Trip Highlight & Wk3 for the Intervention

This time I’m going to start out with the personal side – because this morning will definitely be a highlight of the trip. This morning I ate a granola bar, cut my hair (by myself!), and went for a run. It was a nice cool night with a little rain (of course) and the clouds have hung around all morning – so it was humid, but not too hot or sunny. I ran out of town and took a new road. At a certain point the road split into three paths – one double track and two 2-feet-wide paths, one of which followed old, abandoned railroad tracks. At the intersection there were three older people talking - one of the men on a bike asked if I was lost. Grateful to come across someone who spoke English after trying some roads that led nowhere, I asked him which of these roads went the farthest. He told me to follow the railroad tracks and how to loop back to Gulu.

Second Intervention Week

The second week of our intervention pilot is over. This week we actually started teaching some of the parenting skills. So far, they haven’t really picked them up – this might be because of a combination of things but it is all good information in this process of feasibility testing and cultural adaptation. We aren’t introducing new skills this week so hopefully they will have more time to practice and home. We also had a few more focus groups. We had one with fathers, one with 18-25 year olds, and [an unplanned] one with mothers.

First Intervention Week

The first week of the intervention went well – the women were really engaged and interested and we have learned a lot about them, the struggles they have, their strength and resilience, and things we need to change before coming back. The most powerful and moving thing so far was a meeting we had on Saturday.

Upside: Intervention - Downside: No Water

The intervention started yesterday with 14 mothers. They all thanked us for being there and seemed interested in the information – hopefully that interest stays for the next month. Four of the mothers brought small children who walked around from mother to mother. Two came over to me at different times and plopped down in my lap – one was even generous enough to try feed me. The energy in the room was good even though we had some logistical things, like consent, to get through. The counselors translating for us were great and everyone is optimistic it will go well.

In other news – it seems Gulu is having a water crisis. I guess we haven’t had water coming to our place for a week and we have now used up our tank. The pumps where we can fill jerry cans are running out of water and even the places that charge for water are running out. We can still find bottled water to drink but someone is going to have to drive to fill cans for showering and washing dishes. Unfortunately, because we have indoor plumbing at our house we don’t have an outdoor latrine either – so we will have to start walking to the vivo office to use the outhouse. And last night, before we knew how bad it was, it was pouring and we weren’t even home to collect water. Oh well – life living in Gulu :)

Another Brief - but Less Urgent - Update

Great and unexpected news - the little grocery store had dairy products today! It is amazing the joy brought on by yogurt and the number of meal possibilities that open because of butter. Also noteworthy - I went to a nightclub with the counselors last night, rode on a boda, and played soccer with the neighbor kids this afternoon.

The intervention starts tomorrow!

(In case you missed it - here is the reason for traveling to Uganda.)

Extra Brief, Somewhat Urgent Update

...two people, lots poison spray, one broom, one sandal, 15 minutes, and a lot of gross feelings later we have averted our first kitchen-counter-cockroach experience.

Seriously, these are one of the few things that get to me.

Training Complete - Quick Update and Pictures

Today we finished the four day training in family counseling for the vivo counselors. It went really well and we are actually going to offer a little more training and ongoing consultation while we are here. They are dealing with some really sad and complicated cases. Hopefully the training was beneficial to them but I can say that it was certainly great to be a part of for Liz and me.