World Travels Round 2: Uganda

Welcome back. So let's get the boring stuff out of the way. As a PT student we are required to do a 4 week clinical internship, and one of the options was surprisingly in Uganda, Africa (as a means of reference, the rest of the internships are spread throughout the USA, primarily in Wisconsin) My interest in world travel being what it is, I sit here typing this from Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. This entails shadowing a physiotherapist at Mulago Hospital, the primary hospital here in Kampala, as well as doing the same out in a currently undisclosed rural village. More on that later.

My classmates Ryan, Brett, Anna, and Allyssia and I started with a 10 hour layover in London. Some fish and chips and about 10 tube rides later, we were back on the plane for the 2nd overnight 8ish hour flight. We arrived in Entebbe, Uganda early Sunday morning, tired and smelly and headed for a day of tours. First of all, the descent into the airport was fantastic. Entebbe is situated on Lake Victoria, which forms the southeast border of Uganda, and is beautiful to see from above on a sunny morning. Next up was the ride from Entebbe to Kampala. Anyone who complains about Chicago drivers or otherwise should spend a single car ride in Uganda. If any traffic rules exist, you wouldn't know it. The roadside along the way was filled with various sorts of markets, ranging from women's dresses to raw meat to furniture, all of which were situated in small, rundown shacks.

But back to the driving. We were in a mutato (sp?), which is just a large passenger van, but all around us and all throughout Kampala are what are called boda bodas. These are smallish motorbikes that serve as taxis where the passengers sits sideways on a small pad behind the driver. I haven't met a single person yet who hasn't strongly recommended against using these, because aside from the instability of the vehicle and the shoddy road conditions, the drivers are inexperienced and generally reckless. But we all made it into Kampala intact with no luggage lost, arriving safely at the campus of Makerere University where we will be living for the next 4 weeks.

Our first day was far from over, but I'll explain more next time, as well as give an introduction to some of the valuable people we've met.