20 days in

Hi all! Sorry for the lack of contact but Ive not been near a computer for a good couple of weeks now.

Before I came away I was convinced that I would have no trouble at all writing a blog; after all I would have so much to say! But it seems that is the problem. Imagine that you had been picked up and put down on another planet and then 20 days later sat down in front of a screen and tried to describe it to those still at home. What would you begin with? The smell? The food? The faces? (Tropical, monotonous and smiley respectively by the way.)

The view outside my window

I am still in the training center and getting a little bored of Sexual Reproductive Health training (SRH) now. There is only so may times you can talk about the most serious of things before they begin to lose all meaning. In fact - as a purely educative tool of course - we have invented HIV Cluedo. Its mostly the same except instead of the revolver the rope and the lead piping we have methods of HIV transmission such as breast milk, genital sores and blood transfusions. In case you're interested it was Mrs White in the ballroom with rough sex.

Last Sunday we all took a trip to the source of the Nile just outside Jinja with all of the volunteers. It is a bay where the water flows out of Lake Victoria and begins a journey which will take 3 months to reach the delta in Egypt. It was a beautiful sight, all the more so for the beer we had in the little bar next to the water as the sun sank down. This was soon followed by bad dancing to bad Ugandan hip hop on the little wooden dance floor. Our Ugandan counterparts found our attempts at rhythm truly hilarious but joined in to show us how its done.

Me and the girls at the source of the Nile

Health wise, other than the odd dizzy spell probably due to dehydration, I have been unaffected by the drama around me. Four out of seven international vols are down with malaria, two have had it twice and one had that as well as a bacterial chest infection and suspected dysentery! Considering all this the mood is pretty cheerful, though those of us who have remained healthy and malaria free are beginning to feel left out.

I have found out where my placement will be for the next six months. It is a village called Busede about fifty minutes north of Jinja. Other than that I know very little except that it has a reputation for sugar cane and the phone signal is sporadic. My placement partner is a community volunteer called Joyce who is lovely and I will be living with 2 boys called Joseph and Myco in what is supposedly a two room house (though being the only girl I'm guaranteed my own room). The boys have promised to teach me how to cook Ugandan food and I have assured them that they will grow to love sausage and mash, mainly as that's all I think I will be confident enough to cook on a charcoal stove!

That's all I have time for at the moment but I will try and update again before I head off to the village for a good few weeks out of contact. As promised my Ugandan mobile number is +256785899470 feel free to send me a text any time. Also if you are feeling especially generous my postal address is Anna Corbett, SPW, Plot 6, Acacia Rd, Jinja Municipality. Books are my major craving as I have already devoured three since iv been here, though two were twilight so they don't really count (yes I have finally succumbed). Packages and letters take a month to get through the postal system here so to all those whose letters I will be writing in the coming months please be patient.

Speak to you all as soon as I can and hope you all had a wonderful January.
Anna xxx

The Netherlands is famous....

My God where do I even begin! It feels like I've been here forever already not 7 days, yet at the same time I am so lost in most situations!

We got here at 10am on Sunday, totally exhausted after not sleeping at all on the 10 hour flight. We were met at the airport by Emma (a man's name in Uganda) who took us to a shopping center where we were told we should buy things like wellies and mosquito nets. Dreamily we bought whatever we were told with no idea whether the prices were good or bad or what the notes in our hands represented in "real" money - we now know it was damn expensive! Setting out on the road every building seemed to double up as a beauty parlor, furniture shop, hairdressers, bar, clothes store, restaurant and anything else under the sun. The bright pinks and yellows of the buildings painted the colors of mobile phone companies contrasted sharply with the green mountains and red roads. After falling asleep in the van dispite the views we arrived at our training center.

The center is located about 45 minutes from Kampala just off the main road to Jinga. After expecting to be in a city it was a lovely surprise to be in beautiful hills surrounded by green tropical vegetation and dusty tracks (pictures to come when i remember to bring my camera next time!). To be honest, after being introduced to 30 smiling people, shown our dorm rooms with about 9 beds hung with mosquito nets as well as the outside loo, I had a small "what the hell am I doing here" moment. Looking back now it was probably just the tiredness. The longer I stay here the happier I am getting.

The training is quite intense: 9 to 5 every weekday with a half day on Saturday. The most interesting day so far has been the "cultural awareness" session. Pieces of flip chart paper were put up on the wall with the names of all the countries that were represented among the volunteers. We were then invited to go round and write a rumor or an assumption that we had about that place so that the people from that place could correct it. Poor Joyce. She is from the Netherlands and on that paper was written things like "they practice female circumcision" and "there is segregation of whites and blacks". She stood there, totally aghast, explaining that this was totally untrue! On the UK page was written "you are all watched by one big camera which records everything you do". We explained the only thing wrong with that was that there were actually lots of cameras.

Towards the end of the week we have been getting into the sexual and reproductive health lessons we will be teaching in schools. At first it was all a bit embarrassing but Uganda solved that by sending us a tropical downpour. It echoed so loudly on the tin roof that we were forced to shout explanations for erections, ejaculation and wet dreams at the top of our lungs which certainly broke the ice.

I'm running out of time here so let me just say I'm having a fantastic if challenging time and missing many of you. Next time I promise a phone number and some pictures.

Packing

Give or take a couple of things: my life for the next year!

