2nd week back in America

I’ll be the first to admit that so far my transition back has been much easier than I ever anticipated! I’m loving being home though I certainly miss the beautiful Ugandan country side and my Ugandan friends.

Highlights from last week:

1. Attending St. Mark’s Episcopal church in Raleigh and visiting with old friends. I’ve been attending St. Marks off and on since 2003 so it was great to see everyone!

2. Cooking up a storm- One of the things I missed most in Uganda was being able to cook and shop for a variety of foods. In the last week I’ve made fresh banana bread, meat loaf, a cheese and yellow squash casserole (always one of my favorites that my mom used to make for me), eggplant Parmesan, couscous, London broil, and sweet corn on the cob just to name a few.

3. Taking care of business- Since I had two weeks off before I returned to work, I’ve been able to get a lot done around the house. It’s been nice to see my to-do list get a little shorter; house is power washed, lawn is cut, car is clean, dog went to the vet, me to the doctor, lots of food has been cooked and baked, clothes washed, and I even got a new washing machine.

4. My first Jaycee meeting in six months- It was so great to go to my first Jaycee meeting last week and to see so many friends! I was even in mentioned in the presidents closing comments as an example of what can happen when you step out of your box and try something new! I can testify that you never know where life will take you.

5. Home sweet home- Last Thursday, I drove home to beautiful Loudoun County, Virginia to visit with family and friends. I got to meet my best friend from high school s’ little boy who was born while I was in Africa. He is absolutely precious! I also had dinner with a dear group of high school friends, they had the pleasure of sitting though a 2 hour Ugandan slide show! On the way up to Virginia I stopped and visited with my 81 year old Aunt in Maryland.

Two upcomming events

I am hosting two upcoming events inspired by my time in Uganda! All are welcome to attend.

August 17th-Life in an African Village

“Life in an African Village” is a interactive presentation of my experience living and working in the African country of Uganda. I spent six months in 2009 based in Bigodi, a small rural village at the base of the Rwenzori mountains in Western Uganda. My work as a conservation education trainer for the UNITE project of the NC Zoo allowed me to experience, first hand, what life is like in a developing country.

Did you know that many Ugandans are subsistence farmers and provide for their families on less than a $1 a day? "Life in an African Village" is a presentation which will provide an overview of (a.) everyday life in Western Uganda, (b.) my experience working with teachers in ten rural schools that surround Kibale National Park, and (c.) international projects that may interest you!

This event will be held at the Raleigh Jaycee office located at The Flagship Building, 4332 Bland Street in Raleigh North Carolina at 7pm on August 17th. Please RSVP to jamilync@yahoo.com

August 21st- Taste of Africa

Instead of having a traditional welcome back party I am hosting a small fundraiser at my home.

In celebration of my recent trip to Uganda, join us for an evening of good food and friends!

We will be feasting on traditional Ugandan food such as chapatti (yummy fry bread), matooke (steamed plantains), medozes (donuts), posha (similar to grits), ground nut sauce (peanut sauce), and other traditional foods. You won’t want to miss the slideshow of pictures from this picturesque country. Baskets and jewelry made by the women of Bigodi (the village where I lived for six months) will be for sale. My souvenirs will also be on display.

All donations & proceeds from items sold will be sent back to the help fund community projects in Bigodi, Uganda.

This event will be held at my home in Clayton, North Carolina at 7pm on August 21st. Please RSVP to jamilync@yahoo.com

Home Sweet Home

*** When I started this blog I intended just to blog while I was in Uganda but I’ve had such a great time with it that I’m going to continue it at least for a while. Don’t worry even though I am now back on American soil, I will still continue to be involved in projects to help my friends living in Western Uganda. I will post those events here ….

Thanks to all your prayers and positive thoughts I had a safe trip home and landed on July 25th! It’s hard to believe that I’ve been back home for nearly a week now! Time truly flies when you’re having fun! After a long trip home with a wonderful layover in London, I’ve had a great low key week back in NC. Here are just a few highlights from my first week back in America.

