I made it!

Hi everyone! After an uneventful, albeit very long, flight, I made it to my destination!

I left Chicago yesterday at 6:30 am and connected in D.C. for the 13 hour leg to Addis Ababa. I got lucky with my seat mates: a young Ethiopian guy living in Madison returning to Addis for a family wedding, and an older gentleman living in Grand Rapids heading to Malawi to teach a biblical studies course in Swahili (his native language from having been born to missionary parents in Congo). It was the Midwest contingent!

From Addis it was a short flight to Entebbe, Uganda. Charles from Omni Med waited patiently for me while I slogged through immigration. We spent the next 3 hours making our way through unbelievable traffic and terrible roads to get to Kisoga in the Mukono District of Uganda and the home of Omni Med.

Omni Med is a small non-profit that, for the last ten years, has trained and supported Village Health Teams (VHTs). VHTs are trained community members who provide education, support and basic care to their neighbors who would otherwise not have access to safe, affordable and reliable care. You can read more about Omni Med's work here: https://www.omnimed.org/about_us

Over the next four weeks, I'll be accompanying VHTs on visits in the community to observe their work. I'll also be completing a literature review exploring best practices for non-monetary compensation for VHTs. This work is the nearly final component of my graduate degree.

When I first arrived at the house at Omni Med, I'll admit to feeling overwhelmed. I knew the house had no running water, but knowing that and then experiencing the reality of it are very different things. Suffice to say the bucket shower and outhouse will take a bit of finessing. I'm also pretty sure, I saw a lizard skitter behind the curtain on my bedroom window. Hopefully he'll stay put when I go to bed.

I look forward to having some time tomorrow to recover from jet lag and get my bearings before diving in on Monday. I have a lot to learn.