Update on Gen's Activities: July 29 to August 13

Arua, Uganda- Visit to Our New Home (July 29 to August 5): Gen and her colleague were introduced to Arua by a Language and Cultural Facilitator (LCF) who traveled with them and who hails from Arua. Along the way, Gen was regaled by sights of baboons, macaques, birds (which she couldn’t identify but appreciated), elephants, the Nile River and Uganda’s countryside, which showcased farms, traditional huts and rural Ugandans in action. She and her colleague (Janet) were greeted by their home-stay host families and shared with them afternoon tea at White Castle Hotel. Amazingly, the host families had vehicles that eased transport issue from the hotel to their respective homes. Gen and Janet had fun participating with their respective host families’ activities after each day’s formal orientation sessions with their host country colleagues. They toured local government offices and institutions and met local officials including staff members at the Arua Regional Referral Hospital. They also had Lugbarati language lessons with Alice, their LCF. They have mastered their greetings and leave takings! Awadifo saaru (Thank you very much)!

August 6 to 13: Going back to Kampala, Gen traveled with PC staff members who were in Arua for a workshop. At the end of the trip, she and her fellow passengers enjoyed tasting fruits (highlight: Atis and Guyabano) in season found along the way. It took 9 hours to arrive at the hotel in Kampala. Craig beat Gen by 10 minutes in checking into Kolping Hotel- Kampala. More orientation sessions happened including a tour of Uganda’s national referral hospital, Mulago. Mulago is a multi-building health service delivery complex which caters to all of Ugandans’ health care needs. Gen and her colleagues also visited a traditional healer and a bone-setter. The visit to Kampala ended with the Swearing-In ceremony.

Update on Gen's Activities

Orientation in Washington, DC (July 12 to 22): Gen spent 10 days in Washington, DC to prepare for her volunteer work in Uganda. Although a Returned Peace Corps volunteer (RPCV), Gen had never seen nor set foot in Peace Corps’ Headquarters (PCHQ) until this time. She became acquainted with PCHQ during her orientation as a 2015 Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP) Peace Corps Response volunteer (PCRV). Her days are packed with sessions necessary to prepare her for her role as a Nurse Educator in one of Uganda’s universities. She met her doctor and nurse colleagues who are like her slated to depart in one of the 3 GHSP partner countries: Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. She also met some spouses of these colleagues who are serving as PCR volunteers. Being in DC gave Gen the opportunity to re-explore the area a little bit (we visited DC at least 10 years ago) and reconnect with friends whom she has not seen face to face for as long as 20 years like Marion, her college friend. Although Gen and Marion have stayed in touch through the years through snail mail at first, then email and most recently through FB, they have not seen each other since graduation from nursing school. They were able to connect and spent time together at Marion’s home in Charleston County where Gen ate Filipino food and sang along with Marion’s family who were having Karaoke fun- thanks to Marion’s mother in-law who was celebrating her birthday! Gen also met up with friends she met in Guyana and Zambia where she served as a PC volunteer.

Uganda-here comes Gen! (July 23 to 27): Gen and the rest of her colleagues scrambled to prepare for departure for their countries of assignments. Hand-held weighing scales were passed around several days before departure on July 23. Gen like her colleagues has amassed some more heavy nursing reference books and some basic clinical equipment. Thus the needs for the weighing scale to balance out bags. Nobody wants to be charged extra for overweight luggage on top of an extra 3rd bag on an international flight. The Malawi contingent left first early in the morning followed by Tanzania and Uganda which shared a flight from Dulles to Amsterdam. Gen was on a KLM flight all the way from Dulles to Entebbe via Amsterdam and Kigali. She got re-acquainted Amarula, a South African liqueur during the long flight and caught up some of the recently released movies. The arrival to Entebbe was less painful than expected. Despite arriving late at night- 1030pm, Gen was able o retrieve her luggage as soon as she stepped out of immigration. Thankfully, there was only one flight arrival that night which made getting out of Entebbe fast even with having 9 other colleagues who needed to get through immigration and luggage retrieval procedures. Gen and her colleagues arrived in Kampala after midnight and had a midnight “snack” of what is typically served during dinner in Uganda. After room assignments and basic logistic information, everyone went to bed around 230am, July 25 to be ready for session at 9 am of the same day. The first part of in-country orientation lasted until the 29th when they departed fro their respective work sites. In Gen’s case, she headed for Arua in the West Nile Region which is 6 to 8 hours by private or public transportation.