Weekend 1 - Mabira Forest Reserve and floating on the Nile

Floating on the Nile near Jinja

Instead of spending any time getting to know my new city, I spent my first weekend away. Nancy (a new colleague) and I went to the Mabira Forest Reserve, a little more than an hour east of Kampala on the way to Jinja. Saturday afternoon we went for a float trip on the Nile – and swam over rapids!

Rapids on the Nile


The lodge we stayed at wasn’t quite open. Aside from me and Nancy, there were only two other guests. Turns out they were from Irvine, went to the same college, and lived in Brooklyn before moving to Kampala. And here I thought I was going to meet people from other places…

















We went for two long walks in the forest around the lodge. On the morning walk, I tried to take pictures of the hundreds of butterflies around, but most of them wouldn’t pose for me. Next time I will succeed in getting a pic of my favorite one, which had teal and black wings. Amazing foliage, too! Unfortunately, a quarter of the forest may soon become sugarcane fields.

And Straight to Work.

Preparing slide samples in the Pathology Dept

I timed my move here to coincide with some field visits by a colleague, so I spent almost no time in the office my first week here. Instead, I met visited health centers and hospitals in the capital Kampala, talked about service delivery and saw the cold chain in the Masaka district, and met lots of interesting folks along the way. A lot of information, but a great introduction to what’s happening on the ground!



















A stop at the equator between Kampala and Masaka
















A health education session at a Masaka health center















A condom delivery to the district health stores

Home Sweet Temporary Home

Leslie is kindly putting me up at her place while I get on my feet. Her neighborhood, Bunga, is a little ways out of town, but it's got a great garden and we're right on the edge of Lake Victoria. Beautiful sunrises every day, and people fishing practically in the backyard. Lucy (the yellow dog) and Coby (the German shepherd) are two of my new companions here.

Decoys and Surprises.

I’m terrible at making plans. I worry that things won’t work out, and have a particular knack for procrastinating my way into making sure that they don’t. I wouldn’t ordinarily throw myself a party, but I decided moving away without trying to get people together would be just too weird.

Kody tried to convince me to wait until I came back in June. Which would normally make sense to me (Yay! Permission to procrastinate!), but makes no sense from Kodiak “why don’t you just tell people what’s going on” Starr. So clearly something was up.

1 decoy evening out with Tom, 1 surprise-revealing email (when I excercised serious self control not to read), 1 email to throw me off the track, 2 dozen cupcakes and 1 mean but delicious cake later, here we are. You guys are awesome.

Clearing out.

So I guess I’m really doing this. As much as I love New York, I’ve thought about leaving for a while now. I thought maybe Boston or DC or Phili. Or maybe I’d move abroad. Put that EU citizenship to use and get a job in London or France. I really never considered moving to Africa. I’m excited and terrified and have been anxious to go but worried about everything that I’ll leave behind.

While the movers were packing my things, I wondered how I managed to cram this much stuff into a one bedroom apartment that only has a single closet. When I moved here in 2001 I came with three bags. Even after I got an apartment, I was so noncommittal that I wouldn’t buy myself a bed until a guest came to town. 5+ years later I’ve accumulatde a moving truck worth of things. Some of these things – like my eyeglasses, contact lenses, and bug repellent – really should not have ended up on that truck. They tell me the box said “SEA”, so I’m hoping they turn up in Kampala one day.

Getting ready to go

Friday was the turning point, and I decided that it's time to start my blog. I choose a date to leave New York, which may or may not happen on time. But, at least now I have a target to shoot for. A target which is frighteningly close, but at least I won't have a long, slow winding down...

So, my date is........ April 20th.

Uganda, here I come!