Back in Uganda, Summer 2014

This post is seriously overdue! Unbelievably, I have been in Uganda for almost 2-weeks already. Where has the time gone? This summer I am here for a relatively short trip because I will be moving to East Lansing, MI at the end of July to begin my new appointment as Assistant Professor of Soil Biology at Michigan State University. Because of the tight timing of the trip, I haven't been able to take advantage of decent internet access  in Fort Portal to post blog entries.

The trip this summer has been filled with the usual delays and set-backs, including car troubles and sickness including field assistants coming down with malaria. Fortunately, medication to treat malaria is easy to come by here if you have the money, which I do, so I was able to get my field assistant back healthy in just a couple days. It has been a bit stressful and I've felt the delays much more acutely this summer because of my shorter stay. Even so, with two new field assistants and the ever reliable Emma, we've made good progress; we've been able to track down three LC1 (village leaders) to get research permissions and then have visited over 80 households to collect survey data and soil samples.

I am once again struck this summer by the sense of community found in the villages we visit. If someone stays home to watch her baby and can't go to work her field, her neighbors leave their children in her care and then band together to work her field. If someone falls ill and has no family to care for them, they will leave their home and go to a neighbor or friend who will take them in and care for them. If a family runs short of food, their neighbors will pitch in to supply the deficit. In the midst of my third visit to Uganda, it is still remarkable to me how close-knit these communities are and how much they care for one another.

Two farmers of the future:

On a lighter note, I think the baboons here at the Makerere University Biological Field Station have become even more cheeky, if that's possible. My first day here, as soon as I left my door open while unpacking a baboon made a beeline for my bungalow and tried to come in to pilfer my house. The same baboon, identified by a missing right hand, stole a Tupperware container from another house and when he was chased, he made for the fence. He then dropped the contained over the fence so the person chasing him couldn't get it but he could still reach through the links in the fence and get the food that it had contained.

I finally had my camera with me at the right time and was able to get a photo of the small red duikers that live in the forest and frequent the field station.

This coming week I will leave the survey and soil sampling work to my two new assistants while I work with students at the Kasiisi Primary school and in Queen Elizabeth National Park.