Update and some Pictures

Hello People,

So the Constitutional Referendum is this coming week (August 4), and Peace Corps is on top of its game making sure everyone knows who they need to talk to and where they need to be should something go down. Hopefully, however, this will go smoothly and there will be no violence or uproar with the announcement of the result. That being said, it is definitely better to be safe than sorry. There is a travel ban for all PCV's from August 2 - 9, so during that time I will be reading/watching movies on my laptop. Anyways, here's a rundown of what's been going on over here in Agenga.

A few days ago me, Jenn and Brian (my supervisor's son) climbed up this huge hill/small mountain behind my house. Even though left in the early evening, the sun was cooking us. Apparently it gets hot around the equator. The only trails on the mountain (i'm just going to call it a mountain because it makes me feel tougher, it's really just a massive hill)are cattle trails, and they stop about half way up so we just had to go straight up the side. It was a steep climb, but well worth it because the views of the landscape below and of Lake Victoria were amazing. I've attached a couple of pictures of Lake Victoria in the background and then of us getting a Fanta after the trek. During the trip we were getting torn apart by thorns from acacia bushes and other murderous shrubbery, and as annoying as that was it provided me with an opportunity to channel my inner Bear Grylls and use aloe from a wild aloe plant to treat the cuts on my arms and hands (despite the fact that we had neosporin available in our backpacks). Also along the way Brian spotted a green mamba in some shrubs, which was both awesome and horrifying. What's even more horrifying is that today Jenn was told by a local that not too long ago (8 months - 1 year) there was a problem with hyena's killing people in this area. Apparently there is a cave on the mountain/hill that we just went up in which a pack of hyenas had made their den. It got bad enough to where they had to seal the cave with cement. For whatever reason the hyenas have supposedly been coming back around this area, and specifically that mountain/hill recently. This was disturbing for a number of reasons, namely because I was under the impression that I only needed to worry about snakes, spiders and other things I could easily outrun and/or step on, and more obviously because I was just on that mountain/hill as it was getting dark. So, I'm telling myself that I will be limiting my bush excursions to trails and hyena-free areas, but we'll see.

As far as work goes, there was an HIV/AIDS workshop today on my compound. The workshop was for HIV positive people and it covered everything from methods of contracting the virus, to treatment, to the importance of nutrition for the infected person. A majority of the group were women, but there were also a few men. HIV is a major problem in my area, with the prevalence rate in my district reaching 9.4%. In communities closer to Lake Victoria, where there is more money flowing due to fishing (and therefore more prostitution) the prevalence rate is as high as 20%. Tomorrow i'm meeting with my supervisor's group to figure out a work schedule for me, and to detail exactly what it is i'll be doing. I'll keep y'all posted. The other pictures I attached are of a monkey sitting on the Ambassador's roof while he is giving his speech at our swearing in, the sun setting over my compound, and me Jenn and Brian at an HIV/AIDS event in Funyula. Until next time, stay away from hyenas and mambas.