1. Landing at RDU and seeing the sign for the PONY tournament which is of course run by the Raleigh Jaycees! I knew I was home…

2. Waking up in downtown Raleigh with a view of our beautiful city, a perfect way to spend my first night back.

3. Seeing my house for the first time and being relived that it was all in one piece!! After living without so much for so long I realized how much stuff I have!! I’ve been wedding though much of it this week, like do I really need five winter coats?? The size of my bedroom amazes me, it’s at least two and half times the size of my entire house in Uganda! To put it into perspective my banda in Uganda was smaller than Henry David Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond.

4. Spending time with my three furry children- when I left for Uganda my kittens where just six & seven months old, now they are full fledged cats. It has been great to spend time with them and my five year old dog Juno! I was so blessed to have great friends taking such good care of them while I was gone; all three were very well taken care of.

5. Cooking- one of the things I missed most was being able to cook and prepare my own meals. I’ll admit it was certainly a luxury to have all of my meals( not to mention my laundry )prepared for me everyday however, I did miss cooking. So far I’ve made pretty simple dishes; I think my most complicated was a breakfast scramble with smoked salmon, spinach, mushrooms, and dill! Just that fact that I have a refrigerator has opened up a whole new culinary world; I can have dairy, orange juice, cold water, ice cream, all things that I have missed!

6. It is just like a ridding a bike- since I admittedly I am not the best driver I was a bit nervous getting behind the wheel for the first time in six months! Thankfully, it is just like ridding a bicycle and I hadn’t forgotten how.

7. Enjoying the great metropolis of Clayton, NC- While I work in Raleigh, I live in a small town just about 20 minutes south east. It has always reminded me of the small towns in Virginia that I grew up in. In the past I have often been two busy to enjoy living here instead spending much of my time in Raleigh. This week I’ve gone to our new farmers market (not quite like the ones I grew up selling at around the DC metro area), had my late fees forgiven at the library (evidently one library book was in my car the entire time I was in Uganda), and danced the night away to great band at the local bar just a couple miles from my house!

8. Thank you - I’ve been blessed though this entire journey to be supported by an entire “village” back here and it hasn’t ended yet. Before I even landed my car wasn’t working so three of my friends took care of it so that it was in working order when I got back! Before I got my plates back on my car Monday afternoon, my friend Stacy spent nearly an entire day running errands with me. From pet sitters to package senders to taking care of my bills to just listening to me when I had a rough day in Uganda; I could not have done this without everyone’s support.
9. Spending time with loved ones- The best part of this week has truly been just catching up with old dear friends. There have been lunches and dinners where we tried to catch each other up on the past six months. Laid back evenings just catching up in my living room, cooking for my sweetheart, long phone calls with those I haven’t seen yet, and lots of relishing in the simple moments. I am so blessed to have such amazing people in my life!!

10. Abundance- As time goes on I will begin to process my time in Uganda, for now I’m just truly to recalculate to my life here. In all honesty, it was been much easier to slide back in to my old life than I ever expected. Everything seems completely normal and just as it should. Right now my time in Uganda feels like a very, very, very, very long dream and this feels normal.

One thing that has struck me is the absolute abundance of everything that we have available at our fingertips. Even in my little town of Clayton, I have the choice of nearly any cuisine for any meal that I could want instead of just what I can grow in my garden. I have enough clothes in my closet to clothe half the women in Bigodi! I certainly have enough furniture for a few homes. We all have a car instead of being the only one in the village with one. Going into Target, Wal-Mart, and Lowes Foods were all lessons on abundance; I haven’t seen that much stuff since I left the states. While I believe we have and use more than we need we are so very blessed to be Americans!

My experience in Uganda will always be with me and I will always be grateful that I took that leap of faith. However, for now it is great to be home!!

The long journey home

Thank you all for your support throughout this adventure! It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in Uganda almost six months!

Tomorrow (Thursday) morning, I leave Bigodi to start the long journey home. My friend Julia will drive us to Fort Portal where I have one last school presentation to make than we will travel the five hours to Kampala for some last minute shopping. Next is a taxi ride to Entebbe, where I will be spending Thursday night. Friday morning, I depart at 9am from Entebbe on British Air and fly to LONDON where I have a 20 hour layover.

