Uganda trip and cheerleader daughter

[OZZIE4DUKE]

She's BAAAAAACCCCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome home CD!!!!

[Very Duke Blue]

She's BAAAAAACCCCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome home!!! What a wonderful experience for you Claire.

[ILoveJimmy]

The DevilDeac clan met DD Daughter#2 at the airport with balloons, flowers, goodie bag, and an awesome poster made by DD Daughter#1. Thought you might like to see the photo of Claire holding it. I also received others photos on my phone from the airport greeting thanks to DevilDeac himself.
But my favorite photo, sent to me by my sister, was of DevilDeac napping in an airport chair. He can do that anywhere!!
By the way, that was a crazy-huge load of emoticons you lauded the arrival announcement with, DD!!

[devildeac]

The DevilDeac clan met DD Daughter#2 at the airport with balloons, flowers, goodie bag, and an awesome poster made by DD Daughter#1. Thought you might like to see the photo of Claire holding it. I also received others photos on my phone from the airport greeting thanks to DevilDeac himself.
But my favorite photo, sent to me by my sister, was of DevilDeac napping in an airport chair. He can do that anywhere!!
By the way, that was a crazy-huge load of emoticons you lauded the arrival announcement with, DD!!

She's not gonna like that photo as she had about 3-4 hours sleep for the last 2 nights total, spent about 18-19 hours on airplanes and had no showers for about 2 days. However, I won't tell her it's here.
Thanks for posting.

[Lavabe]

The DevilDeac clan met DD Daughter#2 at the airport with balloons, flowers, goodie bag, and an awesome poster made by DD Daughter#1. Thought you might like to see the photo of Claire holding it. I also received others photos on my phone from the airport greeting thanks to DevilDeac himself.
But my favorite photo, sent to me by my sister, was of DevilDeac napping in an airport chair. He can do that anywhere!!
By the way, that was a crazy-huge load of emoticons you lauded the arrival announcement with, DD!!

She's not gonna like that photo as she had about 3-4 hours sleep for the last 2 nights total, spent about 18-19 hours on airplanes and had no showers for about 2 days. However, I won't tell her it's here.
Thanks for posting.

ILJ felt the same way, but DDD#1 posted it on facebook, so, ILJ felt it was okay.

18-19 hours on planes? 2 days without showers? That's not bad at all. ;)

By the way, if she didn't have much dairy in Uganda, slowly EASE back into it. The gut flora change with some folks is not pleasant, but it will change alright in a few days.

[devildeac]

The DevilDeac clan met DD Daughter#2 at the airport with balloons, flowers, goodie bag, and an awesome poster made by DD Daughter#1. Thought you might like to see the photo of Claire holding it. I also received others photos on my phone from the airport greeting thanks to DevilDeac himself.
But my favorite photo, sent to me by my sister, was of DevilDeac napping in an airport chair. He can do that anywhere!!
By the way, that was a crazy-huge load of emoticons you lauded the arrival announcement with, DD!!

She's not gonna like that photo as she had about 3-4 hours sleep for the last 2 nights total, spent about 18-19 hours on airplanes and had no showers for about 2 days. However, I won't tell her it's here.
Thanks for posting.

ILJ felt the same way, but DDD#1 posted it on facebook, so, ILJ felt it was okay.

18-19 hours on planes? 2 days without showers? That's not bad at all. ;)

By the way, if she didn't have much dairy in Uganda, slowly EASE back into it. The gut flora change with some folks is not pleasant, but it will change alright in a few days.

I thought the hours on planes and no showers might strike a rather pungent chord. I'll remind her about the dairy.

[DukieInKansas]

Welcome home, Claire!

I hope you have gotten some

[devildeac]

My guess is that FB photos will start appearing REAL soon... ;)

[CameronBornAndBred]

Via email from DD, Claire's last update..with photos.

Family and friends,

I’m home!! My flight arrived at the RDU airport around 5:30pm yesterday. I was greeted by my mom, my dad, Rachel, David John, and Jason (Rachel’s boyfriend) with a big poster, balloons, candy, and a dozen roses ? What a welcome home!! At home my mom had put up a banner and my dad had put another dozen roses in a vase already – the other roses were from David John. We all went out to dinner at Chili’s for one of my favorite meals, then I showed a few pictures and gave out some souvenirs. Now that I’m well rested after almost 30 hours of traveling, I am ready to conclude my update emails.

This email will cover the last two weeks of our time in Uganda, so there is less work-related information; though we worked diligently for several of our last days there, we also had a lot of really fun events to celebrate the summer.

Project-Related
We finished our home follow-up visits, seeing about 70 women with complications and providing more personalized care and education. The Rainwater Harvesting group finished in-school campaigns, and tank construction was well underway by that time. Most of our final week was spent writing reports about our projects and presenting the information to Dr. Mugerwa and the MMHF staff. We spent our last Friday in Kashongi – we ceremonially “opened” two rainwater collection tanks (though unfortunately they were not complete) and met with the sub-county officials and CVCs to thank one another for everyone’s hard work and for the partnership we have established. We had a big celebratory dinner with everyone involved with our projects on our last Friday night, then another smaller dinner with our closest friends for Jordan’s birthday on Saturday. We said many sad goodbyes during our final weekend in Mbarara.

