Ugandan people

It has now been 3.5 weeks since I arrived in Kampala. And we have been working for 3 weeks. The time has gone by incredibly fast, probably because I am enjoying myself so much. This week was very exciting, on Tuesday I was up and in town by 8am ready to pick up the vaccine. I was elated that it had finally arrived and that we were finally going to be able to vaccinate. The vaccinating days were so fun, the paravets being very helpful and doing a great job. They all have proved that they listened at the training session.
The aspect of our life here that I enjoy the most is the people whom we have met. Hilda, the program officer, is an amazing woman. She is truly an African woman, working so hard every day. The women here work extremely hard, when I go for runs in the early morning I find them all working in the field while the men go into town to work (or do whatever else to keep busy). And here, they do not have the luxuries that we have when cleaning, cooking and farming. Each time we make a meal we have to start the charcoal stove, which takes at least 15-20 mins (not like turning on a stove burner), then you have only one little stove (about the size of a stove burner) to cook on, so usually we make katoga, which means everything together in one pot. The other day I also washed our car with Milton, a friend of ours. He was insistant upon helping me, and so we drove down to the lake and hand washed the car, with a cloth and bucket and hand soap: no fancy pressure washer. It took some time to make it look nice, especially to wash off the stubborn red dirt that we accumulate during our field work.
Doing laundry is also a workout: no washing machines my friend.
Although everything is a lot of work, it makes you appreciate what we have and realize that we don't need a lot of the tools that we use. As long as you have a lot of time and a bit of patience.
Some mornings I get up, help Hilda sweep, do my laundry then start the charcoal stove and boil some milk from the milk man for African tea. I like being an African woman, and hope that when I return home I will appreciate the luxuries we are blessed with and remember how strong my African counterparts are.