That's good luck right?

Greetings from Kampala! It's officially my third day in Uganda and I'm loving it already. Even though I'm not gone for good, last week in Chicago was full of lots of "lasts" - the last time I'd get to see the sunset from my favorite spot on the couch, the last time I'd grab dinner with the Chicago crew, hopefully my last Malort shot and trip to The Apartment, etc. But, what's exciting about being here, is that it's full of "firsts!"

• ​My first time living alone
  • I'm staying in a one bedroom apartment until I can figure out longer term housing towards the end of the year. It's a really nice place, but makes it more of an effort to to social and make friends. I think that the closest I've come to living alone is my hotel room each week while traveling for client work! Not sure I'm a fan...jury's still out
• My first time eating grasshopper
  • This earned me some serious street cred when introducing myself around the office on Monday. Apparently a local delicacy, I was happily greeted with some fried (?) grasshopper on Sunday afternoon. Like the crickets they sell in Thai markets, if you just don't really look or think about what you're eating, they kind of taste like chips...? 
• My first time having a local sim card enabled smart phone
  • I've never had data on a smart phone while traveling or living abroad. This makes it easier to plan on the go and find myself on google maps. Plus, Ugandans love WhatsApp, so it's a cheap and easy way to stay in touch with new friends
    • 3GB of data and 1hr of airtime cost me ~$22.5 USD
    • A sim card cost 0.65 cents
• My first time attending a breakdance showcase (see photos below)
  • I spent Sunday afternoon at Break Fast Jam 2015 which was at a local YMCA. It was an event put on by Breakdance Project Uganda which believes that dance can be a channel for social change. It seems to be a pretty commonly understood notion that providing children and adolescents after-school programs reduces their risk of getting in other trouble. From what I saw this past weekend, it seems like this organization is doing an incredible job of not only building a strong community dedicated to social responsibility but is also supporting the growth of a strong hip hop / breakdancing culture in Uganda and East Africa

While all these new experiences have been great, I'm looking forward to settling into a routine. So far, the options seem endless. Breakdance / modern dance classes, frisbee leagues, salsa dancing lessons, etc.

@Bennett and Brady - my biggest risk of getting sick is probably from eating or drinking contaminated food or water. That means that I have to remember to brush my teeth with bottled water! There were a few cases of Ebola in 2012 in Uganda, but what you heard about in the news was mainly about an epidemic outbreak in West Africa. In addition to using a mosquito net and lots of bug spray, I am also taking pills each day to try to prevent malaria, which I could get from a mosquito bite. Luckily, I haven't had any side effects from the medication - some people get hallucinations! If you go to the CDC website, you guys can read health information for travelers going anywhere in the world. Next time you guys go on vacation, you should check it out!

@Elaine Kaima - if you're offering me a North Face sponsorship, I'm all ears :)

I received a card from my friend Casey with that quote on it. I couldn't think of something better to summarize how I've felt the past 4 years. I'm particularly excited because while it's usually hard, as the quote implies, to change the world and have a lot of fun at the same time, I think these next few months will be as close to both of those as I'll get, at least for now. 

So what will I be doing? I'll have a better sense of what my day-to-day will look like over the next few weeks, but at a high level, here's what I understand. 

I'll be working for the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) as a volunteer analyst. CHAI started in 2002 as an initiative of the Clinton Foundation with the primary goal of treating those living with HIV/AIDS in the developing world. Now, it's a separate 501(c)(3) and has broadened its reach to address malaria, TB, and more. CHAI works closely with local governments in order to ensure that programs are sustainable and scalable. In a way, they act as a consulting firm for Ministries of Health - from what I understand, CHAI's biggest resource is its people, and funding for projects comes as grants from external groups / organizations. President Clinton is the Chairman of the Board and Chelsea Clinton and Dr. Paul Farmer both sit on the BoD as well (I guess I won't hold his commencement speech against him). Fun fact: Julie Leder, CHAI's CFO worked at Deloitte for 17 years! 

**teams of businessmen and businesswomen**

I’ll be based in Kampala, Uganda working with CHAI’s Ugandan and Zambian Pediatric HIV teams. The project these teams are working on (alongside teams in Malawi and Zimbabwe) is in year two of three. So, it sounds like a lot of the project planning and high level strategy has been completed. The work I’ll be doing will be to support the following goals:

1. Increase identification of HIV positive children and children with TB
2. Improve retention – in addition to HIV positive children, there is a focus on keeping HIV positive pregnant mothers in care until the end of the exposure period to eliminate mother-to-child transmission
3. Increase access to HIV care and treatment services – working closely with the government to increase treatment services and access points across the country

More details to come. I officially do have a flight booked and take off tomorrow afternoon! Have any good book recommendations I should download for my loooooong journey to East Africa? Let me know!

Many people over the past few weeks and days have asked me what has been running through my head as I prepare for my adventure in Uganda. My answer? Internet, this blog, and packing - more or less in that order. 

I arrive (caveat: as the title of this post indicates, I still don't have an actual plane ticket yet) in Kampala on Saturday night so I'll have all day Sunday to get set up. I just found out that I'll have wifi in my cottage!! This has been a huge relief. From my research (read: facebook messages with friends of friends) wifi isn't commonplace in Kampala. So my tactic of awkwardly standing outside cafes with free wifi signs to look up walking directions or post that latest Instagram isn't going to work. Now that I know I'll have internet upon arrival, I can continue watching Jane the Virgin and happily delay the following tasks: figuring out where to get a local sim card, looking up walking directions to a grocery store, finding the best way to get to work on Monday, and downloading books to my Kindle.

Having wifi also makes it easier to maintain this blog and continue to build out this site. As many of you know, I used to have a food "blog" (it may be a disservice to bloggers out there to call it a blog). Overeating is still underrated, but I'm excited to step up my game a little bit. I've been addicted to Weebly since I started putting this together last week because I've been determined to at least have a few real pages up before sending the link out. This is still a work in progress, but I'm thinking that my lack of any friends in Kampala will allow me to spend some time on new pages. My ask of you? Ask questions, leave comments, and provide feedback on the site! The button to leave comments is right under the Facebook link below. Huge shout out to those of you who have helped me brainstorm and pull this site together. You know who you are.

And what should i have been doing instead of reminiscing and looking through old travel photos? Packing. When people find out that I'm leaving on Friday, they all want to know if I'm packed. Um...obviously not. But...as someone who usually doesn't pack Advil or a Band Aid when traveling, I'm trying to be very risk averse in the way I approach packing this time around. I stocked up on all the good stuff - Neosporin, Pepto-Bismol, Mucinex etc. - and even splurged for the brand name items! When I got back from Walgreens last night, I decided that I would start to pack so as not to cause my friends and family so much panic. Meaning I would dump everything I bought onto the floor of my living room. I can figure out how to get it to fit into the suitcase at a later date. So far so good, right?

In case reading this post has given you anxiety, here are a few things I do have:

• Malaria medication and a portfolio of insect repellent
• A sweet new Patagonia duffel (on sale until the 23rd! And yes, I went to REI For the bug spray and left with a new bag...this is not surprising to anyone that knows me)
• Vaccinations (didn't have time to get the rabies sequence but I'm choosing not to worry about that until I see how many animals there are)
• A place to stay 
• A motorcycle helmet (sorry Mom, I'll be safe)
• An unlocked cell phone (thanks Rob!)
• Too many footwear options
• My scuba certification card
• Some snacks
• My travel pillow, microfiber towel (a baby one and the XL), and cocoon (my travel essentials)

What will I be doing in Uganda? More on that later...