After the meeting ended, about 20 of us headed out to Lake Mburo for the weekend. Our bus had a speed governor (keeps you for going over 80kmph), and lost a window on the way, so it wasn't exactly a speedy drive. The window incident did give all of our visitors the chance to witness some roadside ingenuity, though. We pulled over, explained the problem to a few guys, and in a snap we had a pit crew slotting the window back in and fashioning makeshift braces from scrap metal to hold it in place. A few screws put in by a hand-powered drill, and we were off. (Thanks for the photo, Karen!)

The view from our eco-friendly, all solar lodge was spectacular.
From our cabin (a canvas tent with thatched roof and deck), we could see watering hole and observe impala and zebra taking a drink while we sipped our morning coffee. Against the lodge's advice, we went out for a walking safari during the hottest part of the day. It was nice to move my legs, even if I regretted not bringing a bottle of water. As you might expect, the animals were smarter than us and NAP at high noon.



In the evening we took a boat ride on Lake Mburo. Lots of hippos, kingfishers, fish eagles, one sleepy crocodile, and the beginnings of a lovely sunset. The critters come out again at dusk, so we got to see lots of zebra, baboons, water buffalo, impala, water buck, and one hippo out of the water on the way back to the lodge.


A huge storm kicked up, so immediately after dinner Leslie help the staff batten down the hatches, and we hung out in the bar until it subsided a little. After a guide walked me by lantern-light down the long, dark, steep hill to my cabin, I got to enjoy fire ants. My cabinmate was asleep, so I went outside to talk on the phone, and crouched under an umbrella in the rain while my legs were being attached by these crazy biters. The things we do to talk to the one we love.

I actually DO do some work here, but no interesting pictures of that lately. We hosted a group of 45 finance folks from IAVI's offices and trial sites this week. Aside from the riveting meetings, we managed to squeeze a little fun in, too. After the first day of meetings, my colleague Captain Jan led a fleet of four taxi canoes to pick up the crew for dinner.

After nearly submerging the group when the landing broke – building "up to code" is all relative – we enjoyed a mini-cruise over to Leslie's house.

A performing group was awaiting, and broke out into music when we landed in Bunga.
The dancers were awesome, as evidence by their dancing with clay pots on their heads.

They got the crowd moving, too.

Well, my driving record is still clean but I've officially had my first traffic "incident" in Uganda. Ask me about it sometime, since I'd rather not post the details here. There are MUCH better things you can do with a few hundred thousand shillings, though.

The downside of moving into my place is that I have to actually get set up. I'm using a pre-paid internet card to access the world's slowest internet, so probably no pictures on the blog until I can get over to Leslie's house. I think a decent connection is outrageously expensive, so no skype or emailing photos for a while, either.

:(

I went to watch Harry Potter last night with my friend Jonas. It was entertaining, and had pretty good special effects (maybe because they play no Quidditch in this one), but not a fantastic movie. But it was fun to be watching a blockbuster movie with a huge bag of popcorn and my new favorite soda, Krest bitter lemon. And the previews got me really excited for the Transformers movie.

I had some worried text messages when I got out and checked my phone. Apparently, people were hearing really load explosions in different parts of town. Some near where I was watching Harry Potter, but all the way across town out to Bunga, more than 30 minutes away.

Turns out they were earthquakes! Growing up in California, I’ve felt plenty of tremors, but never heard them like this. They’re shaking up the whole region – starting in Tanzania and radiating out to Kenya and Uganda, and are supposed to last for several more days. I guess that’s why it’s called the rift valley, eh? Kind of makes me that woman from CalPoly who’s always interviewed when a sizeable quake hits California. No one here’s talking about THE BIG ONE, though!

Uganda is ready for CHOGM. At least that’s what the billboards are telling us. Everything is going CHOGM-mad. This November Uganda is hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The Queen of England will come, and lots of very important people will descend on Kampala and Entebbe. So naturally, everyone’s working like mad to spiff up the place. Building tons of new, huge hotels is one part of it. Resurfacing all of the major roads and causing unbelievable traffic disruptions is another.

On the 30km drive from Kampala to Entebbe, half of the road is closed for big stretches. This is an enormous bus from the Civil Aviation Authority overtaking (at high speed!) on just one of those gravel-strewn stretches….


…and the motto on the back of the bus.

No longer homeless! I finally moved into my house today. As you can see, I still don’t have very much. I can’t get a straight answer from anyone on where my container is, so I’m borrowing a few things from Leslie and making do for now. I really hope my things aren’t being sold on the streets of Mombasa.

So far, I’ve managed to acquire mattress, so I can get into (if not exactly into) bed, and my landlady kindly left me a few pieces of furniture. I really need to get some glasses so I can have a house warming party….

