Written by Vivienne Steele PART 4
Kate and I have been completing field work here in Buhoma for three weeks now, and we are having a great time!
This week we hit a big milestone with our data entry - we achieved our goal of entering all of the data from 2014 and 2013! We have now moved onto a di
fferent data set, which is going quite well. This week we are also starting on a health records system evaluation project – we are looking forward to working on this.
As we had been warned, the first few rainfalls of the rainy season happened this week. We got absolutely drenched on our walk home from the hospital, where the dusty roads became tracked with mud and the passing cars hit the puddles and splashed us! It is also a little bit chillier here now, although it does not compare to current weather back in Canada.
We had a great weekend! On Saturday, our friend Julius invited us to visit Kigezi Cottages, a beautiful accommodation just outside of Kihihi. The drive there took nearly two hours, as we passed towns and villages whose names were familiar to us from data entry! Grace, a community researcher for IHACC, accompanied us and told us about the places we were passing on the way. We passed by the river which leads to the Congo! Once we got to Kigezi, we almost immediately went for a swim in the pool – it was great. Julius gave us a tour of the many cottage ‘bungalow’ accommodations, which are nestled into colourful foliage – birds of paradise plants, guava fruit trees, the nest of large birds, and many more. Before heading home, Julius also showed us around the food production system which was providing the food for Kigezi cottages. We watched as his staff fed the tilapia and catfish in the fish farm system, as well as the ducks and chickens in the pens.
On Sunday eve
ning, we went to our friend Shallon’s home for a delicious (and huge!) supper. Bob, the IT manager at BCH, also enjoyed dinner with us and with his wife and child. It was a lovely experience to spend time with everyone there, and we were really grateful to have been invited for dinner.
We are looking forward to completing more data entry next week and counting down the days until we will head on a safari in Murchison Falls.