Photos!!!

Two links to check out for trip photos...

My Photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/stevencbakken

My Teammember's Photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/PeterJMeyers

Wrapping it Up...

It’s about 6:30 in Nairobi at the airport as I write this and we’re off for home. I slept like a rock last night as the previous two nights I got a combined 8 hours of sleep (4 each night). Apparently we felt as though we had to maximize our last few days in Addis but we had fun. We fly back to Nairobi, then to Amsterdam and then home to Minneapolis. With layovers and flights it will be about 30 hours when its all said and done. It’s the last morning in Ethiopia and our trip has come to an end. While there have been a number of challenges this has been an amazing experience and one that I will keep with me for years to come. I look forward to answering questions and sharing with anyone who is interested my experience here and do hope that others can learn about it and use it to help plan their experiences in Africa. So …I wanted to share a few more take-a-ways from the final days in Addis.

Culture: Culture is so different everywhere you go. The U.S. is different from Europe than from SE Asia than from Africa. Uganda and Ethiopia are no different. Most of you reading this already know but make sure you make a point to refer to each individual country in Africa when talking about it. While you might make assumptions that Uganda and Ethiopia are so close and have many similarities and would be like Minnesota and Kansas you would be wrong. As Americans we so often refer to “Africa” Different complex and unique histories have made the countries distinctly unique and even though I have not traveled elsewhere in Africa this is going to generally be the case.

My Team: We have commented numerous times that we have the best GSE team ever. While of course every team will say this about themselves we count ourselves very fortunate to be on this team. We each bring something unique and we are all very flexible and adaptable people which has proven to be essential. After meeting with our Swedish counterparts and hearing about some of their struggles as a team we’re pretty happy we were able to go 30+ days seeing each other day in and day out and still live in peace. This trip will indeed have honed my “team dynamic” skills.

What I will bring back (among many other things) : Traveling to East Africa is not easy, the roads are bad, the airports are OK, public transport is tough, it’s hot and dirty but if you are up for the challenge it is worth it. The uniqueness in culture and the challenges these countries are facing and the opportunities that could be there are great to see. I hope to bring my exp back and help others interested in going.

The Rotary Family: I had a unique experience this week that just reinforced the “one big happy family” that Rotary is. I am at the conference here in Addis Ababa and meet a man, his wife and their friends all from Duluth, MN and now are living in Seattle. They were at the conference as they have been doing projects in Eth and Kenya. Within 5 minutes of talking with this man I had an open invite to come to Seattle with Mary, visit the city and stay in their home. This guy went entirely on the fact that was associated with Rotary and opened his home up. Pretty cool. Seems like anywhere you go around the world if you find Rotarians you find family.

Setting off for home…

Musings...

So after arriving in Addis we have been doing mostly conference stuff so there is not large amazing realizations to write about so I’ll dig back into the trip and throw out a few things that likely didn’t get mentioned.
1.) Our team member Alex got malaria while we were here. His host in Kampala kept forgetting to get him a mosquito net for his bed and therefore he slept with the mosquitos each night. He was fine, tired for a few days but that was about it. He got tested early, got the meds and is all better now
2.) My dance skills have greatly improved over the course of this trip. I am not a dancer by any sense of the word but for some reason Africa just brings it out of you. We had the opportunity to see Ugandan and now Ethiopian dance and then jump in and participate. These dances really are fun and can get you quite a work out. So I am not trying to say I am good, just better as a result of this trip. That is what I think anyway…
3.) No one buys new cars in Uganda. Almost all vehicles are imported used from Japan and then purchased in Uganda… In Ethiopia all of the taxis are these tiny little Russian cars. This is likely from the long stint of communism and Russian influence here from mid 70’s to 1991.
4.) The Swedes. As mentioned we had the opportunity to meet up with the Swedish GSE team here in Addis. They are great and we’re having loads of fun as one large group of 11. Their trip in Tanzania sounded very different from ours in Uganda. Their stays were with many Indians, European Expatriates and some Tanzanians. They did a bunch of tourist stuff (2 safaris, visit to Zanzibar island and such) While their exp sounds amazing I must say I am very happy and appreciative of our REALLY in depth cultural exp in Uganda (although a posh safari I would have not complained about!!). There were many more headaches and frustrations but I feel like our cultural learnings were really rich, I feel like we really saw more of the “real Africa” by living in a town that used to be totally ravaged by war and taking bucket baths on a regular basis. Would I have eaten chicken liver for dinner twice and would my team member Peter have eaten a bowl of grasshoppers if we stayed with Europeans? Likely not. But it was great meeting up with the Swedes, I already have hopes to travel to and an open invite for a place to stay in Sweden in the coming years to do the Swedish Vassaloppet cross country ski race a 90K ski race in Sweden
5.) And last but not least… Ethiopians are very attractive people. Not sure if you have heard stereotypes or rumors, but they are true

