The past week has been very busy!
Last Monday, I went out in the field with the Sustainable Livelihood Project Research team. We were gone all day, visiting other SLP organizations. I got to listen in on their interviews, as well as conducting a few of my own. At one point, they needed to go print something out, and left me at one organization, Africa United, for awhile by myself. The people that I met there, Charles and Winston, were very helpful in giving me information on SLP monitoring, and then we were able to talk for along time about differences between America and Uganda. I really felt like I made friends there, and Charles and I are planning to keep in touch by email. One of the highlights of the day for me was visiting the homes of a few clients that have gone through the SLP. I was able to learn a lot more about the program from them, as well as seeing some amazing gardens and farms. I took some great pictures, which I will have to upload once I’m back in the US (One week from tomorrow!!!).
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last week, I spent a lot of time at TASO, conducting interviews there, transcribing interviews and documents, and helping out in the pharmacy. The days that I remain at TASO as opposed to going out in the field are not as exciting, but it’s really interesting to see the inner workings of the organizations.
On Friday, one of the field officers that I had previously interviewed invited me to go out to a client’s home with him. We went way out to the villages, to the home of a new client. Moses, the F.O., counseled her and her family on living with an HIV positive person, and tested all consenting members of the family as well. This is to make sure that the client is not tempted to share her medications, since that would be very unhealthy. Each person is counseled individually upon receiving their results. It was very nice that all of the family members, even her husband and child, were all negative, but Moses said this was not the norm. The visit made me wish that I understood Luganda, the native language, because I would have been very interested to hear what was said in the counseling sessions.
This weekend, Nadia and I got to see the adolescent drama group perform. This is a group of adolescent TASO members that perform songs and dances to educate people about AIDS. They were so good, and so fun to interact with. It was definitely a highlight of the weekend. We also spent a good deal of time exploring downtown Jinja, checking out all of the shops and restaurants. Since our friends at the hotel who took us to other restaurants, the army men, have left, we decided to branch out on our own, and went to a nearby hotel for dinner. It was beautiful, with a really peaceful gardens, and delicious desserts! On Sunday, we tried to go to the TASO Corporate Soccer League, which we didn’t end up seeing much of because we weren’t operating on “African time”, which is where everything happens about 4 hours after people tell you that it will. We are trying to make the most out of our last week here, although I think we’re both really looking forward to getting home!
