16-Mile Journey…

On the actual day of Thanksgiving, I decided to go visit my lumasaaba group and spend the weekend with them. Karine and Lisandro live close to each other and about one and a half hours away from my site. I took a taxi out there to meet them, and planned on coming back Saturday the same way. However, plans changed. Instead of taking a taxi back to Mbale, we decided to walk. Kind of crazy, I know, but at first I was totally against it…I wasn’t ready, I didn’t have sneakers, and I didn’t exactly pack lightly for a 16-mile hike to Mbale. After two days of my friends convincing me, and Karine’s extra pair of sneakers, I was up at 5 am on Saturday morning getting ready for the hike. We began our journey at 5:30 am in the pitch dark. It was my lumasaaba group (Lisandro, Karine, Liz and I), two other PCV’s from the March group, and Barbara, a 61 year old non Peace Corps American who is here volunteering for the next year. Two Ugandans guided us the whole way, a father/son pair who Barbara knew from the village. Simon (the dad) was actually suffering from malaria! Talk about motivation...if this man could make this hike with malaria, I sure as hell was going to make it! Although I had some doubts during the trip...


The whole thing took us about 7 hours total, but we were only actually walking for about 5 of them (we took a couple breaks!). I thought I was going to die, and my legs are still killing me...yeah, I'm really out of shape. Despite long, tiring journey and the awful dirt uphill paths we were walking on, watching the sunrise over the mountains and the view was absolutely amazing! The pictures barely capture the beauty of it. It was gorgeus! I will definitely be doing more hiking around these mountains and hopefully getting in better shape over the next two years!!




*Happy 21st bro! =)

Are you ready for CHOGM?

That’s the question every Ugandan has been asking for the past year plus…well, ready or not, CHOGM is here! The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting or CHOGM is being held this week in Kampala. I was very tempted to go, and despite my mother’s best attempt to be the devil’s advocate and persuade me to go, I decided against it. Kampala scares me on a normal day, so when the Queen is in the city, I would have been terrified. FDNC is being well represented during the events of the week by having the FDNC Mbale Youth Brass Band play on two different occasions in Kampala. This was the main reason for me to even consider going to Kampala, to see the band perform.

The band is a work in progress. Phil, the volunteer from the UK, has this amazing vision to create the first youth orchestra in all of Eastern Africa, and possibly in all of Africa. Right now it’s a brass band composed of trumpets, trombones, tubas, and percussion. He has been working extremely hard to teach these kids how to read music and become a sit down brass band. In January, he hopes to add a woodwind and string section…he has lots of instruments that were donated from the UK, but at the moment he lacks teachers. We were talking about my previous band experience, and I think I may be the new clarinet teacher…I just hope I can remember how to play! Its been about 5 years since I have touched mine! The hope is for the band to go to Kampala, talk to people from all over the world who have lots of money and want to support the band. It’s a big vision, but I’m really excited to help him with the clarinet section of the band! Phil also plans on building a music school in Mbale.

K, just a quick little blurb about CHOGM and a potential secondary project! And new pictures!! Check them out! =)