My new neighborhood is called Muyenga. It’s up on a hill, about 20 minutes or so from town (if there’s no traffic, which there always is). I’m looking forward to this weekend, when I can start to explore what’s around. So far, I’ve seen that there’s a really good Italian butchery/shop, some sort of swimming and sauna club, and some roads that might be decent for bike riding. Fewer mosquitoes that Bunga where I was staying, but I’ll kind of miss all of the enormous frogs that would come in the house (and croak at a tremendous volume!) at nighttime.

My roommate (and boss) Leslie bought land with some friends out at Mukono. Although it’s connected to the mainland, the most efficient way to get there is by boat. 45 minutes by boat, or >3 hours on rough roads? I’d go for the boat ride.

We went out to the land to see how the clearing was going, and pick a spot for Leslie’s safari tent. All kinds of things were growing out there – bananas (more of the distill-for-liquor than the eating kind), avocados, lemons, mangoes, vanilla bean, sweet potato, beans….The type of land was also really varied. The people nearby took advantage of the expanses of rock to dry their cassava (after leaching to remove the poisons) and dry their laundry.

There are some amazing (and unfortunately for the trees, very valuable) old trees, too. I Hopefully they won’t be cut down to sell for lumber….

We came back from Nairobi and went straight into a team building outing with the IAVI Uganda team. On Friday morning we sailed out to Bulago Island, a 45 minute boat ride away out in Lake Victoria. Although I’ve been living on its edge since I arrived, it was my first time out on the lake (the world’s second largest freshwater one, I think).

We played some team building games, ate fantastic roast pig, and enjoyed a quiz game and charades on the beach. As team captain, I’m proud to say that we won both competitions.

With a few others, I stayed out at the owner’s house (too many of us to fit at the main lodge). My room had a spectacular view of the lake, and before dinner I swam in one of those pools that looks like it has no edge – like swimming in the sky.

The downside (or upside, depending) staying in this amazing house was that we had to take a tractor ride to get there. A little bumpy, a little slow, but eventually we made it.

I had never seen pineapple grow before. I always thought it must grow on a palm of some sort. Of course, everyone laughed at me for this.

The next morning, just as we were getting ready to head out for fishing and waterskiing and whatnot, it began to pour. It rained so hard, that we couldn’t take a boat off of the island for hours. Pauli kicked our butts at Scrabble; playing the word “zuni” on a triple word score pretty much guarantees that you’ll win. We were way too lax with the rules because I think that might have been an illegal move. Not that I was anywhere near winning.

I had to stay on for an internal meeting the following week, so I had a weekend to spend in Nairobi. Although I haven’t been back from the States long, being in Nairobi was a little bit of a culture shock compared to Kampala.

1. I used my ATM card to get money!
2. The roundabouts function. They make traffic flow instead of jamming things up. And there are tons of traffic signals and street lights. I didn’t see any chickens tied to vehicles.
3. Out looking for good French African music with my friend Prince, we ended up at at shopping center that looks exactly like the ones going up all over Orange County, CA. (Not that that’s a good thing, but it was surprising.)
4. I enjoyed a turkey club and enormous iced coffee for lunch at the Java House.

As always, my colleagues from our office were wonderful hosts. Prince showed me a few of the spots to hang out in town, and took me dancing. On Sunday, Auntie Flo picked me and another visitor up for lunch with her friends. We spent the afternoon laughing, and they dispensed a healthy dose of advice on my future, relationships, etc. Watch out, Kody-I think they’ve got serious plans for you.

We also went the giraffe center, where you can feed these lovely and strangely angular animals. Giraffes produce an amazing amount of saliva. There’s also a house now serving as a hotel – supposedly the giraffes come right up to your balcony.

The warthogs were less attractive, although they do have impressive hair.

I was back in Kampala all but a week when, at the last minute, I was sent to Nairobi for the International AIDS Women’s Leadership Summit (held in conjunction with the YWCA World Congress). I spent much of last year helping to put together an advocacy meeting on the new vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, and we launched the resulting Call to Action at the YWCA meeting.

The event well, I got to spend a little bit of time with Shannon (who was working 1000 times harder than me), and got to sit some of Nairobi for the first time. I hadn’t been to a conference organized by women, for women in a long time. Talking with people who aren’t deeply immersed in my tiny field for a change was fantastic. Once I get settled in a little bit more, I need to branch out!

I’ve been here two months now, more or less, and it feels like I should be a lot more settled in than I am. I’m starting to get into the rhythm of things, but I’m ready to move into my house, settle all of those basic things like transportation, and really start to enjoy living in Kampala. But I’m still in limbo, living in someone else’s house, with a fluctuating work program, and not so many friends (yet). In typical Gabrielle fashion, I’m being hard on myself for not having all together already, but also letting anxiety take over a little bit and stall me from getting things moving. Time to jump in and start making things happen, right?

I spent July 4th doing absolutely nothing to mark the day – we had a stream of people over at the Leslie’s house and hung out and cooked and had a good time, but I missed the fireworks and the craziness of the 4th in Maine. Pics from the Starr clan's festivities are here.