This in not an official U.S. Department of State (DOS) blog and the views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the DOS.

Maribou Stork nest on top of a large tree outside of the pharmacy school in Kampala.

Today was another good day in Uganda. It was quite hot all day, although I’m not complaining because back in the Eastern USA it has been pretty cold and I heard Buffalo is expecting a foot of snow today!  I think it is supposed to be rainy season here but it seems to be lagging behind, per the local folks and they too are anxious for it to get here. You might be curious about that but the rain that this part of Uganda gets isn’t usually an all day, drenching rain. It is more like an hour or half hour of pouring rain- just enough to stop the dust and cool everything down a bit. I know they can have floods, but those aren’t that common in this part of Africa.  The picture above is of a roof-top nest of Maribou Storks. These are HUGE birds and they aren’t at all scared of humans.  It might be hard to tell from the picture since you can’t see how tall the tree is, but these birds are easily 3 – 3&1/2 feet tall!  They are EVERYWHERE and are kind of scary at times. This tree in the picture is right at the foot of the parking entrance to the pharmacy school so I was gazing at them in amazement as I waited for my wonderful driver, Haji, this afternoon.

Vicky and Patrick by Niagara Falls (on the USA side)

After spending a few days with me in Wilkes-Barre, PA and rounding at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital with me and the Family Medicine Residency Team, Vicky and Patrick headed to New York to meet up with Darowan Akajagbor, Pharm.D, my pharmacy faculty colleague from D’Youville College School of Pharmacy in Buffalo.  The campus is in Buffalo but Darowan’s practice site is in Syracuse.  Her specialty is Critical Care Medicine.  Anyway, one of the bonuses of going to Buffalo to sit in on some of the Pharmaceutical Care classes with the pharmacy students was that they would be really near Niagara Falls. So, the pictures below are ones that Vicky and Patrick took while there. Now remember, not only is it pretty darn cold in November in Buffalo, NY, but they are going to be near where the water sprays at you really hard in this frigid cold. But, from the smiles on their faces, you can tell they had a good time!

The falls from a distance

The walkway by the Falls