Preparing to leave....

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!

Tomorrow, Wednesday, June 9th 2010, I will be leaving England in route for Uganda. The first leg of my trip involves a bus trip from Nottingham to London, where I will take a plane to the Netherlands at 20:25 and it will land in Amsterdam at 22:35. I will be sleeping in the airport in my sleeping bag for the 12 hour 25 minutes layover. Compared to my last three day adventure of getting to Uganda, which took me on three planes and a bus through four countries, I will be content to snuggle down in the comfort of that one airport! On Thursday, June 10th I will board my next flight at 11:00 and it will touch down at the airport in Entebbe, Uganda at 19:50 local time.

At this point I will be met by a pre-arranged taxi that will drive me to a hostel in Entebbe called Backpackers, where I have reserved a dorm bed for the night. The following morning, Friday the 11th a taxi will take me to Mukono where I will be dropped off at The Real Uganda volunteer guesthouse to be reunited with my old friends from my last trip, the directors of The Real Uganda, Leslie, a Canadian woman, and Lee a woman from Montana, USA. I will spend the weekend here, settling in, buying some necessitites, and making a trip to the capital Kampala. On Sunday the 13th, Valence, a Ugandan man who is the director of The Youth Focus Africa Foundation (YOFAFO) and husband of the couple I lived with during my last trip will pick me up in Mukono and we will head to Lugazi (where they live and where I will be living). It is here where I will get to see Doreen, his wife, again, and their son Joshua. Doreen was pregnant with Joshua during my last trip and so I am very excited to meet him for the first time. I am also thrilled to meet all of my old friends once again. Although I have stayed in touch over the past two years, nothing can be better being together in person! During that weekend I will have interent access in Kampala and Mukono and so I will be able to update my blog.

During this trip I will be volunteering in the two villages where I did most of my work the last time. The first is what we call the Children's Village. That is not the real name of the village, but there is a primary school there with children from pre-school age through the 7th grade. I will be working here once again teaching lessons. With the little ones, I plan to do a unit on animals. With the middle age groups I will be doing lessons on health and hygiene. For the oldest students, we will be doing a unit on the environment. I will also be doing some very basic first aid in the school clinic. The second YOFAFO village I plan to work with is named Buyenje, which literally means cockroach. At this village YOFAFO has established a piglet project and other sustainable development projects, which are overseen by a council of women. This council was elected by the women themselves and they assess the needs of the village and decide which projects they want to undertake. I will be working with this council and other villagers on their projects and possibly teaching some lessons.

I will also be teaching at another school called Buwele Memorial High School located in Nkokonjeru village. This is the village where Robbie was placed during his six month volunteer placement and where he taught English, History, and other subjects, as well as coached the school football (soccer) team. I made many visits to his school during my last trip and I am very excited to get to teach at Buwele because there is less of a language barrier, making teaching and getting to know the students a lot easier.

Within the volunteering, I will be making investments for Empower Walk World. For those of you who don't know, Empower Walk did a 200 mile walk across Kentucky to raise money for sustainable development and empowerment projects. Although we are waiting to speak to those I will be working with before final decisions are made about how most of the money will be spent to ensure that their interests are being met, we plan to use some of the money to establish a small lending library at both schools. We are also considering sponsoring a woman that works in a women's group to be trained to become a seamstress. If she is trained she will be able to train other women in her village, thus spreading the knowledge and allowing more women to become seamstresses and make a living for their families.

I applied and was chosen to receive a $2000 research grant from the University of Kentucky. In brief, my research project involves interviewing students about their educational experiences, doing creative exercises with them, and observing their test scores. After the students have been exposed to the lending libraries, I will re-evaluate them both at the end of the summer and months down the road to see if their exposure to books and other resources have improved their academic performance.

In addition to working, I will of course be traveling and meeting new people, both Ugandan and other volunteers from all over the world. Robbie will be joining me in Uganda at end of July since his school year does not end until then.

Well, I look forward to updating you all on my summer as I complete my 13 month trip abroad in France, England, and Uganda. Take care!

Peace,
Courtney

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." - Mark Twain