Local Visits and Building Parnerships

Here we are at the Foundation for AIDS Orphaned Children (FAOC) in Mbarara where we are based out of. Our first few days in Mbarara have been a steep learning curve of culture and project complexities. Day by day, things are smoothing out.

This morning, after a breakfast of mango, banana and whole wheat bread from the bakery, the three of us set off with Francis from FAOC to meet with organizations in Mbarara. Our first stop was NARO (National Agricultural Research Organization). We first spoke with the farm manager who described to us what NARO does. Then the animal health technician Tugume showed us the goats on the research farm and described what he does. We then spoke with the director of the Mbarara office and got down to the meat and taters of our visit. Previously FAOC had partnered with NARO and we were visiting to expand the partnership to our work with Veterinarians Without Borders now, and in the future. The front of NARO's pamphlet reads "Responding to Farmers' Needs 2009", which coincides well with our goals. In the short term, our work stems from our Clostridial vaccination program which begins next week with our paravet training session on May 26. Shortly after that, we plan to vaccinate up to 1600 goats for Clostridial diseases. The logistics behind doing this involve transporting the vaccine through Coopers Uganda from South Africa to where we are. The vaccine will be transported to Kampala (Uganda's capital) and it is up to us to have it transported in a reliable and sustainable cold chain to Mbarara. The director of NARO was very encouraging that his people could transport the vaccine for us in a cold state (which is required for the vaccine to work).

Next, we were off the the chicken restaurant where the four or us ate a whole chicken with matoke (plantain bananas) with our hands. I got to eat the gizzard and Pam scored the neck. After filling up we went to the Mbarara District Veterinary Office where we discussed different diseases in the area and partnership. The were very welcoming and offered to help in general terms. The head of the office was unavailable but we'll be back there I'm sure. Now, we have much work to do to prepare for training paravets including pamphlets and demonstrations on the to dos and not to dos of vaccination.

Along the way, we are surprising the locals with the odd word of Runyankole which we've learned. I am impressed with the diversity between and within people . The average person we've been dealing with seems to speak 4-5 languages. Runyankole is like an ongoing song between all the people here... a song, which I want to sing... HF