We arrived in Gulu on Friday afternoon after spending a night in Kampala (it was too late to travel all the way to Gulu on Thursday; apparently the roads don’t have the best track record at night).
We were greeted by Paxi, a nurse from Manchester who is currently working at the hospital in Gulu. She introduced us to a few people and we were shown round the hospital. It was really nice to have a chance to see where we will be working but has also added some reality, we’re starting to get slightly nervous about starting tomorrow.
Our house is less than five minutes walk to the hospital (unless you’re walking at the chilled-out Ugandan pace, then it might take ten). The house is a three bedroom bungalow in a gated complex with an armed guard. The level of security doesn’t really seem necessary and we’ve certainly not felt at all unsafe so far, but we can’t complain, it means it’s totally safe to leave valuables in the house. We have a small garden with a mango tree – but unfortunately no mangos at the moment!
Paxi showed us around Gulu town yesterday. We found a lovely bakery which also sells homemade peanut butter – I think peanut butter and bananas on toast might become our new favourite food. We got home just before the thunderstorm began, not realising how lucky we were. The heavens opened and the loudest thunder we’ve ever heard started. We lost electricity just after starting to cook dinner, luckily it hadn’t quite got dark. Dave insisted on keeping me company in the kitchen ‘in case I got scared of the storm’.
This morning we went to church and then for lunch at the house of one of the nurses from the hospital who’s a friend of Paxi’s.
All in all it’s been really fun so far. Everyone is very friendly and we’ve not been hassled at all when walking through Gulu city centre.
First day of work tomorrow, we’ll write again soon. Below are a few pictures of the house. We weren’t sure how good the internet would be but it seems to have uploaded them ok, so we might try a video next time.
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