Welcome to Kasese

I have arrived in Kasese yesterday, the small town where I will be spending the rest of my summer. Kasese is a small town that serves as the base for the surrounding farming communities, and is located in the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains. I will post pictures when I get the chance, but this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. We are about a mile away from Queen Elizabeth National Park, which Godfrey (the organization director) showed us when we first arrived. He drove us to Lake George and we bought fish from the community who live in the park in homes provided by the government. Absolutely breathtaking views, and on our drive to the hotel we saw gazelle about 20 feet away from the car- our own safari on the first day!

The hotel that I am currently staying at is nicer than my apartment now- there's a shower and toilet which is pretty ritzy here. The hotel is in a gated compound and has a wonderful garden full of all kinds of exciting tropical plants, which I have been asked to identify and make labels for. The owner of the hotel is interested in the agrotourism industry so many people visit him to learn more about East African plants.

The hotel is expensive, so I am going to be staying in town at a motel or on the organizations farm in a place called Karusandara. There are fewer amenities, but hey I am in a third world country. People are surprised to see Seth and I walking around, many of the Ugandans in the rural town have never seen a white person before. The most amazed are children, who will follow us around if we are "footing" about town pointing and shouting "mzungu!" which means foreigner. It is hard to get used to it! We have a program outlined for us so that we get to see a bit of everything that is done here at CETRUD, which is a ton. One week will be spent on community training, one on a poultry project, one on HIV/AIDS etc. I do feel like all of these things will meld together in our time here. CETRUD really does some amazing things with the community and I am looking forward to getting started. In the mean time I am adjusting to the heat and the food, and learning some of the local languages.