Things are going great! Right now, I'm sitting in the restaurant at my hotel in Arua, a city which is situated in Northern Uganda.
First of all I just have to tell you about what's happening at the hotel at the moment. Last time I witnessed this I was also alone, so this time I really need to share it. Here goes: I'm in the middle of a wedding, or in other words, there's a wedding at the small hotel I'm staying at. Ugandans seems to love weddings and there are hundreds of guests at the wedding receptions, I've even heard up to eight hundred. I'll tell you how a wedding usually (as I've now twice experienced from the outside) go about. In the morning they start putting up large tents, these are preferably white and pink. Chairs and tables are highly decorated with bows in the same colours. At about noon it's time for installing the sound system, and the DJ arrives. Sound testing and playing of music goes on for about one hour. At this time you believe that the music is extremely high beacause of the testing. This is not correct. When people start arriving at about 13:30, the music is turned up to the absolute maximum, and the DJ also picks up his microphone This is used so he is able to scream even higher than the music; either encouraging calls to the crowd to make them sing the song, to sing the song himself, or to cry out different religious messages (all of this on top of the already super loud music). The songs played are of two kinds. Most preferably are love songs from the nineties, for example: K-Ci and JoJo with «All my life», but different kinds of gospel songs is also frequently used. This goes on for about seven hours. Definately a lot of fun for the people attending, but I'll give it a medium minus for those of us who are just listening to it.
Anyway, over to what I was ment to tell you about. The AIM program in Uganda is roughly devided into three different periods. The first week is the starting week, which is supposed to give the participants information about Ugandan culture as well as gaining more knowledge about the work they are to in their sustainable aid projects. This year, the first week was spent on the very sucsessfull AIM ALL conference, a visit to the Norwegian Embassy and a round tour in Kampala and the slum of Kamwokya. The two next weeks are spent working on the aid projects. This year we have our four projects Pro:legal aid in Kamwokya (Kampala), Pro:piggery in Bushenyi, Sponsor a Dream in Kamwokya (Kampala) and Lions Quest in first Masaka and then Kasese. The last week of the month in Uganda the whole delegation gatheres again, and we spend time together to debrief, evaluate and share our experiences with each other. This year we will use the last week on the Lions World cup we are arraning in Kampala and going Safari at Murchinsons Falls. Some of us will attending the annual meeting of Silent Voices in Bushenyi the last weekend.
So today I'm really exited, and a bit freaked out, to say that theres only one day left of the «working weeks»! I don't have the latest report from all of the groups, but rougly I can say that the work in the projects has been prosperous and all of the groups have done more or less what they initially planned – some are even before scheduale! I'll update you later on the projects, right now I'm just very, very much looking forward to seeing each and every one again tomorrow afternoon.
As the delegation leader, it is my preveligie to be able to travel to different places both visiting this years groups, as well as following up last years projects. So far I've visited the Pro:piggery group in Bushenyi, the Lions Quest group in Masaka and I'm right now situated in Arua where I'm following up one of last years projects, AIM:art.
It's been a great experience to get to travel around and see more of the country. I can not easily decide on a favourite place, but I can tell you some of the things I've discovered during my trips. The south is very green and beautiful, and the villages are situated closely to each other. The north has a more scarce landscape and the villages doesn't pop up as often. In the north I also saw a lot of traditionally round clay houses with grass roofing, which I haven't seen any other place. As for the people, it feels like the people in the north are more used to seeing white people, also in the country side. Here I don't get as much attention as in the middle and southern country, where the children freely runs to you screaming «Mzungu, mzungu!». But some things regarding travelling are the same all around the country. The first rule is that people, food and living animals goes great togehter. Second rule is that the bus nearly never stops, while the last rule is that you will be covered in dust when you reach your destination, as the red soil roads are very dusty and the windows needs to be open beacause of the heath.
PS: The power just broke at thewhole hotel, so there's for the moment no more 90ies- or gospel music.
Delegation Leader Hanna
– who can't decide wether she's looking forward to the seven hour bus ride back to Kampala tomorrow morning or not.
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