I simply cannot believe how fast my time here has flown by. It seems like just yesterday I was waking up to make the trip to Gulu for the very first time. I guess its true what they say-time flies when you’re having fun.
On Saturday I spent most of the day at you guessed it-the Iron Donkey. Since the hard copies of all of the forms we used for the study will be staying in Gulu, I have to make sure that everything is uploaded correctly before I leave. This task is by no means hard it can just be very time consuming, especially since some of the families we enrolled were composed of 10+ members. In the evening, a bunch of us headed over to Sophie’s (where I will hopefully be living when I return!) to enjoy some pizza and beer. We had intentions of watching a movie but we ended up chatting for hours instead-something we could probably do for days. We all have such different schedules and different experiences during the week and its nice to tell stories at the end. (Sophie and Helen are doctors so I may enjoy their stories more than the rest of my friends..)
Easter Sunday happened to be Sarah’s birthday so I spent a majority of the day celebrating with her. I had full intentions of attending mass in the morning but I could not find anyone to go with me and with current events, being a westerner in a church was not exactly where I wanted to be. Once again hoping that the big man will forgive me. At around noon a bunch of us met at Iron Donkey for brunch. If you think I’m a regular, Sarah gets the gold star. She has been in Gulu since the fall and it’s definitely her favorite spot (rightfully so). They don’t normally do brunch but since it was their favorite customers birthday, they made an exception. And let me tell you- it was absolutely delicious. They served us scrambled eggs, sausage and pancakes (see mom-mom I’m having no trouble eating here….) We spent the afternoon just hanging out and not doing much else. It rained the whole weekend, which brings the number of activities to do in Gulu down to about zero.
The crew at brunch
The birthday girl
In the evening I headed out to Sarah’s house where a group of us had dinner, cake and some birthday cocktails. Unlike in the US where many places are closed on Easter it is the exact opposite here. At night we went to Signature, a local bar, expecting it to be fairly empty-WRONG. You would have thought that it was New Years Eve. The bar (or “nightclub” as they like to call it) was jam-packed. Apparently since most people take off work for Easter Monday, Easter Day is one of the biggest party days of the year. We spent about an hour at Signature and then headed to BJ’s, which is an outdoor bar/restaurant (the one which hosts trivia). This is known for being the “Mzungu” hangout and since so many people were out I was able to meet a lot of volunteers I had never talked to before. There really are a lot of volunteers here; you just have to find them. Even 2 weeks ago I met a girl from North Carolina named Jessamy who is my age. Turns out she’s good friends with someone in my sorority-small world!
Honestly don’t know what I would have done without these two
Monday was really uneventful. I went over to Sarah and Iesha’s place and we watched “Unbroken” in the afternoon. Honestly, we all thought that it was going to be much better than it was. Thanks for letting us down Angelina. On my way home from their place the sky turned black and it looked like a hurricane was about to hit. I still haven’t gotten use to how fast it goes from sunny to stormy here (even though I experience it everyday). Good news is I found out that its not really rainy season…its more like rainy year. The “season” goes until about the end of November and apparently in August, the roads are just closed because you can’t move. As my European friends would say, “lovely, just lovely.”
As for this week, I am tying up lose ends and helping the nurses get organized. Since Twalib is leaving 2 days after me and will not be returning until June, we have been making a list of duties to keep them busy while he is away.
This morning was the monthly injection clinic so I helped the nurses in anyway that I could. Even 2 months later it still shocks me how these kids come and wait in line for up to 2 hours and do not complain. There were even some Outpatients who came from very far to see Dr. Aliku. Unfortunately he will not be in Gulu until tomorrow so they are just going to “spend the night” at the hospital on whatever floor or empty bed that they can find.
One week from today I will be leaving Uganda and heading to France to see my wonderful parents and I could not be more excited! Although my time here passed with a blink of an eye it definitely feels like it has been 10 months since I have seen them.
Lastly, I want to give a huge shout out to Anne, one of my best friends from high school. She is the reason behind why I was given the opportunity to have an article published for the online journal “America Within”- check it out here.
That’s all I’ve got. Happy hump day.
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