Ethiopian Night and Adopted Babies

Last night was the traditional Ethiopian night at the conference. We had the chance to eat the best Ethiopian food we ever had and also had great music and dancing the whole night. The food is based around a bread called Injera. This is a soft pancake like bread that is made from Tef an Ethiopian grain. The bread is then used to scoop up all of the delicious meat, bean and lentil dishes. Lots of spices and tastiness. The traditional Ethiopian dance has a lot of shoulder movement and quick sharp head twitching that looks really cool. The place was packed and we all got up on stage to join the dancers at the end of the night. Another observation is the number of people we have seen here that we are assuming are adoptive parents. The guest house we are staying at has a lot of Spaniards here with Ethiopian babies. We have also seen many around the hotels and such. We were told that families have to stay in country for 10 days while adopting so a guest house likely works best for them. Interesting to see this given my own families adoption history as well as my boss going through it currently as well (hope Korea went well if you are reading Sheryl).

New Flower

Arrived here in Addis Ababba on Tuesday evening. Addis Ababba means "new flower". This city is much more modernized than Kampala however internet is government owned so much less access than Kampala. The time here has been taken up much by the Rotary Conference however we have gotten to a few museums and some Rotary Projects. We're staying in a guest house here (a fancy hostel) and we are also staying with the GSE team from Sweden that spent their first 3 weeks in Tanzania. They are great fun and its fun for me to have Swedes around after my 5 months there in college. The city is great and I really wish we had more time to learn and travel Ethiopia. The history of being one of the only countries not colonized is pretty fascinating as well as all of the civilization history. Also the roads are almost all paved which is a huge improvement over Kampala and there are less goats, cattle and trash fires on the streets. This is making for much cleaner clothing. Overall this exp will be great but much different from the first three weeks. I really feel fortunate that we got to see some of the "real Africa" from our time in Uganda. While it came with some struggles and dangers (glass in my food!) it was truly a rich cultural experience. We are off to a brewery tour today!! and then to an Ethiopian culture night tonight for the conference. More on Addis to come...

Closing out Kampala

Today is Monday our last full day in Kampala. I am excited for next week in Addis Ababa but will always have a special place in my heart for Kampala. I will say that I am excited as I have heard Addis is cleaner than Kampala (more paved roads). My team member Kristi put it well when she said that when we get home we wont be able to just tell everyone all the things we learned. Our learnings and findings will come out over the next few months, so I wont try to get in deep about some of my key learnings rather I’ll just highlight a few fun things that might spark some interest or questions.
1.) Packing into cars: If a car holds 6 you can at least get 8 in it
2.) Customer Service is very different in other parts of the world relative to the U.S. restaurant service requires patience and the ability to always be thinking about what you are eating
3.) Extended family is king! Everyone here is very opening and welcome with their homes (something we could learn from in our very individualistic culture) people often take in orphans, children with HIV, nieces and nephews grandparents etc.
4.) Safety: We probably overdo safety in the U.S. but in my travels there are many stark observations that are different. Babies on the back of motorbikes, no helmets anywhere, men without shoes on unloading trucks of coffee, giant holes in sidewalks and I could go on. Bottom line is with our system of signs, railings and baracades in our country, you have to make sure you are on your toes.
5.) Polygamy (there is a lot) and Women’s Rights (there is a little) :As most of you know Africa has an issue with HIV/AIDS. Uganda is not that much different. Most of the HIV is spread through an unprotected sexual relationship. Here it is not uncommon at all for a married man with kids to have multiple wives, partners etc. Most of the HIV is spread through what they call here in an awareness campaign the sexual network. They are trying to raise awareness about the damage having multiple partners can cause. They face many challenges with this. In terms of women’s rights. Yes there are women in power and women in really good jobs here. But when it comes down to it women are supposed to have children (and lots of them) and if their husband is cheating it is often overlooked. Now keep in mind this is not everyone but just some general trends. There is a lot of challenges for women here.

I’ll stop at that for now but none the less a very interesting cultural exp thus far and I am sure more will come to mind in the coming time. Off to Addis…

Dancing with Hippos

After week two in Kampala a couple of us decided to take the issue of doing a Safari into our own hands and plan. Peter and I worked out the details and four out of the 6 of us set off on Saturday to Paraa Lodge in Northern Uganda in Murchison Falls National Park. The lodge was beautiful situated on top of a large hill overlooking the Nile river. The rooms were very “lodge like” rustic but very nice. It was a nice trip away from the city (even though it took almost 6 hours each way to get there and back) There was good lodge food, traditional Ugandan dancing at night and wildlife that would walk right up to the lodge. While out dancing by the bonfire on Saturday night a hippo came up about 15 feet from our gathering, crazy stuff. The trip included a boat cruise up to the falls which included hippos, crocodiles, and cape buffalo. The next AM we did a game drive and saw a lion, many antelope, and elephant and a lot of giraffes.

