which was very beautiful.  I was finally united with my SIT group which was a relief. 

            For our orientation period we stayed in a hotel.  We also spent one day walking around Gulu to get to know the town.  Gulu is a growing city, but very different from what I am used to.  There is a lot of construction happening everywhere which leads to unexpected blackouts.  The blackouts do not faze the population here; people continue to do what they are doing as if the lights did not change. 

            I am staying with a local family here for the next week.  The family has been very nice and welcoming, just like everyone has been in Gulu.  Everyone refers to everyone as this is my brother, this is my sister.  It’s a very welcoming community.  I am very excited to learn more about Gulu and start on my research.

            Currently there is a census going on.  It started on August 28^th and will continue until September 6^th.  There are a lot of commercials about the census with the slogan: “it’s your right to be counted.”  The last time that a census has been conducted was in 2001.  I’m very curious to see how the estimates compare to the census count results. 

            The weather here is very hot.  The sun is also very consistent; it rises at 7am every day and sets at 7pm every day.  It also rains a lot which is nice because it cools down the temperature. 

Until next time.

-Leissan S.

Research and More Research

My master’s thesis seeks to understand the relief efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Uganda between 1979 and 2008. Before heading to Uganda, I planned a trip to Oxford, UK to study some of the archives at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House at the University of Oxford in England. And while I was out here, my friend and I decided to have a mini-trip throughout Europe stopping in Amsterdam, Munich, Prague, and Vienna. And of course, I had to throw in a week to see my family in Russia.

 I arrived at Heathrow Airport in London and made it to the Central Bus Station by 12:13pm local time on July 29. I finally made it to my destination city, Oxford. My flight was a direct flight (10 ½ hours) from LAX to London via Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand has pretty modern planes and the in-flight entertainment was phenomenal. They had a wide range of movies, and some were available in different languages. They were also extremely accommodating of my dietary needs. The flight attendant even suggested making me a salad from their personal food cart.

 One major set-back with Air New Zealand is the fact that they have a weight limit for your carry-on bags: 7kg (about 15 lbs.). I had one traveler’s backpack and my tote bag with me, so I had to take a few things out of the backpack to place into my tote. Then I was told not to put those items back in the backpack because they were going to weigh my bag again before boarding the plane. Well, that never happened. One big lesson that I learned, however, is to always check each individual airline’s limits on baggage.

Waiting for my bus in the lounge area gave me some time to orient myself and take a look around. There were pigeons flying in and out of the lounge, which I found interesting. I haven’t seen that since my last trip to Russia, six years ago. The people around were also very interesting. There was so much happening, yet not much at the same time. People were speaking a number of different languages. Some were in a hurry, others were not. It was a very interesting atmosphere, or maybe it was due to my jet-lag.

 It took me two days to fully adjust to the time difference. I was able to do a little bit of work on Wednesday. I had to get a library card done and order some archives because they can take a while to bring up. I spent two days buried in the Bodleian library, looking through the archives. At the end of the day yesterday, I realized that I don’t fully have all the information that I need, so I will be making a detour in Geneva in December, on my way back from Uganda, to go to the World Health Organization archive.

Today is the first opportunity that I have to actually play and walk around Oxford, but of course today is the day that it rains tremendously. I started walking around the town but was quickly brought to a stop at my favorite coffee place, Java and Co., writing a blog post. Yesterday, however, I did discover a delicious vegetarian/vegan restaurant, the Gardener’s Arms. It was a quick 15 minute walk from the hostel. So far that has been one of the most exciting parts of the trip because I’ve been engrossed with research. But so far it's been a decent trip.

Until next time friends.
-Leissan R. Sadykova