My day-to-day schedule varies greatly and I have had some incredible opportunities shadowing doctors in pediatric wards (a moving advertisement for DDT due to the sheer number of severe malaria cases), distributing food and goats to HIV+ mothers, giving out beans and eggs to mothers of severely malnourished children and attempting to organize a volleyball team for girls at a local secondary school. I'm also traveling around the area on boda-bodas (motorbikes) at speeds way too fast on some of the most beautiful but roughest mountain roads imaginable to interview caregivers of moderately malnourished children to gather information for a project evaluation of a nutrition program that began a year ago, learning the time intensive skill of cooking everything from scratch and gaining a great appreciation for the women of this area.

There have been many adventures that place me far from my comfort zone in homestays that involve sharing a 'mattress' with three others on the dirt floor of a mud hut with rats dropping from the ceiling, swimming across the Lambia river to have a picnic lunch in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, camping in the middle of Mweya safari park falling asleep to a lullaby of lion roars, landing in the middle of a storm on a landing strip that had a road running through the middle of it, and hiking (or maybe climbing/crawling/sliding/bushwacking would be better choices for words) through the Rwenzori mountains accompanied by 6 UPDF solders with AK-47s and ammunition draped across their bodies.

My time here has been an incredibly eye-opening experience that has brought me face to face with the realities of public health and development issues in Africa as well as what it's like to actually research and live in a place like this. I have become much more aware of complexities involved in aid work that are not accounted for in most academic classrooms.

Perhaps the best experience so far was my five-day trip to Mundri, Sudan. Mundri is located between Juba and Rumbeck and is populated by the Moru people. I was traveling with a water engineer who is moving there with his family in October. Much of the culture revolves around hiding from the scorching sun by sitting in circles under the shade of a Mango tree. While there I traveled from Mango tree to Mango tree listening to the Moru people's opinions on the Northern government, the CPA and their dire need for schools and teacher training. I had the opportunity to visit a "hospital" in the neighboring town of Lui where the staff had not received any payment from the government in over a year. They gave heart-wrenching testimonies saying they continued to work because they had a skill and there was a great need in the community (this hospital serves a population of around 800,000 but has less medicine than my well stocked pantry at home). They work "25 hours a day" and go home at night to dig in their gardens so that they might feed their families.

During my short time in Southern Sudan, it was clear to me how fragile the peace is and how broken the people and communities are from a lifetime of war. The realities of war are subtle but evident everywhere. Two children in the Lui hospital had their fingers blown off by hand grenades they found while playing in their backyard. There is a trickling return of Moru people who fled during the war but now find themselves alien to a society that stayed around, fought it out, and tried to preserve something of their people's identity. We almost missed our flight back because the one road was closed due to workers de-mining the area. Despite the existence of these difficult reminders of war, there is a very peaceful air in Mundri. The people are moving on, ready to rebuild. My time in East Africa has been at times lonely, at times frustrating, but for sure a rewarding adventure!

Otigalia Kirungi (Stay Well)