Births

It happens every 3 - 5 years. There must be something in the water ... is it a government plan to increase the population of the US? It must be, because every 3 - 5 years a bunch of my friends become pregnant!

March - June of this year I'll have 5 new babies in my life because Danielle, Heidi, Kris, Amy, and Joyce are all due within weeks of each other.

Two have already arrived .. welcome to:

Luke Gervais Sodani- born March 19, 2008

Henry Atticus Yoon - born March 26, 2008

Kampala videos - quality NOT guaranteed!

Here are some videos taken from the balcony of my hotel room. These are my first attempts at using my camera as a video and unfortunately, the pictures are a lot clearer on my camera than they are here. For some reason, that I haven't figured out yet, they became fuzzy when uploaded to the web.

View from my hotel room during the day, click on the picture to hear the birds:


It was fun to watch this Marabou stork walk across the roof, again, sorry about the shaking video:


Sunrise from my balcony, click on the picture to hear the birds and frogs:


There was a conference held at the hotel while we were there. Click on the picture to hear some women singing as they walk toward the reception. I apologize in advance for any motion sickness you feel at the beginning of the clip:

Special St. Patrick's Day Dinner 'Guest'

Guess who I had dinner with tonight? Well, 'with' is not exactly the correct term ... but he was just a few tables away. I'll let just a piece of a news story speak for itself:

News March 17, 2008

Gadaffi arrives

MONITOR REPORTER - KAMPALA

LIBYAN leader Muammar Gadaffi arrived yesterday on an official visit during which he will open the Gadaffi National Mosque and close the Afro-Arab Youth Festival.

Northern Uganda

Greetings from Kampala ... after 2 weeks in the north we arrived back in Kampala today. I have a new appreciation for running water, electricity, and air conditioning! The trip was educational and depressing at the same time.

Northern Uganda has been a war zone since 1987 when the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, started an armed rebellion against the Government of Uganda in an effort to establish a theocratic state based on the 10 Commandments and Acholi tradition. A search on Wikipedia says that "the LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations, including mutilation, torture, rape, the abduction of civilians, the use of child soldiers and a number of massacres." A cease-fire was agreed to a few years ago and many international organizations have flooded the region with money to help rebuild services and provide basic humanitarian needs for the internally displaced people (IDP).

What's interesting about this region right now is that it's in transition. Many of the IDP's are leaving the camps and either, creating satellite camps somewhere between the original camp and their former homes, or returning to the land where they used to live. I learned a lot about the history and the people of northern Uganda during this trip. They have experienced a lot of pain and have witnessed things that nobody should every have to see. However, while these experiences may handicap many, for the most part, the people I met and talked with are looking toward the future with some hope. The Acholi people have a tradition of forgiveness and it seems like they are truly taking that to heart.

Here are some pictures of huts and people in the IDP camps that I visited:

Huts in a transition IDP camp

IDP Camp Leader and kids and mothers from the camp Cooking inside the hut - the picture isn't cloudy ... it's the smoke from the stove

A variety of grains and beans available at the camp

Kids playing on one of the camp's water pumps

I was able to take an overnight trip to a national park called Murchison Falls. At the falls the waters of the Victoria Nile are forced through a narrow gap in the rock about 20 ft wide. The river drops 400 ft in three separate cascades and flows westward into Lake Albert. Here's a photo of the falls:

After visiting the falls we drove around the park and saw a number of animals:

Leopard

Ugandan Kob

Hippo

Giraffes

Elephant

Crane

Lion cub

So, that's it for now. There are lots of stories and more pictures to share. I'll be home at the end of this week and look forward to seeing many of you soon!

Love,

Alisia

Finally Arrived

On Saturday night, after checking into a hotel for the second time in two days, I met some fellow passengers in the hotel bar. We had some really interesting conversations, the most interesting of which was about what the passengers in the rear of the plane 'saw'. Apparantly, some passengers saw some dark things flying by their windows .. stuff that looked like medal. Who knows if it's a true story but I have no reason to doubt the people I was with.

My hypothesis is that when the mechanics were cleaning the bird out of the engine the day before they forgot to tighten something.

Anyway, I did get on the plane, which they promised was new, and arrived in Kampala around 11 pm. We didn't get to the hotel until 1ish and were picked up to start the full day of meetings at 8am.

I'm tired and going to bed ... I'll be up north starting tomorrow and don't know what kind of internet access I'll have but will update you all as I can.

Love,
Alisia

The Adventure Continues

Oy. That's really all I can say at this point. Oy.

I got on the flight to Kampala and it was half empty. Great! I had the middle row of 4 seats to myself and was able to stretch out and relax. We were served a decent lunch, started watching Juno, and then the announcement came. The plane had a technical difficulty and not to worry but we were turning around and returning to Brussels. Not To Worry??? Yeah, ok.

So, even though we were about half way to Nairobi (the flight was supposed to continue on to Kampala) we turned around and flew back to Brussels. The flight back wasn't too bad but every time we hit some turbulance or the plane noises changed we would all look at eachother and not move. Luckily, we landed safely and were once again ushered to a local hotel (if you find yourself coming to Brussels and need a place to stay I can now tell you about 2 different hotels - just let me know!). For dinner we were told to meet in a conference room and they had tables set up and a buffet for the group. It wasn't too bad.

Despite the craziness of this trip so far ... there are a few good things that I can pull from this experience - I am alive, I have met some interesting people, I am alive, I was able to rest between flights, I am alive.

What more can a person ask for?

The Adventure Begins

I'm en route to Uganda and have already had a number of experiences worthy of blogging about. The first experience was that I had an economy plus seat on the United flight from DC to Brussels. This means that I should have had about 5 extra inches of leg room. However, the seat I had was behind the crew rest seats so I actually had about a foot of extra room. I could stretch out my legs and my seatmate could still walk around me. I felt like I was in business class! Also, since I've stopped eating meat I requested a vegetarian meal for the flight. I had couscous with mixed vegetables that was so good I couldn't believe it was airplane food. Yum.

I arrived in Brussels and was told that my flight to Kampala was delayed 24 hrs so I stayed overnight in Brussels. I planned on going into the city but by the time I got to my hotel and took a short nap the weather was rainy and cold and I wasn't prepared to head out into the wet weather. So, I ate lunch, took another nap, ate dinner and watched some movies before going to bed. This is the view from my hotel room:

I'll be heading to the airport in a few minutes for my 10 1/2 hour flight to Kampala .. stay tuned for more updates!

Love,

Alisia