A Perspective on White-ness

some musings from one of our team members Alex... check it out

http://interculturaladventure.blogspot.com/2010/04/is-white-color.html

Near death expereinces in Africa

ok... so dont get too excited about the title, but wanted to share some tidbits of danger from Kampala. As mentioned we are back in Kampala and have been since Monday. This week has been a bit more lax than the last two and our schedule has not been as full. After returning we spent our first few days visiting some Rotary projects in schools and in mother awareness clinics an AIDS care center, a farm, and some cultural sites around town. At the mother awareness clinic I personally vaccinated 2 babies for Polio (kind of cool) they were actually going to let us give babies shots too if we wanted but I decided to opt out as I likely would have passed out. So... on to the near death experiences.
1.) Almost Fell in a hole: On Tuesday Peter and I set out to find the safari office to confirm our reservations for the safari some of us are going on this weekend. In this process we managed to get lost in Kampala (which was not the scary part at all). As we were walking i was looking around for the 5th street sign. What we found out the hard way was there are no street signs anywhere in Kampla. So while looking around Peter yells out "hole!" I look down to see a 2x2 hole in the middle of the sidewalk that I was about one step from falling in to. It was about 5 feet deep and full of trash. Good chance that if I would have stepped into it I would have knocked out all of my teeth and I am pretty sure Dentists in Kampala are not winning too many awards. So that was experience #1
2.) Almost ate Glass: On Wed. we visited a dairy, poultry, pig and coffee farm. After driving 2 hours through unexpected road construction we arrived, then it down poured for an hour, then we had lunch and headed back. Kind of an unproductive day but hey we got to see a farm and have lunch with the owner in Uganda so no worries. After we got back Alex and I went to the hotel Africana for a drink and a snack. The Africana is likely one of the top 5 hotels in Kampala so a pretty decent place. We ordered a drink and some samosas. After the second bite of samosa I noticed something hard in my samosa. Now I have gotten rocks in my rice a number of times here so I figured no big deal but this seemed big. I reached into my mouth and pulled out a green pea sized piece of GLASS!!!. I cant make this stuff up. Thankfully i didn't down it and caught it. After some thought I decided to not say anything because with customer service not really being king, prince or even the butler here i figured I would have no traction. So i finished my samosas carefully and had a beer and went on my day
3.) Rode on a motorbike in Kampala traffic: In the previously mentioned story with peter we got lost. In addition to that we were also running out of time to get back so we hopped on a "boda boda" which is what they call these motor bikes that you get from place to place on here in Kampala. Imagine three grown men riding a motor bike and weaving through Kampala traffic. Our ride was not too risky but none the less something that probably was not the safest.
So all in all an eventful week back in Kampala. We're off to some meetings tonight and then to a coffee processing and bottled water plant tomorrow before setting off on SAFARI on Saturday.

Phone cords, sandals and light bulbs…

Back in Kampala. Driving in to meet the team each morning I notice these guys coming in and out of traffic on foot. Some are selling papers (makes sense) some are selling airtime minutes for phones (makes sense) and then there are these guys with the most random pairings you could imagine. I saw one guy selling car cell phone chargers and women’s sandals. Another on selling light bulbs. Seriously when was the last time you were sitting in hot smelly traffic and thought to yourself man I need a new cell phone charger and then saw the pair of sandals he was pedaling and thought those look great I need them. Anyway I always concerned that these guys are going to get run over by the motorbikes that use space in between the 3 lanes of traffic (one of which I rode on today) Three grown men on a motor bike is quite a sight... for another set of lanes, but we all have to make a living somehow right? Gulu was wonderful, happy to be back in the sights and sounds of the city… looking forward to another week in Kampala.

Flat Tire = Church Service

Sunday we left Gulu. Our ETD was 12 noon… we of course left at 2:30 (see previous post on timeliness) About an hour and a half into a 4 hour trip we blew a tire. We had the blowout right in a very small village that was about 1/2 thatched huts and 1/2 make shift brick storefronts. The locals were very friendly and helped us out right away. Ugandans are very friendly and we never really felt this to be an issue to be stranded. Our van driver proceeded to get the spare out from under the car. One issue was that the spare was leaking air. So the locals helped us out. They ended up running the tire up the road about 5 miles on a motorbike to get a repair. Was about an hour pit stop but we got on our way. During the tire fixing business we noticed about 100 yards from where we stopped on the road was this big beautiful tree. Under it there was drumming dancing and preaching. This was a Sunday church service in the village. A few of us ventured over for some brief dancing and some gospel while our other team mates entertained some locals with their guitar and stayed in the shade by the van. The man preaching was speaking Acholi but they had someone translate some into English for us white folk. If I didn’t mention it already we are white people or Mizungus which we get called all the time by little kids. Anyway they played their music and spread the word, We danced a bit with them, had some fun and then got back on the road. One more experience for the book.

