East Africa Forum

This weekend we had an amazing opportunity to go to Kampala, Uganda to meet with 45 other GlobeMed students and their partner organizations from Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and Togo. It was the first annual East Africa Forum, put on by GlobeMed National Office so that the East African NGOs (and a few West African NGOs) can network and brainstorm together! They always say that GlobeMed events are like getting together with your family that you’ve never met, and I have always been skeptical. But really, it is so easy to quickly befriend people who are across the world with you for the same purposes!

The countries represented in the East Africa Forum! The theme was "Uniting communities for sustainable action."

We came to Kampala a day early with the intention of seeing some sites in the city. We got to the bus station in Kigali at 5:00 for our 5:30 departure time! We were told that the bus ride would be 7-9 hours, so we settled in our seats with some books and MCAT study materials (definitely not me)! Two hours later, we hit the border and got out to go through the customs office (just a stand by the road). When we tried to get back on the bus, the guy on it was just like “No, walk to Kampala” and we were worried for a second that the bus ride just ended there and we had to figure out the rest! Then we realized that we had to walk like a quarter-mile to the Ugandan customs window to get our visas before getting back on the bus. Same story on the way home…it was a little sketchy but not too bad! As long as we didn’t give our passport to any people on the street claiming to help us, otherwise they would have stolen it, we heard. Also, this was our first time being forced to pee in holes instead of toilets. Quite a skill! 

Book I read on the bus - really worth your time! Paul Farmer, whose life this author follows, is a great example of someone not only trying to heal the world, but full of genuine compassion as well.

These are your future doctors, studying for the MCAT.

Just enjoying the ride.

Ugandan countryside! I like Rwanda's patchy hills better, but this was still nice to see! There's a lot of cows and goats in the distance!

The Rwandan customs office.

Once we were 10 hours into the bus ride, we started to go a little crazy. (Remember, it was only supposed to take 7-9 hours). Also, they were playing the same short CD on repeat the entire time, aside from a few hours in the beginning.

Going craaaaaaazy/rocking out to the music we heard for the 50th time.

12 hours of bus later we finally arrived in Kampala! Our hotel reservation had fallen through late the night before we left, so our first goal was to find somewhere to stay. We didn’t have any luck in the city but remembered Nessa and Ciaran telling us about Backpacker’s Hostel in the outskirts of town, so we took some motos there. I’ll just leave it at: the motos in Kigali are SUPER safe compared to Kampala (or anywhere else, we’ve heard). Also, Kampala is really busy and crowded. We definitely like the calmness of Kigali, which we thought was busy before we got to Kampala. The hostel we stayed at turned out to be really nice, and we slept like 12 hours that night.

Looking for somewhere to stay! Oops.

Our bunk room at Backpacker's Hostel

Nice little courtyard at the hostel!

We met at a different hotel the next morning and looked around the area a bit before getting to Ndere Cultural Center, where we would spend the weekend! Ndere was really nice (not like fancy, but it had everything we needed and was cute and comfy)! Throughout the conference there were many speakers, mostly from African organizations, who had a lot of wisdom to give us concerning topics like media use to advocacy. Cassien, our HDI guy, gave a short speech on advocacy and everyone really liked hearing from him! 

Appropriate that the bartender in our group has her own bar in Kampala. Who knew?!

When we were walking around looking for a place to eat, we followed a billboard that said, "Get your Asian experience!" It took us to this reeeally nice Chinese restaurant!

One of the GlobeMed partner organizations in Nairobi, Kenya is called U-Tena and they teach health lessons to kids through drama and other art forms. This is their first performance for us. It was really cool!

Maggie joining in on the dance!

Abby and my little room at Ndere :)

The common area in our set of rooms. It had 3 rooms and a bathroom!

First set of presentations and panels - GlobeMedders all ready to learn!

Our National Office Executive Director, Maya, dancing with U-Tena! 

First panel, on "cross-sector perspectives on partnership." This was interesting, at it was great to hear someone from the Segal Family Foundation talk about how sustainability and partnership are a part of that foundations goals when they donate to NGOs. 

Cassien talking about advocacy!

Lawrence GROW team!

We also had some time to just hang out and get to know each other, which was full of fun and laughter! We made new friends, and already made plans to go clubbing with another group from the Kigali area for one of their members’ birthday next weekend :)

Fun night with GlobeMedders once we all arrived!

Night out at an Indian restaurant. It was so good!

The currency switch can make our bills look a little alarming.

After stopping at a cute craft place, where I got some colorful pants that I am in love with, we boarded the bus back to Kigali! This one was overnight, but I didn’t sleep more than like a half hour because the guy next to me was a little too big for his seat (to be fair, the seats are small. Anyone bigger than me would be too big for his or her seat). Luckily, this bus ride was only 10 hours and we got home at 4:30am. The Forum was a really great experience, and talking with everyone else from GlobeMed really gave me the energy to finish this internship strong!

My fav water brand! So cute.