McJJ's March Updates

Time is passing at a fast clip now, with the past few months including a great deal of travel and the heart of Shannon’s research, so we are a little behind on posting about our March. For this blog, we wanted this blog to capture not just our travels, but our life in Uganda.  

 

After 6 months of applying for approval from 2 research ethics boards and permission from the Ugandan government, Shannon was finally able to start her Photovoice research in early March. She met with the 21 Congolese refugee women who are residents of Kampala. The first meeting was on March 8, which is International Women’s Day and a public holiday here in Uganda.  Shannon ordered cakes from Kabira Country Club to celebrate with the women.  Noah stepped into the integral position of Project and Accounts coordinator to help with the numerous details that are challenging to organize and implement in a U.S. based context and even more so in Uganda.  The list is endless, but key activities were procuring phones to be used for taking pictures with, getting smaller notes of Ugandan shillings to pay the participants, and finding places to make photocopies.  

Cake for Women's Day and                     Kampala copy shop

                             Two Amazing Research Team

                             Members

Noah also learned how to use Uber or the better option of Bolt here, in order to get Zalina to school on all Wednesdays in March since Shannon had to be in Nsambya in the morning- an area of Kampala on the South side of town, far from our apartment, which can be a 45 minute drive or a 2.5 hour drive depending on Kampala traffic.  When not helping out with the research, Noah kept very busy coordinating our April/May travel- which you will soon hear about-  including bookings for Europe, bookings for Uganda, going to the Uganda Wildlife Authority to purchase gorilla trekking permits, and bookings for South Africa.  Noah also found a group of people to play ultimate frisbee with and enjoyed doing that on most Sundays during the latter part of February and all of March.  It’s a group of Ugandans who are trying to grow the sport, so they have more drills and training than Noah cares for, but they do scrimmage as well, which has been great.  Noah has also been running a lot (on a treadmill) as he looks toward running a marathon in 2024-hopefully with Shannon's cousin Kathleen- to celebrate his 50^th birthday!  

Another March highlight was a great concert at Makerere University that was put on by the University and the US Embassy, to celebrate 60 years of collaboration between Uganda and the U.S.  Black Alley is a hip-hop/rock group from Washington, DC who is touring Africa as part of the American Music Abroad program. We sat in a tent with the Ambassador and various other guests of the Embassy.  The opening acts were Ugandan musicians Navio, Tushi Nabakyala and St Nellysade.  It was a fun night, with lots of dancing (the Ambassador and students, but NOT the embarrassing parents of a certain 11-year old) and good music.  Zalina has been enjoying school and working hard at all 15 of her classes. She is still counting down the days until we return home, but is also getting sad about the new friends she has made and will miss when she is back in the US. 

Spending all of March in Uganda also allowed us time to gather with old and new friends.  Early in March, we welcomed Dr, Everd Maniple and some of his family into our home for dinner.  Maniple was Shannon’s Department Chair when she started her teaching career at Uganda Martyr’s University back in 2005  and they have kept in touch ever since.  It has been a joy to get to know some great people in our time here in Kampala, people from both here and home.  At the dinner with Maniple, we also hosted Mehal, a Fulbright student from Georgia who is here in Uganda prior to heading to medical school in the fall in the U.S.  We had to say goodbye to a pair of Fulbright student scholars conducting their doctoral research who lived in our neighborhood.  Lauren and John are from Madison, Wisconsin and were both doing research in Uganda, and had their 3-year old daughter in-country as well.  They fit us into their busy schedule of their last week in Kampala where we were able to enjoy the amazing view of Kampala from the Skyz Hotel shortly before they headed back to the States.  Later in the month, we spent a great evening with our friends Tommy and Schola, who we met for the first time in September and became fast friends with. We have enjoyed so many great meals together including Thanksgiving at our place and a Christmas celebration at  theirs, as well as several other afternoons and nights out with all six of us- their daughter Briana is at the same school as Zalina, and although five grades younger, she is always very excited to see Z!  

We have traveled a lot since we came to Kampala, both inside and outside of Uganda, but the month of March was what we truly came for, Shannon doing research and teaching, getting to know folks who are here, and just enjoying this beautiful country.  Our only travels for the month were a nice long weekend to Kalangala, on the Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria.  We had intended to stay just after Christmas, but our plans were disrupted when our flight home from London was cancelled, and we had an extra four days in the UK.  We decided to go in March, since it was the longest time between other travels.  We stayed at the Brovad Sands Lodge, which is quite the weekend destination from Kampala.  They have a boat that takes people from Entebbe each Friday afternoon, which we took.  It was a little delayed in leaving, but the other people just started the party there on the shore.  One large group was celebrating a couple’s 10-year anniversary, and another was for a women’s birthday getaway.  The lodge was right on the lake and quite nice.  As with most lodges here, they are full board, so we ate all meals there in the dining room.  Shannon and I took a walk into town for some supplies, which was fun, as the town is a ways uphill from the coast, so we had some magnificent views of the islands and Lake Victoria.  Back at the lodge, music was blasting from a DJ next to the two pools.  The weather forecast called for a lot of rain (March is, in fact, the rainy season), but it ended up being mostly a sunny weekend, so we were able to enjoy a lot of pool time.  The boat that arrived on Friday left Sunday at 2pm, with most of the guests of the lodge, so Sunday was a quieter and more relaxing day.  We had a very nice sunset paddle boat ride before dinner.  Monday, we took a ferry back, although it was a boat much like the one we had taken to get to the lodge.  The weather was substantially worse on Monday with giant waves in Lake Victoria, tossing the boat around and crashing over the entire boat, feeling much like we were within a waterfall at times.  One the good side, we were inside and dry, on the bad side, it was enough to make quite a few people-including Shannon- VERY seasick, so not a pleasant journey at all.  

 

 

Many people here ask us how we have found Uganda.  I would say that we have found it beautiful and welcoming.  We have all had to make some adjustments and there have been bumps along the way, but overall, the time in Uganda has been amazing.  This is a wonderful country! If you are looking to visit Africa, Uganda is a great option. Kampala is a big city with good restaurants and (almost) all the amenities of home, and within Uganda you can visit the source of the Nile, take game drives to see all of the big 5 (lions, leopards, African buffalo, rhinoceros, and elephant) along with zebras, giraffes, crocodiles, mountain gorillas, as well as too many birds to mention.  Our first guests arrived in April and we were able to explore even more corners of the country.....next blog post coming very soon on that, as well as our adventures in several other countries in April and May.