Clubbin... Gulu Style

Sunday AM here and we are getting ready to pack up and head back to Kampala. The week in Gulu has been an interesting one, which in the last two nights included some night clubs. I love hospitality but I don’t think there was one night when I was here that I had any less than 3 beers. And their beers are ½ liter beers which can really knock you down. Their clubs were fun and showing up before 12:00 is unheard of (see previously mentioned dinner at 10:30 pm.) The clubs were clubs, loud plenty of music and such. The big difference between here and home though is that at home you would never see the Provost of a university out at the club shaking it at 1am. All in all a good week here, plenty of cultural experiences that really change the way you look at things and make you realize how easy our lives really are in the U.S.

You're Welcome! to be :30 minutes late

As many of you know we are a timely culture in the U.S. The reality is that time means less and less in different parts of the world you go. Uganda is one of those parts. Each day this week we have been slated to get our days started at 9am and the earliest we have gotten out of the gate has been 9:30. the time issue is even more so magnified in the rural area of Gulu where we are now compared to Kampala. The people are wonderful, friendly and welcoming but the sense of urgency and attentiveness to time is something that is not a high priority, so this has been an adjustment for me of course. The other adjustment or mindset change is the “you're welcome” statement. At home when we say you're welcome it usually comes after a thank you. Here “you're welcome” comes when you come into someone’s office or home… meaning you are welcome to my place. At first it took all of us aback a bit as we thought it was a presumptive statement to our thank you that then needed to come, turns out they are just being friendly not rude.

my host families

One of the great things about this GSE experience is our accommodation. We stay with host families the majority of the time. These are families of people that are in Rotary. I’ll tell a bit more about mine.
In Kampala:
Evelyn and Samson… LeRoy and Layton. Evelyn is 31 and works part time in marketing she attended Makerere university in Kampala and is from the western part of Uganda. Samson works for USAID in medical research. He has his PhD in Epidemiology from Oxford in the UK and was a Rhodes Scholar… pretty smart guy. Then there is the little ones. Layton in just 3 months old so I don’t see or hear much from him. And then there is LeRoy. He just turned 4 on Monday and the kid is a trip. He is always saying cute little kid things so he is fun to have around. When talking with Mary on Skype the other day he came in and of course had to put the head set on to chat. Now he asks where Mary is. He’s fun to have around.
In Gulu:
Vincent and Claire… and John Baptist. Claire is a stay at home mom and they have a 3 week old John Baptist. He is seriously the best behaved child there is as I have not heard him cry once since we have gotten to Gulu. Vincent is the the Gulu University Secretary which would be like our university president or Provost in the States.

Team Member's Blogs

Just a heads up if you didn't catch it already all 4 of my other team members are blogging on this trip. The links to their blogs are to the left. Also on Peter's blog there is a link to some online photos if you are hungry for more :). As you can tell today has been a more laid back day with catching up on emails and photos. more to come

New Photos Posted

Hello All, I have had good luck with my internet the last couple of days and have uploaded some new photos. To view them just click on the thumbnail photos to the left of the text here. There are multiple albums that correspond with the activity. I'll also try to get some captions out there so you know what you are looking at.

The bush, the slave trade and getting dusty…

As I sit here in the shade of a giant tree at the Acholi Inn here in Gulu I wanted to jot down a few things. As I look across the courtyard there are 4 military men with large guns just hanging out near the pool. There is a current military presence due to the fact that President Museveni is in town for the week. Large guns in public are fairly common but it always causes surprise. Today we had the opportunity to venture out into the bush to see a historical slave trade fort that used to be operated by the Arabs. As we left our rendezvous point this AM. I saw that we had another vehicle to take us so we weren’t so crowded. That vehicle was a pickup. I was excited. I immediately asked in we could ride in the back for the hour drive out to the fort… they let us and it was awesome. Hot sun, plenty of dust but an awesome way to see the countryside outside of the constricts of the van. We waved at locals and took photos of the country. After arriving at Bakers Fort we learned about the place. Arabs used to come to this region to abduct Acholi (the tribe in northern Uganda) to sell as slaves. John Baker (a Brit) then later came to liberate the camp. Pretty stark to see the actual place where slaves were displayed, beheaded and such. To think that such inhumanity took place like that is chilling. After another dusty ride back in the truck we arrived back in Gulu. We then talked with Fredrick our driver who also is a business owner. He is 29 and has a great business. He works with NGO’s to drill wells all over northern Uganda and also builds school. Professional, and informative he was a great representative of Uganda, the north, and the Acholi people. He talked about his struggles to get capital being a small business owner which really gave perspective on appreciating our system of entrepreneurship in the U.S. A great day in Gulu.

love the comments

thanks for the comments. more are always welcome, a nice connection with home!

