In Veraguas, Panama. In March 2011, I took a service trip to a western part of Panama with Global Business Brigades, which organizes service learning trips for college students to third world countries to work on projects like dental health, public health, engineering and architecture, or business like mine. A group of students from my university went to a small communal farm, and created a series of business workshops for the farmers such as time management and profit/loss analysis. We slept on the floor of one of the classrooms, and cooled off in the mountain river every day…heaven!
These are photos of various urban areas and towns I visited in Uganda. I lived in a town outside Jinja called Bugembe (kind of like a suburb). Jinja is situated in the south of the country, on the source of the Nile River around Lake Victoria. It’s actually the second largest city in Uganda, and has pretty good expat/tourist cafes. Kampala is the capital and largest city in the country.
Again, people might be surprised at how green the country is. It’s very tropical, but not at all muggy or steamy.
Sipi Falls, Eastern Uganda. This is a gorgeous collection of waterfalls, starting from a river cascading from the peak of Mt. Elgon down into a series of falls ending in the valley. We stayed at a campsite on the side of the mountain overlooking the falls from the other side of the valley.
I think people are constantly surprised by how green and lush Africa is, but this is it…Uganda is very fertile. In the south at least, food isn’t scarce at all.
Food in Uganda typically consists of several starchy bases and a protein in a sauce that’s drizzled over it. You can eat with your hands, and this entree is typically complemented by a green vegetable like spinach. The protein sauces can be beans, chicken, goat, pork, beef, or fish. You can also have g-nut sauce, which is a peanut paste. The starchy base can be sweet or irish potatoes, pumpkin (especially good with g-nut sauce), millet bread, cassava root, rice, posho (fluffy cornmeal), or matooke (steamed, smashed plantain paste). It’ll fill you up!
Snack wise, we always could buy food from street vendors. Because of the Indian influence in Uganda, chapati bread and samosas could be had readily from any street stand. Roasted corn or sausage was popular, but you had to be careful if you ate street meat because you never knew whether it was really dog or maguro stork. The best snack by far was a “rolex,” which is chapati bread and an omelette that was then rolled up and eaten by a breakfast burrito. And of course fresh fruit was everywhere, quite literally - growing on trees.
After dinner, in the English tradition, there was always tea time.
And THAT’S hit the nail on the head.
In Uganda. This is a montage of photos from a safari I took in Uganda in summer of 2011. This is at Murchison Falls, probably one of the most “complete” national parks in Uganda in terms of the Big 5 game that you can see. It only lacks zebras, and I didn’t see leopards or hyenas, but those tend to come out in the evening. Cheetahs as well weren’t there, but overall, excellent and you can’t beat the waterfall.
This montage was taken in Brown County, Indiana at Brown County State Park. It’s not quite fall, but not quite summer anymore. This is all about southern Indiana. Hilly and green.
