I have to work on this video, but it’s a start.
It was pouring rain as we visited the Kamwokya II Parish of Kampala, aka a slum. I had my DSLR, but with the rain and my sheepishness about whipping out a big camera while exploring poverty tourism, I kept it under wraps. Strolling with my mini video camera, while chatting with our tour guide, a lay pastor from the Kamwokya Christian Caring Community, seemed a bit more chill.
[qt:http://dee-rob.com/movies/KamwokyaRoughCut.mov 320 240]
I’m back at work, back at home, back in the U.S. and just plain old back. It’s nice to be back, and I’m hoping after about seven days of sleeping normally, I might even feel back to my old self again.
Meanwhile, I’ve started going through a half a million pictures of Uganda. I took tons. Some of the cream of animal depictions can be found here:
There will be many more to come, along with a lot of verbiage I suppose. For the short term, though, I plan to try to shake what is probably an ordinary head cold, but I imagine to be a rare tropical illness.
It took a whole lot of plane time, but we made it to Kampala, Uganda. Unfortunately, my very impressions from the airport to the hotel were dimmed by the darkness of night and the fact that I wasn’t able to sleep on the plane.
From San Francisco to Washington, DC, we logged six hours on Friday in the air. On Saturday, starting in the evening, it was first 8 hours from Washington, DC to Amsterdam, and then somewhere in the fuzzy Sunday morning another 8 from Amsterdam to Kampala. I just flew in from the U.S. and boy are my arms, and every other part of me, tired.
Finally, after all of that flying there was another 45 minutes or an hour to get to the hotel by bus.
All of the flying happened after a four- or so hour meeting where I got to meet my fellow travelers and hear about some of Uganda’s history and issues. It was a long weekend, but not in the usual, restful sense.
Today, Monday, we started early with breakfast, Uganda’s first woman veterinarian, followed by a few hours at our nation’s embassy and an afternoon with agricultural researchers. I wish I had slept last night to be better able to process the information. Perhaps tonight exhaustion will will out over my lifelong neurotic tendency to lie awake in strange beds. I envy folks wh0 can fall asleep anywhere and on a dime.
As for my first photos and first thoughts, they’ll have to wait until a good night’s rest and the ability to think clearly. I’m afraid tomorrow morning’s 7:30 a.m. start for an outing at Lake Victoria doesn’t bode well for my sleep fantasy.