Writer's Note: We had very poor internet connection while we were in Africa so this post is very overdue. I plan on posting something else about the remainder of the trip.
I am currently abroad with a few other students and faculty from the Journalism School for an HIV/AIDS reporting course in Uganda. The 11 students chosen started their internship at the Daily Monitor on June 2nd!
But let me update you on my whereabouts so far.
The journey to Kampala was pretty tough. This is my first time abroad so I had never been on a plane for that long. We left from the Indianapolis Airport and had a short flight to the O’Hare Airport. We waited around and eventually got on our flight to Heathrow Airport in London and from there we flew to Entebbe and from there we had about an hour drive to our new home in Kampala!
We all had no trouble falling asleep and we rose early the next day to have breakfast. I won’t go into too much detail about the food, but since we boarded our first plane we have not gone hungry. So far we have visited a few churches and mosques, a palace, and the Uganda Museum, all with incredible views and valuable information. Kampala rests on 7 hills and the top of each has some spectacular thing to see.
We got to visit Makerere University, the largest college in West Africa. It’s about the same size of IU but with about 10,000 more students than us. All of the students and faculty we met there were very friendly and very happy to host us.
We got to visit the Daily Monitor this week to meet the people we would be working closely with, and had the opportunity of touring the newsroom offices and see where they printed the paper. Later that night we had dinner with some of the faculty and had some great conversation.
We were at the African Center for Media Excellence sitting in workshops that related to our HIV/AIDS focus for two days. We heard from the POA for the U.S. Embassy in Uganda, various journalists and researchers, the chairman for the Uganda Aids Commission, among a few others.
We've got to hike in the Mabira Forest and travel to Jinja to see the source of the Nile River.
And to think this was just week one of me being here in Uganda. I cannot wait for the next few weeks to come!
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