Travel

So a few months ago my sister told me about this cool program where I would get to go to Uganda to be a photographer for an organization called 1000 Shillings.  As the photographer, I'm supposed to document the lives of 6 women in order to tell their stories so they can sell jewelry worldwide and make money to start their own small businesses and better support their families.  Thanks to the support of many family and friends, I was able to raise the money to come on the program and will be spending all of June and July here.

Anyway, I made it!

I flew through Dubai (which is in the United Arab Emirates), on Emirates Airlines.  I had heard good things and it turns out they have lots of leg room which is much appreciated on a long flight.  Sadly I was tired and accidentally slept so then during my 12 hour layover I couldn't sleep.  I know, 12 hours sounds perfect to go out and explore, only not when I'm alone and not when it's night.  Luckily, unlike the Istanbul airport which totally shuts down for the night, the Dubai airport has lots of people around all night, so I didn't feel uncomfortable.  The people in the lounge tried telling me that they were the only place with wifi, but it was almost $200 for only 4 hours so thankfully I found wifi in the rest of the airport, and they had lounge/airport chairs which were pretty good to sit on.  If I hadn't had my camera gear and laptop I might've wandered around the airport but sadly that was not much of an option.  All I saw of Dubai was during take off (since during my first flight I was in the middle of the plane and couldn't see out the window).  They have a really tall building and after having just seen the new Oz movie on my first flight it reminded me of some of those towers.  It's also pretty smoggy.  The whole beginning of our flight was a beautiful untouched desert though.

The next flight was much shorter and I accidentally slept a while.  I slept next to a nice Ugandan guy, Jackson, who immediately introduced himself and we chatted some.  Apparently he grew up in Mbale, which  is where I'm going to be, and he worked on some public health project about reproductive health mostly for young women.  It was a pleasant flight.

Once I arrived in Entebbe it was easy getting my visa (they didn't even ask to see my Yellow Fever card) and then I found Jani and Jack (Jani is a friend of my sister's and is the one we heard about the program through and Jack is her husband) and we drove to our cute little inn.

First impressions, as I had no clue what to expect.  It was incredibly green, but lots of untouched green land and forests.  Roofs are either the color of the dirt or metal (isn't a tin roof a thing?) and roads are all dirt.  It's pretty hilly and as we landed I saw those trees that make you just think "this is Africa".  They're gorgeous.

I had thought to check out the old Entebbe Airport where Operation Entebbe occurred http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Entebbe (there's also the movie Raid on Entebbe), but it turns out it's right next to the new airport but is used by the military so while I could see it I can't go there to check it out, but now I know where that happened.

On our drive over I noticed all the different sounds that the birds make.  I'm currently staring at one that's black on top and red on the bottom (as in back and stomach).  There are all new flowers, too.  And we can see Lake Victoria from our inn (which is called the Lake Victoria Guesthouse I believe so that makes sense).

Anyway the three of us are gonna head out for a walk but I'm here and I'm safe and I'm starting to explore and tomorrow we'll move to Mbale where we'll spend the next two months!