Books

This is a post culled from my other blog that seems to make more sense here. My reaction to the unknown is always to read about it! Must be the historian in me: study breeds familiarity. Here is a list of some wonderful books on Africa and/or the AIDS crisis.

Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher - excited but upsetting. Granddads remember when cars were on the road and the kids have never seen them because of the total collapse of central Africa's infrastructure and tourist industry.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - fiction but beautiful. It changed the whole way I thought about the challenges facing Africa and the African people. Highly recommended.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - Stunning, experienced a bit of post colonel guilt to be honest. It's a very difficult issue because in some way there is almost no point in regretting it, its done, but it was awful to read of the traditional African beliefs from the point of view of them being ripped to shreds.

The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski - Beautiful love letter to Africa by a journalist who covered 40 years of strife there. You are permitted little glimpses into these jewels of stories, sometimes never knowing how they began and sometimes not seeing how they ended. Seems to be a metaphor for the fragmented nature of being on the road.

HIV/AIDS A Very Short Introduction Does what it says on the tin, short and clinical but informative.

The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani - a very challenging read about the "business" of AIDS prevention and treatment in Asia. Her account of the fight for funding and ridiculous protectionist policies that cost lives and billions of dollars made my blood boil.

Have these books helped prepare me? I suppose that's a question I can't answer until I get there! What they have done is make me ask more questions of myself and my purpose in going away. I took my first malaria tablet today! One week to go.

What I've Learned

Since coming home six months ago I’ve been living a very different life. These are a few things I’ve leaned.

Persistence is everything. Age is a number. There is a place in Wales as beautiful as the Med. I am a geek. I probably believe in karma. XKCD rules. It’s easier than you think to lose your humanity. I can work 75 hour weeks. University is its own isolated, self obsessed bloody amazing little world. Dan Brown is a truly terrible writer. You can never help who you fall for. Or when. This is a good thing. I can’t open a bottle with my mobile phone. I am a feminist. Disney still makes good films. The recession is real. Its never too late to make new friends. The public are often idiots. They are abused because of this. Family is essential. Friends almost equally so. Coming home can make you feel like a stranger. TV is the thief of time. Procrastination can change your world. I am so, so lucky.

Blood

I'm going to go give blood just after Christmas for the last time for at least a year. It got me thinking about what anyone getting my blood would actually receive! In the last five years I have been vaccinated against:

Yellow fever
Diphtheria
Tetanus
Polio
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B x5
Typhoid
Measles, mumps and rubella
Rabies x3
Flu

They should have some kind of special bed just for such rare blood or do some kind of experiment to see if it might be the cure to all ills! The only vaccine I haven't had is one for cholera.....damn. I'm going to get cholera.

Fears.

With just over a month to go i'm getting so excited and jumpy i'm beginning to resemble some kind of electrified meerkat. Gathering bits and pieces which will be invaluable, head light, travel towel, wet wipes, thin books, solar charger... everything small I can think of which will help me live for the next year. At the same time though, at night mostly, or at breaks between listening to people cry and depleting my Karma bank at work, little things have started to worry me.

I'm scared of becoming disheartened, of believing there's no hope. I'm scared of massive spiders. I'm scared of people dying. I'm scared of getting malaria or a tape worm. I'm scared of being alone. I'm scared of getting ill, waking up in hospital with needles in my arm and not knowing where they came from.

I don't want to put a downer on anything, but its cathartic to share these things and get them out in the open. They don't languish in my brain but exist independently here. And, to be honest, if I wasn't a little scared, I think I would be rather stupid.

Briefing

Just back from a pre departure briefing in SPW's London offices for the weekend. Its all getting very real now. I'm actually going. I less than two months! There was LOADS of stuff covered, kit to take (bring lots of malaria tablets), a health talk (you will probably get malaria) and what to do in a crisis situation (when you get malaria…lie down).

Some of the sessions also encouraged me to think about HIV and AIDS and the way it affects entire communities and infrastructures. Its not just the human suffering, which is of course appalling, but the stigma, rumours, miss information, loss of potential and skills, economic stagnation, lack of role models, apathy, hopelessness. All of these things must be the result of the generations that have been lost

There is no quick fix. If there was it would have been done by now and I'm not expecting to save the world in 8 months. But hearing from previous volunteers that health and livelihood clubs that were put in place two years ago by them are still running and expanding in some communities makes me really hopeful. My attitude is that the job is only done when we are no longer needed and that any changes must be gradual and sustainable. Even if I am working myself out of a job.

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Two months to go.

Yesterday was two months to the day until I fly out to Uganda to begin my next adventure. I couldn't be more excited and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people that have helped me out. People have sponsored me, bought days, kept secrets, donated sleeping bags, given advice and much much more. So to all of you, thank you thank you thank you.

I must admit that through the excitement I am also a little worried. Will I be able to deal with what I see and with no running water or electricity for months at a time? Will I do any good? Will I have become completely immune to medicine after taking antibiotic malarial tablets for 12 months!? I have a flight into Uganda and a flight out from Cape Town...will I make it!? When will the money run out (notice the "when", there is no question that it will!)? Most importantly, how will I cope without the BBC website?

Despite all this I can't wait to get out there and be where I am most comfortable which is out of my comfort zone. For some reason I can always cope better with the world when I have no clue what the hell is going on. It seems like the natural order of things.