Fort Portal
For the last weekend of July, four of us went to Fort Portal, a central point between many national parks and other tourist attractions. Of course it was a long weekend full of adventure. We took a public taxi, sometimes riding with 25 people in a 14-passenger van! We arrived at the Rwenzori View Guesthouse just before dark. The Guesthouse is an awesome bed and breakfast owned by a Dutch-English couple. There was hot water for showers, very nice rooms, and some of the most delicious food I’ve ever eaten. On Saturday we rented bikes and went on a cycling tour to see caves, lakes, and a waterfall. To say the least, the bikes were horrible (and we rode closer to 50km rather than the supposed 35km), but we appreciated the sights and even went under the waterfall. Rather than hike around the Rwenzori Mountains that were very near, we spent Sunday morning sleeping, shopping, and relaxing at our hotel. We returned to Tank Hill well-rested and ready for our last full week of work.

Millennium Village
One day we visited Ruhiira, one of the village clusters targeted by Millennium Village Project. If you haven’t heard of MVP, here is information taken directly from their website.

“The Millennium Villages project offers a bold, innovative model for helping rural African communities lift themselves out of extreme poverty. The Millennium Villages are proving that by fighting poverty at the village level through community-led development, rural Africa can achieve the Millennium Development Goals global targets for reducing extreme poverty and hunger by half and improving education, health, gender equality and environmental sustainability by 2015, and escape the extreme poverty that traps hundreds of millions of people throughout the continent.

With the help of new advances in science and technology, project personnel work with villages to create and facilitate sustainable, community-led action plans that are tailored to the villages' specific needs and designed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.”

The landscape was breathtaking! There were hills all around, all covered with beautiful patterns of crops and trees. We visited the main trading center, a safe water source, their nicest primary school, one Health Center 3, and their main Health Center 4 (a hospital). The hospital was much better equipped than the other hospitals we saw in Uganda. The Operating Room was actually sterile, and they had several ultrasound machines and even real incubators for pre-mature babies. We learned that all of the Health Centers level 2 and above have ultrasound machines – no other Ugandan village can say this. The school we visited had solar power, three computers with Internet (on which several staff members were playing Tetris…), and clean-burning stoves! It was amazing to see all of these things in a rural Ugandan village. Then I remember how we in America readily expect all of these resources wherever we go.

For more information, I invite you to visit http://www.millenniumvillages.org/about ... uhiira.htm

Dental Clinic at UNHCR camp
The day after visiting Ruhiira, I went with a Dentist from Mayanja hospital to his weekly dental clinic in a refugee camp near Tanzania. He told me that over 70,000 refugees from at least six different countries live in the expansive camp. Some of these people have lived in Uganda for twenty years, from Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, DRC, etc. The camp was not much different than any other Ugandan village cluster. There were very few of the temporary tents I had expected to see everywhere but rather small mud/cement homes, trading centers, and health centers.

The dentist typically sees 30-70 patients every Thursday. I helped him register patients, write diagnoses and prescriptions, and fill syringes with anesthesia. He saw 30 patients and extracted at least that many teeth! He said that most people have tried every other option, mainly traditional herbal medicine, before coming to him, so he only performs extractions at the camp. We finished the day around 4pm but the vehicle was not ready until 8pm, so we had lunch and hung out at the base camp. It was an eye-opening experience that I will not forget.

Jinja
Now for the really fun stuff!! We were able to go to Jinja, the source of the Nile, for the last two days of our trip. We went bungee jumping over the Nile!! All but two of us decided to bungee the 145ft jump, and some people dunked their head in the water on their jump. We all stayed in one 10-bunk-bed dorm room, and we enjoyed hot showers. (Have I mentioned that we didn’t have hot water at Tank Hill?) We spent all day Tuesday white-water rafting on the Nile! All nine of us went with a guide in one raft from 10:30am-5:30pm. There were 11 rapids, ranging from class 3 to class 5, with long breaks in between the rapids. We were allowed to lay out on the raft and go swimming during the 30min- to 1hr-long drifting periods. They gave us lunch on an island then a snack and Nile Special beers when we finished. After the long day, we packed up and rode to Entebbe for our last night.

Entebbe
DukeEngage required us to stay together in Entebbe for our last night of the trip. We slept in and waited at the hotel (with free wireless Internet – a big surprise!) until leaving for the airport at 6pm. Our flight left at 10pm and arrived in Amsterdam at 4:30am! We said more sad goodbyes and went our separate ways from Amsterdam. I flew with one other girl to JFK then continued to RDU on my own.

I really do not even know how to conclude this email. There is no good way to briefly summarize this summer. I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve the Ugandan people, learn about an amazing culture, grow closer to our team, and experience many different aspects of Uganda. I appreciate your prayers and encouraging words. Thank you for your support, prayer, and interest in my trip to Uganda. I know this email was very long, but if you want to hear any more about my summer, I’d be happy to tell you more! Hope to see you soon!

Love,
Claire

[CathyCA]

WOW!

I am so impressed!

[Lavabe]

Thanks for the last email update!!