Cell Phones and Missed Potential

First off this trip has been amazing. First time to Africa and being immersed in the culture has proven both promising and frustrating. The first thing I want to highlight is the cell phone etiquette. There is none here. If a phone rings its gets picked up whether its in a meeting with the president of a major university or whomever else. They need the calls here. The funny thing is though which is totally different from us is that when the cell rings while driving 99% of the time the person will pull to the shoulder to talk and not keep driving. The second thing I would like to express my opinion on is the idea of missed potential. Today we had an interesting day. We first drove one hour north to an Internally Displaced Persons camp ( a refugee camp) from the recently ended war. Was pretty eye opening. The ride out and back was really tough as we were cramped into a car with four to a bench seat and the roads were the quality of a dirt path. This experience put us in a hot and bumpy car but there was perspective to be had. A bumpy car ride is much less challenging than living in a hut that’s floor is made of cow dung. After returning to Gulu we visited the Rotaract club of Gulu University. Rotoract is students age 18-30. This was a highpoint of the day. Young motivated students willing to learn more about us and embrace a new culture. One young woman mentioned how she liked how we all had just one one woman or man in our lives (Uganda can tend to be a more polygamous culture with men taking on a “sidedish” as they say). This expression of a young woman getting university educated and wanting to get ahead made be feel that Africa has a bright future. However the meeting then went on to be a respectfest for the elders and men of the club. This really took away from the opportunity for the youth to share their stories and ideas with us. While I respect Rotary with the utmost there really was a missed opportunity here for the youth of the great country to share their story. Africa really has some amazing people and cultures, but as I get even more insight on the culture I feel that ( like many other places in this big world of ours) we have to balance progress and innovation in harmony with traditional culture in order to ensure future success. Too much one way or another seems to hurt us.

Inventiveness and some key learnings in Africa

After now being here for over a week there are some key learnings I am taking away that are not cultural and not vocational. These have to do with everyday things. I’ll start with bathing. 1) Bathing there have been multiple times while here (particularly in Gulu) where I have had to take what one of my team members referred to as a bucket bath. You have the tub, and a bucket and room temperature water (no hot running water for bathing). You then have to get yourself wet, lather up and then turn yourself and the bucket in many different ways to rinse yourself off. It’s a challenge but it gets you cleaner than you would be after just sleeping 8 hours in the heat. 2) Skype’n in the dark. This morning I woke up at 6am here (10pm for my lovely wife Mary). I dialed into skype using my MTN (mobile company) modem. After some bouts of not getting the modem to work my modem co-owner Peter…let me stop there one second… as I type there is a chicken 3 feet from me as I am sitting outside typing this, this is a common occurrence chickens, goats and cows all over and on the side of the road as you go about town, even in Kampala…. I digress. So Peter figured out that if you hold the metal part on the modem with your hand and hold it in the air you don’t lose your internet connection. So here I am this morning. Laptop on lap, modem being held in my left hand above my head headphones on so I don’t disturb anyone in the house and then I realize I cant see myself on my video screen. This I soon figure out is because I am sitting in complete darkness in the living room. So I then proceed to grab my trusty headlamp. Let me tell you if some say that duct tape is the one thing you need to bring and can solve all problems, I would argue that a headlamp is #2. So with computer on lap, headlamp positioned to point at my face, headphones on and my modem in hand pointing towards the heavens I was able to Skype with Mary. And only lost the connection twice! Which is pretty huge here.

concrete walls

One theme here in Uganda is the giant concrete brick walls they build around their homes. When talking with our host in Gulu it sounds like the big concrete walls didn’t come about till about 5-10 years ago in Uganda. Since it is such a collective and welcoming society there was never a need. Now with security reasons and not being able to trust the law enforcement the walls are the way. I will say though that the walls in Kampala are higher, have more glass on the top of them and have bigger electric razor wire on them. With urban growth come more security from the people. Tonight we came back and had beers and chatted. A common thing in Uganda is to not have dinner till at least 9:30 pm. Potatoes and cooked cabbage were the menu for tonight. A gravy to spread over the whole meal was also included. We are off to an IDP camp tomorrow. Should be interesting.