Friday evening will be spent catching up with my friend Tiffany (who stayed with us for a couple of weeks her in Bigodi) than staying at a hotel at Heathrow. Saturday, I leave London at noon again on British Air and get to Philly about 2:30pm. After going though customs and a three hour layover, I leave Philly at 6:40pm on an US Air flight and arrive at RDU about 8pm.

Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers for a safe journey home!

Week of July 6th-13th

It is hard to believe that I will be leaving Uganda in 11 short days. What an amazing experience this has turned out to be. This week’s blog will be shorter than normal as things are very busy with last minute school visits, meetings, and reporting. It feels like there is not enough time to get everything done before I leave.

A country of extremes- While the farmers were all complaining that rainy season was less rainy than normal; it was certainly more than enough rain for me. Many days I couldn’t do computer work because it rained all day and therefore we wouldn’t have any solar power. We are now officially into dry season and a drought. To the point that when I woke up this morning I was told that we couldn’t wash clothes today because we didn’t have any water! It also feels like we are living Stienbeck’s great dust bowl of America. Without any rain the roads are so dusty that I have to keep my eyes closed when ridding on a boda-boda; I just hope the driver has his eyes open!

An international dinner table- Last week, I stayed at my favorite guest house in Fort Portal as I was working on reporting and data entry that needs to be done before I leave the country. There were fascinating guests from all over the world! We eat family style at dinner so I dinned with people from Ireland, England, Germany, Uganda, NYC, the Netherlands, and Massachusetts. Some were on vacation traveling to all the great parks that Uganda has to offer. Others were working on projects ranging from doctors with a boarders, community libraries, church schools, school improvement and eco tourism. I even met a family with three kids from America who had been here eight years!

Data entry even in Africa- Last week, I entered over 500 surveys from children and teachers into a spreadsheet. While the work is not very exciting to say the least, it was heart breaking to see the following comments from children:

"If you go into the national park the wild animals there can eat you"!

In answer to what are the biggest environmental problems in Kibale National Park many replied with: that’s where rebels hide and animals that kill people live there (elephants)!

In answer to what you like most about forest, most children replied getting firewood!

The teachers had more uplifting comments:

“I am very grateful with the methods used by Jamilyn Cole when presenting to us and how she involved all of us actively in learning situations.”

“I truly appreciate for the arrangement of this training for it has made a great change in my way of doing things. “

“The training was so nice. May God bless Jamilyn Cole.”

“Let this UNITE remain forever and ever.”

“I leanrt many methods of teaching the conservation of environmental education.”

Most helpful “The methods and teaching games. Confidence and decent dressing of the facilitator Ms Jamilyn (African style of dressing not trousers).”

Mark your calendars

In celebration of my recent trip to Uganda, join us for an evening of good food and friends!

Date: August 21st
Time: 7:00pm
Location: My house in Clayton NC

We will be feasting on traditional Ugandan food such as chapatti (yummy fry bread), matooke (steamed plantains), medozes (donuts), posha (similar to grits), ground nut sauce (peanut sauce), and other traditional foods. You won’t want to miss the slideshow of pictures from this picturesque country. Baskets and jewelry made by the women of Bigodi (the village where I lived for six months) will be for sale. My souvenirs will also be on display.

All donations & proceeds from items sold will be sent back to the help fund community projects in Bigodi, Uganda.

The realties of living in Uganda

Week of June 29th-July 6th

For most of my time here, I’ve been able to escape the daily hardships of living in western rural Uganda. I live with the most prominent family in our village; we are the only family with a car and solar power. Unlike most of the other women my age I do not dig in a garden daily with a baby on my back. Even here in Uganda, I make monthly what most people make in two-three years. This week I experienced first hand the challenges of living in this area of the world.

An attack in the forest- A week ago today, one of the researchers I know was captured at gun point in Kibale National Park. After spending all night on the forest floor, he was able to escape in the morning and get back to the research station. At this point the assumption is that they were poachers. Years ago rebels used to hide out in the forest but it has been a long time since anyone has seen rebels in the park.

Conservation and survival- People who work in the field of conservation here and many places around the world are often at odds with people who are just trying to survive.

