Western Uganda

Happy valentines dayyyyy

We are spending a couple of days in Western Uganda before heading to Rwanda.  The program usually doesn’t go to Rwanda until further into the program, but because of the elections coming up on the 18^th, we were advised to not be in Kampala before, during, or after just in case political riots turn violent. I’m glad our advisors are taking safety precautions, I just think it’s a little ironic that instead were going to a nation that just recently ended a horrific genocide.  But it will be so nice to be out of the crowded dusty busy streets of Kampala for 3 weeks. So far it has been wonderful.  Driving west across Uganda made me realize how green and lush this nation is. I was expecting to see more brown, dry land but its quite the opposite.  

The site visits that our program takes us to just keeps getting better and better. Today we visited the UNDP located in Mbarara. The UNDP has started the Millennium Villages Project to lift African communities out of extreme poverty. The program so far has reached over 400,000 people in 80 villages within 10 countries in subSaharan Africa. After a presentation at Ugandas UNDP headquarters, we got to visit the actual village, Ruhiira, that the Millennium Villages Project has been working with.  Ahhh it was so exciting to see exactly what the UN (along with private, private non-for-profit donors, etc.) have been doing in a village that started with so little.  From what I took away from it, the project seems to be making great improvements in these villages because the villagers are the ones that are learning how to develop by being the ones to actually make the water wells for clean water, become teachers for the 800 children who walk hours to school every day, and the ones farming and raising cattle to sell themselves to make more than a dollar a day.  Although there is so much that still needs to be done, the improvements were incredible. The infrastructure, education, well rainwater tank systems, a new bank, agriculture, health clinic. Just everything. The people in the village were so thankful, so happy. they were honestly the most beautiful people I have ever seen. 

I wish I could explain everything about today better. I wish I could explain this whole experience more clearly. I think Uganda has already changed me, I don’t think any other place on earth could challenge me or force me to learn so much about even just myself than this place right now.