On to Gulu

On Sunday we headed for Gulu. Gulu is a town that was hit very hard by the recent war that ended around 2005. The town is full of NGO’s and from what we have experienced so far very friendly people. Gulu means Heaven by the way. Its about 4 hours to the north of Kampala. We pass many a grass thatch roofed huts on the way as well as the Nile river and baboons on the side of the road. I am all settled in at my new host home and the surroundings are much different than Kampala. A much more rural home but the same friendly people. I came to find my host home in the middle of a gathering for a newly baptized baby so we sat and had some beers and chatted. One of the in-laws worked in a job that helped get the mines out of the village areas as there are apparently still a lot of mines out of Gulu from the war. They instigated a chat about the U.S. and politics (see other post about the love for Obama) and We chatted about their perceptions of Sarah Palin's ignorance in reference to her referring to Africa as one big country. I of course enjoyed this!! Others including my hosts work at Gulu University which is one of 3 medical schools in Uganda. We have a full week here in Gulu including a visit to some schools some war refugee camps as well as some hospitals. Also we’ll visit our district’s rotary project dealing with water outside of the city. Should be a good week and a different side of Africa outside of the cushy houses in Kampala.

Obama and Bannanas

Few more thoughts while I am here and connected.
1.) Obama is HUGE here. The consider the man the leader of the world. Even though he is Kenyan background all of East Africa loves the man. When you tell someone that you are from the US they ask how is Obama!
2.) Bananas are KING. There are many kinds grown here. Every meal serves something called matoki which is basically cooked and mashed green bananas. Tastes like a sweeter mashed potato. They are also everywhere for eating... delicious

Perseverance: Do the best you can with what you have

The last two days have been really great and very eye opening. Yesterday we went to an Orphanage which Rotary has given a lot of funding and support to. The kids here are either disabled, mentally handicapped, or so poor they are unable to buy a uniform to attend school. The perseverance of the kids in this place was amazing. No parents, from the slums and yet still having such joy in their presence. The organization along with support from Rotary was doing wonderful things with limited resources. I feel like that is the norm here. You do what you can with what you have, but the people still put a smile on their face and enjoy life. Today we visited a K-7 primary school. As I travel I realize that young kids no matter where you go in the world are all very similar. they are so happy and love life. Going to the school today was great. I spent about 20 min outside with the kids on their lunch break and played a game where you tried to kick each other's feet while the other tries to dodge you. This is a perfect example of making the best of limited resources. I then proceeded to take out my DSLR camera to capture the moment and the mobs rushed in! These kids loved to get their photo taken. I almost got knocked down a few times trying to snap some photos and of course when you then show them the photo they love it! The school was very organized. The buildings were in tough shape with some asbestos problems but the system was very well run. The children were much more well behaved than American elementary classrooms I have visited. They have a similar general education system to us k-7 schools 8-10 and then 11-12. Then on to university if you have the funding. Many students finish after grade 10. Off for some pubs tonight (its Friday night )

How do you find Africa?

This is a question I have been getting asked a lot as I meet people so I’ll answer it for anyone reading. #1. The people are amazingly hospitable and welcoming. You will have a fresh beer or juice at your table before you even ask for it. #2. The potholes are worse (way worse) than Minnesota. If you thought you might blow out a tire on a pothole in MN you would likely blow out an axle here on a cavern. The roads lack attention many are dirt or clay (not paved) and the rides are rough (car sickness people need not apply) #3 Tropical regions have amazing fruit. Uganda and Thailand are competing tirelessly for a top spot on my fruit list. #4 This place is GREEN. Don’t mean environmentally friendly either I have many a times gotten a face full of exhaust when you are climbing one of Kampala’s many hills behind a cement truck, but I mean lush. Everything is green. Its very humid and warm here which keeps it all green but being considered the Pearl of Africa Uganda seems like one big green jungle with a city cut into it. Its very beautiful. #5 You never have a beer, have a soda or have breakfast, you take it (Would you like to take a beer?) #6 Even if you don’t think I am learning about work stuff I am. Being that this is a business and vocational exchange we did a plant/company visit to Quality Chemicals Inc. This is the largest drug manufacturer in East Africa and they make anti-retroviral drugs (for HIV patients) and anti malarial. Both drugs which are highly in need in Africa and need to be affordable and accessible. I talked with the HR manager as well as discussed personal assessments with the facility Pharmacist. Watch out Cargill you may be getting a new leadership model from Africa! #7 My hosts rock! My first two nights I was hosted by a wonderful couple that worked in the transport and beauty school industries. Very friendly people.. their names were Daudi and FLorenence. Now I am at the Kironde home of Evelyn and Samson. Evelyn is in Marketing and is a very fun and easy going person and Samson was a Rhodes Scholar and now works as a doctor in AIDS work. He works with USAID to help spread AIDS medication across the country. Both wonderful people. Then there is little Layton 3 months and LeRoy (turns 4 on Monday) and he is a HAM. We have had fun this week so far. #8 You can start a fire anywhere, trash fires, cooking fires, in backyards on the side of the road etc. This combined with the aforementioned cement truck exhaust make for a delightful scent at times, but with all the green I am sure those plants just love drinking up that CO2 #9 They drive on the British side of the road (different from us in the U.S.) I have walked to the driver side door twice now when leaving the house. That would be a disaster. #10 Coffee is instant. You never take coffee straight in the cup. You get hot water or milk and then put a spoon of dried instant coffee in, stir and enjoy. The taste is great and its easy. Coffee anytime is helpful when still battling the 8 hour time difference. And #11 Dinner is served! (mostly any time after 10pm) a bit of an adjustment for an early bird dinner eater like me. We are off to an orphanage today that is sponsored by Rotary. A great trip so far, learning a lot and thankful for the opportunity.

