Saturday, August 28, 2010

Finally Here!

After many hours of travel, the other two interns and I finally arrived in Uganda. We took two flights, both of which were red eyes. So after two nights of sleeping on planes (well, trying to at least…), I was very tired and very jet-lagged. Luckily, we had a longer layover in London than I originally though so we were able to get out and see the city a little bit before the connecting flight. In the 9 hours we had, we got to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace.

We flew into Entebbe which is about an hour drive from Kampala. We arrived at our apartment Wednesday morning and got settled in. We spent the rest of the day Wednesday, as well as Thursday and Friday doing more orientation (basically more cultural discussions, a language lesson, and other intern program logistics). We also took a walk around Kansanga and did a scavenger hunt in Kampala to get to know the area a little better. Kansaga is the neighborhood where our apartment and the office are located, about 5 miles outside downtown Kampala.

My ankle has held up decently well. I was able to travel around London without very much trouble, but it has started to bother me since I reached Kampala. I actually cut our tour of Kampala short because it was started to bother me. I took a boda back to the office. A boda is a crazy little motorcycle for hire that weaves in and out of traffic rather erratically. There is very little regard for traffic laws here! It feels like I am playing Frogger whenever I am crossing busy city streets.

Right now, everything is a little overwhelming. Trying to get the lay of the land after a lot of travel with little sleep has been very difficult. Things have started to get better we have settled in and become a little more familiar with the area. I have some pictures of the brief adventure in London as well as a few Uganda pics coming soon. (Internet is slow so it will take a while to load them.)

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