Entebbe and Journey to Kampala

Cathy says that she likes to introduce the students to Africa gently....so we spent the first night of our African adventure in the Airport Guest House. It is beautiful, friendly, cheap (to us) and the food is great. Those who wanted to, went over to a fancy hotel with a nice swimming pool and hung out there poolside for the afternoon. Then we went back to our Guest House and had a barbecued dinner of tilapia (from Lake Victoria), beef, potatoes, vegetables, and salad. We are duly warned that food will not be this good everywhere!

Today, we took a matatoo (like a mini-van taxi) to Kampala....much bigger, dirtier and smellier! Tomorrow is our first day at Mulago Hospital. We will be leaving The Annex (our lodging) at 0730 to walk there for rounds at 0830, then having a tour and maybe spending some time working in the afternoon. The next day we will all work at Mulago in various areas (prenatal, labour) and then the next day, some people will stay here with Angela, some will go to Masaka with Cathy, and some will go to Mbale with Grace. Our big mission for today/tomorrow is to work out who is going where! As Tamara aptly put it, it's like someone offered us Martian food and wants us to pick X or Y or Z!

Buried in blankets and hats

Resources are in short supply for many of the women whose births we will attend in Uganda. The hats and blankets to keep a newborn warm and well, few and far between. With this in mind, I put out a call to a handful of mama friends asking for donations of gently loved baby blankets and hats a few weeks ago. I was not prepared for the scope or beauty of what would follow.

My friends talked to their friends and on and on it went until a network of previously unconnected women criss-crossed the city. One friend collecting for us described waking many mornings to find neatly bundled baby things mysteriously dropped by strangers on her porch.

The neighbour of another friend of a friend, on hearing about our baby catching adventure, bought fabric and sewed cloths and blankets.

In under 3 weeks, hundreds of hats and blankets were collected. To these were added donations of hand-knit sweaters and toys, IV supplies, gloves, catheters, speculums, text books, medications, and money to purchase more. Maxing out every last ounce and inch of baggage space, 300 lbs of supplies came with the 6 of us. The generosity is moving and I am inspired to think what else is possible with a small group of friends...

YVR

Okay, here we are in Vancouver Airport....having successfully negotiated to bring our 2 bags of luggage each....Air Canada tried to make us pay $50 each for our second bags! Then there was the big shuffle as we moved things around to bring each bag to 23 kg or less. But we made it and here we are!

Countdown and a little Panic

Only 2 days until we meet up at YVR and fly away! With the change of airline, there has been a flurry of emails between us all, about baggage! BA allowed 3 bags per person (with a letter from UBC confirming that we were bringing medical supplies) but Air Canada only allows 2 bags for free and then additional bags are $225 plus tax each!!! So there a mad sorting and repacking to do! We will have to leave some stuff behind....hopefully next year's students can take it.

Tracy has some good suggestions for what to do for a day in London: the Eye, Covent Garden, Houses of Parliament, and Indian food! Maybe our followers will have some ideas too....

More information, with Map!

So, got the word that British Airways has in fact cancelled our flight to London. But Bill from Menno Travel has booked us onto Air Canada and we will get to London a few hours earlier and have most of a day to spend there, before catching our connecting flight to Entebbe Uganda! Now that I finally figured out how to add a map, here it is. We will be staying in Entebbe for a day or two, then moving on to Kampala, Masaka and Mbale during our 6-week stay.

Getting Ready!

Hi everyone, welcome to our blog all about our trip to Uganda. The travellers are Tracy, Tamara, Jasmine, Amy, Ashley and me (Rhonda). There are less than two weeks until we leave, unless British Airways makes other plans for us! We have to call on May 19 or 20 to see if our flight will be changed.

In the meantime, today I packed all the wonderful supplies that Angela got from the Compassionate Care Warehouse and others in Victoria BC. My husband Carey had to help me squeeze everything into two LARGE suitcases I got at the Salvation Army today! There were lots of metal speculums, syringes, baby clothes and blankets, catheter supplies and other very useful stuff. Also took my first dose of Dukoral (yuck) and got started registering with DFAIT. Getting very real now!

Rhonda (awaiting updates about the preparations my travel buddies are making!)