Jinja #2

Today our awesome hosts took us to Jinja where the source of the Nile is. Was a great day. After breakfast and a quick post and email check at an internet café we were off for our 2 hour drive. We first went to Bujagali falls and then back through Jinja to see the source of the Nile. Then off to the Triangle Hotel to sit on one of the most amazing patios around. We drank a Nile beer (which was brewed about 5 miles from where we drank it, and relaxed for a bit. Then headed over to the other side of the river for a dinner at Kingfisher Lodge a little place on the Nile shores. We had fried Tilapia (fished from Lake Victoria which we were sitting at the edge of) and fries or “chips” as they call them here. This all was of course accompanied with another Nile Lager. A short hike down to the lake front and then we hit traffic and the drive back ended up being about 3 hours. Tomorrow we are off to visit Makarare University Business School. Then to the Rotary office and then off to our first presentation and fellowship (this is what Rotary calls socializing or networking) Yesterday and today were pretty “vacation like” with it being Easter and then a holiday today as well. So tomorrow we get to work!

After the settle in...

Just wrapped up our first day in Kampala. Maybe its because I am getting old or maybe its because I flew for 24 hours and slept about a whole :30 on the three plane legs to get here but its 8:40 right now and I am sitting in my bed typing this up with every intention to go to sleep by 9:00. Our day got started about mid-day, which was kind of nice. After a really good night sleep last night we all got up around 9am this AM and since it was Easter Sunday which is as big of holiday from a Christian point of view as it is in the U.S. we didn’t have too much to do in the morning. Walked around the hotel a bit, snapped some photos and had some breakfast. Around 11:30 Rotary members and some of our hosts showed up to take us away. Tim, Peter and I are all staying with the same family for Sunday and Monday and then we’re off to our hosts for the rest of the week. Today we got settled into our room, drove around Kampala bit, changed some money and jumped online for a quick email. Then back to our “compound” as we are calling it as the people we are staying with own a beauty school on the site where they live so Peter and I are actually bunking in some of the school dormitories. They run a school that teaches students (mostly women) things like hair, massage, nails, waxing etc. On site here there is the old school building, the new school building which we will be attending the opening ceremony and graduation for, as well as house where our hosts live. So after getting back we had some barbeque pork and chicken a green bananas and beef dish (delicious) , some salad and fresh juice which our family makes fresh. We actually had a few kinds today one of which was Watermelon and Pineapple…really good. Sat outside in the beautiful weather under a huge shade tree till the sun went down and then had a cup of tea and off to bed. So far the trip is kicking off well. I’ve yet to really experience the country/culture etc outside our Rotary group but I am excited to learn more. Tomorrow we are off to Jinja to see the source of the Nile River some dams and some waterfalls. Should be a day trip and we’ll take off tomorrow around 9am. Off to bed

Jinja

About 10:30 AM on Monday and we are on our way to Jinja to visit the source of the Nile river. This was on our original itinerary but got canceled because we are now going to be a week in Gulu in the North which sounds amazing. We are going to be visiting an IDP (internal displaced persons) camp... a refugee war camp basicaly as well as see some of the water projects that the Twin Cities Rotary district has been a part of with the World Vision organization. Today is an "on our own" family day and ours chose to take us to Jinja so we're excited. We drove through downtown Kampala today, met briefly with a friend of our host Daudi. His friend was the guy in charge of sports in uganda. Kind of like a NFL commissioner but for all sports and tied into the government. We started today off with bread, fresh fruit, coffee and a new fruit I had never tried before called Paw Paw which is supposed to be great for your metabolism, so if I come back lighter I'll blame it on the Paw Paw. Should be a fun day! SB

We're Here!

Arrived into Kampala (Entebee) last night around 11:30 after meeting up with our hosts we drove about an hour into Kampala where we spent the night in hotel. Met up with more Rotary folks today and will be having a small barbecue tonight at our host house. It's beautiful here, very green. Its been raining almost every night for weeks and the sun shines during the day. My :30 is about to run out so I'm off. more later

Almost there...

