This week

Monday, June 14, 2010
This morning we did nothing, but this afternoon we had an amazing two hour meeting with Martin, one of the data guys at TASO. He pretty much designed our project for us and told us step by step what we need to do.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010
We went into Tuesday with some purpose. We spent the day researching articles that we can use as background information for our project. As much as I hate doing research and usually can't focus (compared to Nrupa who is a research machine), it was so nice to actually have something semi-meaningful to do. I finished off the day by watching three football matches. And two of the three were exciting ones to boot!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Today we went to work with the intention of completing more research, but ended up going to Bukedea district for an outreach. This was a specific one called CDDP--Community Drug Distribution Point. It was the same as the first outreach we went on, where we took client's weights and refilled their ARVs. It was actually kind of boring just because we are limited in our ability to help both because of language barriers and lack of qualifications (ie: we're not nurses, doctors, counselors, etc). Though it was fun because we were joking around with the nurse, Ogolgol (aka George Allen, but he prefers his local name). It's amazing the racey comments that our TASO co-workers say. At one point, in reference to paperwork he was completing for a client, he joked: "This woman isn't sexually active, unlike Nrupa." Also, he kept asking probing questions about our relationships, often about why we're not yet married and don't have kids. This is a very insensitive comment, but while Ogolgol was asking me questions about dowries and marriage rights in the US, I couldn't help but think how limited his knowledge of Western culture was given his regular contact with students from GW and UBC. Not that that's a bad thing. It doesn't really matter either way and in reality I wouldn't expect him to have a strong understanding of the West given that he's never been there. I've been in Uganda for a month and am still learning new things about the culture every day. On Monday Martin asked us to name a some Ugandan tribes. We started listing things we thought were tribes as he laughed at us. We're still think our answers were correct, but are now self-conscious about that and trying to learn a new tribe every day. We're also still working on our languages, even though a different one is spoken in every village we visit. I can barely remember what the languages are called, so I have no idea how I'm going to remember any of the words...