Everyone who lives in the communities surrounding the park use either firewood or charcoal to do all of their cooking. Which means everyday there is firewood to be gathered. Many people don’t think anything about crossing the park boundaries to get firewood. One of the organizations we work with is trying to encourage people to plant trees on their own property that they will than harvest for firewood but it hasn’t been embraced by the community yet. The same organization is also training people how to build stoves that will use less wood.

Locals here do not see the primates who live in the park as cute like many of us from the west do. Instead many here seem them as a nuisance as it’s the primates and other animals that raid people’s gardens here. I was in a meeting last week where one of the major items of discussion was what to do about the elephants that had crossed the park boundaries and were destroying gardens.

While people don’t eat much bush meat (primates) as they have in years passed, poaching still occurs in the forest. I was with a group of students recently and the ranger speaking to them knew whose parents were regular hunters in the park.

On the other hand many people in the surrounding committees know that the park and other local conservation sites provide jobs and that the tourists bring money into the local communities. So there is a constant struggle.

Accidents happen everywhere- Tiffany (our new housemate) was walking to the swamp with guide as she had done at least twice a day for the last two weeks when she was hit by a bicycle. The driver of the bike had lost complete control of the bike as it came careening over the hill at top speed. Tiffany was knocked backwards onto the gravel road. After applying basic first aid to her most visible wounds, I was able to convince Tinka that we needed to take her to the hospital in Fort Portal. I was very concerned because she was in a terrible amount of pain in her back and was asking the same questions over and over again.

Almost two hours after the accident occurred we arrived in Fort Portal where we had to go to three hospitals until we found one who could do x-rays that evening. By evening we had learned that she had a broken bone in her hand, a concussion, a compressed vertebrae, and had to have stitches in five places including on her head!

She was in the hospital for the next three days and two nights. I stayed with her the entire time to help navigate the language and cultural barriers. The hospital looked like something out of the 1900’s. There were about ten rooms all around a central courtyard that looked like it had been bombed at some point. Seriously, the courtyard was full of concrete rubble and a low hanging clothes line that patients had to navigate to get to the one bathroom or the surgery room. There were no electronic monitoring devices in the patients’ rooms. We had to supply our own sheets/blankets for the beds and there were no pillows. The care was so basic, about all they could do for her is clean her wounds, take x-rays, and give pain meds.

The sad thing is even with that basic care it’s more than most Ugandan’s receive. The boy (20 years old) who was driving the bike went to health clinic in Bigodi which is basically just a first aid clinic. Once his wounds were dressed he than went to another district (county)- to hid himself because he was afraid thatsince he hit a mazuga he would go to jail. Once I reassured his stepmom that he would not go to jail and that he needed medical treatment (he has a head injury), the next issue became payment. They didn’t have the money for treatment. Nothing breaks my heart more than someone not receiving medical care simply because they can’t pay for it. I offered to pay for his treatment but they have been unable to locate him.

Teenage pregnancy- A girl who is just 14 who attended one of the schools I work with gave birth last week. One of the many sad aspects of this situation, is she was at school on Monday no one knew she was pregnant and by Wednesday she had given birth. Many, many girls here get pregnant and or married very young. When I go to visit the secondary school there are so few girls in the classes because most have dropped out of school by than.

Field trips- On a happier note two of our schools went to Kibale National Park on field trips this week. Even though they all live within just miles of the park, none had ever been into the park legally. Many had crossed the park boundaries to get firewood or to hunt for their families. It is a little frustrating that some of the park staff put more emphasis on their foreign guest than the local youth who are the ones who directly impact the park. However, I am glad we able to take them on an official tour. This week we have kids going on their first visit to the botanical gardens in Fort Portal.

Classroom visits- We visited three schools last week, it was great to see all the hands on and conservation lessons that they are doing with the students. I even got to teach a class of 204 second graders- yes there were 104 all in one class! It is frustrating when we go to schools and teachers are absent. There is a very high rate of absenteeism among teachers and since there are no substitute teachers, when a teacher misses school that class is on it’s own for the day or another teacher will try to cover two classes. Neither works well.

No place like home-I’ll admit it after being here five and a half months; I am looking forward to going home. It’s the little things I’m looking forward to the most; hanging out with my pets, catching up with friends, enjoying good food, chilling on my back deck, and just enjoying being home.