Greetings from Uganda!

Posted by c.sweaney

After 3 days of travel and LITERALLY 24 hours on airplanes I arrived to the sweet tropical smell of the equator. Everything here hits you smack in the face. I thought we would be gently introduced into Ugandan culture, SPW training, and easily fall into our new lives... Oh but how I was mistaken. I was swiftly transplanted, tired and jetlegged, to the SPW training center on an organic farm where I was joined by 7 international and 30 national Ugandan volunteers. There we were thrown into 8 hours of intensive training a day. In a week we have already had crash courses in the history and practice of international development, monitoring and evaluation techniques, SPW standards and requirements, and cultural awareness. At meal times we are served GIANT plates of rice, potatoes, matooke (a kind of banana mush), pumpkin (delicious!), and meat gravy that leaves you absolutely stuffed for the first 2 hours and absolutely starving for next 2. In the evenings we escape into a fairy tale landscape. My eyes have never seen such a varied and contrasting landscape. Every shade of green you can imagine line dusty brick red roads. Bright yellow shops stand next to ramshackle clay and wood huts. Children run after you as you stroll down the dirt track, jumping, dancing, grabbing yours hands yelling muzoongo! muzoongo! (white! white!). It is as though I am are exploring the moon.

It is exhilarating, overwhelming, frustrating, exciting, and exhausting. I couldn't be more satisfied.