Legs one and two went well! Thanks to the jet stream it was two 7.5 hour flights and not two 8-9 hour flights. Just another hour leg and we're in Uganda. Hanging out here on our layover now in the Nairobi, Kenya airport. There is a place to take a shower for $12 right outside our gate if we need to clean up. We're in a hotel tonight and then meeting host families tomorrow. more later...

If you want to comment...

All, the flight leaves tomorrow! I'm very excited. Wanted to let you all know that I changed the settings on the blog so you can post a comment without having to enter an account. There is an option to just type in your name and leave your comments. Or you can type your name in the body of the comment and just comment as anonymous. Feel free to post away!!

Steve

Our Presentation

A large part of our trip will be presenting to various Rotary clubs as well as presenting at our host district's district conference in Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia. I have attached the link of our team's presentation. We selected to go with all photos which we will speak to during the presentation. Each of us will take a crack at talking about our families, our roots/how we got to where we are today, our lives today and our vocations. Less than a week and we're off!

http://picasaweb.google.com/PeterJMeyers

Rotary Doing Great Things!

Thought you might find this kind of cool… the story is somewhat tied in with my trip to Africa. An Edina Rotary member (Tim Murphy) mentioned at the end of the story, just got back from brining this 6 year old back from Kenya to have eye surgery. Tim is our group team leader and will be going on our trip with us to Africa a week from today. Pending all the surgeries go well Moses will be flying back to Kenya with us as well on our same flights.

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=846989&catid=396

Flights & Shots

As the date of departure approaches I am realizing there are plenty of things to get in order before you head out for a month.. We finally got our travel booked! Leave from MSP to Amsterdam about a 8-9 hour flight. Then Amsterdam to Nairobi which is another 8-9, then a jaunt from Nairobi to Entebee (Kampala, Uganda) which is likely a 3-4 hour flight so it will be quite the haul. The next part to the prep was the shots. I went to the travel clinic the other day and got 5 shots in one visit. I got meningitis, typhoid, yellow fever, and polio... then they threw in the H1N1 just because I was there. The nurse asked me if I was ok with shots and I said yea but I passed out when I give blood, so she had me lay down for the battery of shots. Following that I was off to the doctor to get all checked our for travel. Last thing I had to do was my malaria pills which put me out a cool $150 at the pharmacy. It was either pay this kind of money for pills or get the cheaper ones which apparently give you halocinogenic dreams...So the last few weeks will be filled with picking up a few final items and then we're off

The Team

A photo of the team I will be traveling with. In addition to us there will be one Rotary member that will be leading us on the trip. Also, I wanted to plug one of my team members consulting group that she operates. http://www.rendahlconsulting.com/Welcome.html. She'll also be keeping some blog notes on the trip.

Amias Project-Throw Down Your Heart-Two Grammys

As part of our preparation the local Rotary district governor arranged for us to meet up with her daughter in law that runs a business here in Minneapolis. The business is part travel agency, part hand made African jewelry and handbags, and part field recording and production. The organization is called the Amias Project.

http://www.amias.org/

We met with the organization's founder Nicole and she was able to give us some great insight around traveling to Uganda and Ethiopia. In addition she mentioned that her business also did much of the field production for Bela Flek's (world renowned banjo player) most recent release Throw Down Your Heart which recently won two Grammy Awards for best contemporary world music and pop instrumental performance. Its a great album if your looking for some new music to add to your collection.

http://www.throwdownyourheart.com/

Welcome...

Hello All,
Welcome everyone and thanks for taking time to read. This April I'll be traveling to Uganda and Ethiopia for the Rotary International Group Study Exchange program or GSE as I'll refer to it. I've attached a link so you can read more about the program, but basically what it is, is an international good will exchange program for young professionals. The goal of GSE is to develop professionally through things like public speaking and networking, but its also an opportunity to interact with those in your vocation in another country. The website puts it much more eloquently so I'll leave it at that.
http://www.rotary.org/en/serviceandfellowship/fellowship/GroupStudyExchange/Pages/ridefault.aspx
This whole adventure started when a good friend of mine passed along a link on Facebook. A friend of her's had done a GSE to South Africa and when she saw that our local Rotary 5959 district was going to Africa she passed it along to me just knowing that I would be interested. It's personal brand at its best. She had me pegged that this would be somthing I would jump at and she was right. From that point on it was application completing, essay writing and interviewing. Then after a :30 min in person interview with 11 people in mid-September 2009 I got the call... I was in. From that point our group of 6 (5 team members and one Rotary member to lead us) have been meeting regularly and working on our presentation that we'll give multiple times while abroad. So the excitement continues to mount...