first days

Wednesday, Valentine’s day, Feb. 14:

Noah, a friend from Sarasota, working for the Refugee Law Project, met me at the hotel as did Dr. Fred from Columbia Uni. and we had a delightful dinner with Noah’s posse at the Krua Thai restaurant – first night in Africa and I have Thai food, heh.

Noah’s lady friends were lovely – Kristin hails from Minnesota and is here without a planned departure, working at an organization serving, advocating, and identifying victims of torture. Angela, from Oklahoma, spent six months in Kenya before coming to Uganda to continue with an NGO called SmileTrain that delivers facial reconstruction surgery to children and adults with cleft pallets and other facial deformities. So far my expectations have been met that most muzungus are here with an NGO of some sort – be it development, social work, or health care. Fine by me, at least we can relate. Another observation – Noah seems to be one of the few who have been here longer than 3 months…makes me wonder where and why all are coming and going.