Happy New Year all! Hope you had a
wonderful time with your friends and family. This post is dedicated to an
amazing young lady who is 30 today (whoop! Whoop!!) and also happens to be
unfortunate enough to be my cousin. This
young lady organized and executed an amazing Christmas meal/day last year and
deserves a medal. Now at the start, when I got the email with the attached
spreadsheet telling me what jobs were assigned to me on Christmas day, I
promptly picked up the phone to inform my dear cousin how I felt about
organizing Christmas and why I thought formal organization of such an event
took the fun out of this much loved festive holiday. My lovely Abidays, I take it all back, I was
wrong! Your organization saved us all on Christmas day.
As I enter into the last month/months of
planning; I have come to appreciate the wonders of list, spreadsheets and job
assignment. Preparing to live and work in a different country requires more
than the motto of the girls guide but also a great deal of tenacity that a type
A personality person like me normally reveals in. On this occasion even I am waving ever so
slightly, in the spirit of procrastination I am going to abandon the lists of
things I haven’t done and tell you a little about Jinja (thanks Emily W for my guidebook). At this point, I must mention that the Global Links Handbook has been incredibly helpful. If anyone was thinking of doing
something similar do not be put off by my rant, check out the guidebook for a
step-by-step guide.
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| http://nextadventure.com/uganda/ |
I reassure myself in the knowledge that
this is part of the preparation process and I am not wasting any time. Here is a brief summary about Uganda as well
as a little about Jinja. Uganda is in East Africa and is bordered by the Republic of Kenya to the
East, the Democratic Republic of Congo to the West, the United Republic of
Tanzania and the Republic of Rwanda to the South and the Republic of South
Sudan to the North. It was first called the Pearl of Africa in 1909 by Sir
Winston Churchill because of its vast amount of scenic views, safari, and most
importantly the beautiful white waters. It was also voted “the no
#1 destination
of 2012” by Lonely Planet Guide. As it
is an ex-British colony the official language is English, the lingua franca of a few Eastern African countries is Swahili but the most commonly spoken Language
in Uganda is Luganda.
The capital is Kampala; it is the largest city
in Uganda with an international airport called the Entebbe International
Airport. The second largest city is Jinja and here is where I hope to be for
most of my time in Uganda. Jinja lies in southeastern
Uganda, east of Kampala. It is located on the shores of Lake Victoria, near to
the source of the Nile River. Jinja
literally means “rocks” as it is an area
of settlement near where the rocks intersect the path of the Nile River. Reading
about it, I get the feeling it is quiet a cosmopolitan city with internet
cafes, post offices, railways, international banks, much needed shopping malls,
cinemas and a golf course (I might take up golfing). It has one regional
hospital, which is where I will be working. Once I arrive in Jinja and find my
feet, I’ll try to post a more detailed account of the city, population, the
hospital and my patients. For the much
wanted visitors from home (please come and see me;)), the list of activities
available includes horseback riding, bungee jumping, water skiing, boat
cruises, rafting, camping, bird watching and quad cycling. Now that I have done a great deal of mental
preparation and also given you a snippet of information about Jinja, I had
better get back to my lists. The promise
of golfing has got me in the mood to get the to do list perfect. Ciao lovely people. 