Day 1 – Tour of Kampala & Welcome Dinner

First of all, THANKS for all the encouragement/best wishes I received from everyone back home before leaving on my trip to Africa.  Your support and interest in my trip is much appreciated.

I arrived safely last night in Kampala, Uganda just before midnight local time, about 27 hours after leaving home on Friday.  The trip included a bus ride from Ottawa to Montreal, then two flights (Montreal to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Entebee) and a lastly a 1 hour van ride to Kampala.  Kampala, or more specifically the Speke Hotel, is the home base for the trip.  The hotel is the oldest hotel in the City but its quite nice – no complaints!

Speke Hotel in downtown Kampala

I am glad to report that all my fellow tour members are nice and we seem to get along well (so far).  There are 9 non-WaterCan people, plus two Canadian-based WaterCan staff and one Uganda-based WaterCan staff in the group.  The group is quite diverse with varied interests and also from various locations across Canada (Vancouver, Saskatoon, Ottawa and Toronto).  After travelling with many of them on Friday and Saturday, plus 1 full day here in Uganda I think we will all have lots of fun together on this WaterCan tour.

Day 1 details:

After a late night and early breakfast, we had an orientation session hosted by George Yap (Executive Director of WaterCan) and Cate Nimanya (Uganda-based WaterCan field staff).  Everyone had a chance to formally introduce themselves and then we learned about the water/sanitation situation in Uganda and WaterCan’s approach to making things better.  As per my previous blog, the key principles of WaterCan’s work are helping provide clean drinking water, basic sanitation, and hygiene education.  George informed us that although these principles are quite simple in theory, implementation is often not that simple.

George Yap at Orientation Meeting

Next we embarked on a tour of Kampala (population about 3 million) in a small bus.  The tour included a quick stop at a ‘market’, a visit to Uganda’s Martyrs Shrine, and a guided tour of the Buganda Parliament building and Palace (which included the torture chambers used by the former dictator Idi Amin).  Much of today’s tour was to try and teach us about the history and culture of Uganda which I know very little about.  The historical/cultural sites were very interesting – but I need to do some work to better understand some important historical events that have happened here in Uganda.

The daily living standards/ways of life for the City residents are very different here in Uganda as compared to Canada.  Some of the sights, especially the market and the small children, were quite unbelievable at first.  The children are raised with much less than we have back home – but for the most part, they seemed happy and healthy.  Later in the tour, I expect to see much worse living conditions as we visit rural areas and city slums. 

 One of the many people I met at the Market

 

Bananas were everywhere at the Market

Young girl washing clothes

Very young girl having a bath

After a short break from 4 to 6 pm, we all headed out to the ‘official welcome dinner’ at a nearby restaurant with representatives from WaterCan’s four partner organizations (these are the people who implement the various project in Uganda).  There were about 40 people at the dinner.  This was the most formal gathering we will have this week as it included a few speeches and introductions of study tour participants.  I enjoyed talking with some of the African people and learning about them.

It’s now time for bed!  The first day was excellent and I am excited too see lots more interesting people and places in the days to come!