Week One of Work, Done

What's Up Everyone?

Here's the long awaited blog post on my life and work in Gulu over the first full week we've been here! I'll cut it up by day, so it's simpler to follow and write about. I'll cut out the small details, such as dealing with cold showers, an un-flushable toilet, mosquitoes, flies, tea, and food. Surprisingly, everything has been relatively easy to deal with, and the food has been fantastic to say the least, especially the rice and beans...

Monday: Day one at the office was great. It wasn't hard to fall in love with the friendly staff, especially the program director, Francis, and Project Coordinators Stella and Emma. We began the week with a staff meeting in which we introduced ourselves to everyone in HAU where I expressed what our GROW team means to accomplish over our time here and how we hope to carry our goals out. We spent the rest of the day planning out what how we would evaluate our projects and manage our workload over the next few weeks. After getting permission to leave, we went back to the hotel briefly before Julia managed to haggle me into going to Pece Stadium, a football area dedicated to the fallen soldiers of Uganda in World War II. Admittedly, I am not built for running, but it felt nice to get out and work out. After about an hour of working out and getting strange looks from the locals, we went back to the hotel where Josh and I passed out early. It wasn't really an exciting night, but it was definitely a nice first day in Gulu.

Tuesday: We did more or less the same thing on Tuesday. Got up, showered, went to work, ate, and went to work some more, went to Pece Stadium, ate, then slept. At work we continued to plan and get to know the rest of the staff. I was also put into contact with the Concordia Volunteer Abroad Program, an organization based in Montreal, Canada, in order to set up an HIV/AIDS testing and sporting event. Thankfully, the got back to me with a proposal for a Sports Gala, which will be explained further later.  For lunch, we went to an awesome Ethiopian restaurant, where I was served coffee in the coolest way possible. Here's the picture:

We got back to work and Skyped with GlobeMed at UNC's Co-President, Trini Thach. It was nice talking to her again, but she suggested slowing things down a bit planning wise in favor of getting a better feel for office life and the projects that both HAU and GlobeMed work on. Keeping this in mind, work started to slow down, which was kind of disappointing. If I'm honest, we came down here under the impression that HAU was struggling hard and that we had to work as hard and fast as possible to help them out. We left work at 4:30 as usual, then headed over to Pece Stadium again to do some more running. This time, I had a different partner, a little local kid whose name I can't remember (though I'm sure he doesn't remember mine either). He kept me going, and it was nice getting to know him. After a while, though, I had to sit down for a bit. We met a few locals, then went back to the hotel to wash up for dinner. I had a couple drinks, and Josh, Clara, and I ended up watching some Game of Thrones. Good stuff!

Wednesday, aka my 20th birthday: First off, thank you everyone who wished me a happy birthday! It meant a lot, and, as I mentioned on Facebook, you should be receiving my love in a couple of days. The day was relatively relaxed, though, with us slowing down our progress. There were no real highlights from work, save the long training presentation given to us by the Civil Society Fund. In it, we learned how to implement "change without migraines". It took just under three hours to complete, and we went over topics like resistances to change at three different levels, the stages of change, and other various topics. Following work,  Clara and I took a massive detour on our way back to the hotel following a failed attempt to get my newly bought phone registered, something I had been putting off for a while. Sure it took us out of the way and we missed the chance to get back to the hotel in favor of backtracking, but we got to see so much more of Gulu, which arguably made the trip worth it. After we got back from the detour, my room was locked so I ended up buying a drink at the bar. I was exhausted, but I pressed on. We planned on meeting Emma for something called rollex, which essentially is three fried eggs wrapped in a flat, unleavened bread akin to Tortillas, but thicker. It was so good, and after we went to this awesome bar place to watch Chelsea play in the finals of the UEFA tournament. Sadly, because I had been so exhausted from the day I ended up passing out in my seat with a cold drink in my hand. It sounds like a boring day, but I can't complain. We had work the next day, anyway, and my knees were shattered from running so much1

Thursday: More of the same, just preliminary planning as usual and talking to the staff. It was slow, so I spent a good chunk of the morning responding to all of the Facebook messages and emails that I had received for my birthday. We also casually saw a cow on the road, and, being the typical tourist, I had to snap a picture and document the rarity. Other than that, nothing really of note occurred. It was just a long, really hot day at the office. 

Friday: This was probably the coolest day thus far at HAU. Though it started off normally, Francis invited me to step in and witness a meeting between HAU and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction in Uganda, an organization which works on projects dealing with nutrition, reproductive health, and rural development especially within Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda. The meeting was called to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between the two entities, initiating a partnership that would promote the distribution and provision of Sexual and Reproductive Health Services in the form of community engagement and dialogue, and the education of counselors and facilitators in the areas. Though I didn't speak, it was really cool observing how HAU worked in that capacity and realizing a new project that would impact hundreds of lives within several areas in the district. This, however, was not the best part of the day as I had set up a meeting with CVAP to discuss HAU's role in planning out the Sports Gala. The Sports Gala, coupled with a massive Football tournament, is being set up to spread HIV/AIDS awareness, provide HIV/AIDS counseling, take blood donations, and provide free cervical cancer screenings. It's been done before, and this year it will be taking place on June 14th and 15th following weeks of planning by many different organizations in Gulu. Emma and I were HAU's representatives, and we presented what HAU could and was willing to offer in resources, namely peer counselors, condoms, and education materials to hopefully impact over thousands of lives in two days. It'll be really cool to see the end result, and I can't wait to interact with all of these other NGOs in the area. As planning comes along, I'll keep everyone posted.

Now, I sit at the desk reflecting on what has been an awesome first week. Hopefully the weekend will be able to match it! Outlook looks good: going out tonight, heading to the marketplace and a breakdancing competition on Saturday, and hanging out at a coffee shop and exploring Gulu further on Sunday. I'll post a new entry up when it's over!

Until next time,

Zach

GoT: Over a hundred-fifty pages into the second book. The show left out a lot of specific details, and reading them just has enhanced the overall experience, especially when Arya and the Night's Watch were attacked on the Kingsroad. It's all really hard not to like!