Friday, 15 June 2018

This morning around 8:30am, Winnie and I got on the road with Haji, our driver, to head to Mbarara—a town about 150 miles southwest of Kampala. It took us about 5 hours and we had a couple of interesting stops along the way.  We stopped by The Equator to use the bathroom. I’ve been there so many times that I forgot to get the obligatory picture with the Equator sign—I may try to get one on the way back.  This is an area where the Equator crosses Uganda and has lots of craft shops.  The bathroom facility was quite nice- a normal toilet that flushed! Later in the day we stopped by a petrol station with a clean bathroom, but of the “traditional” kind—check out the pictures below. We also stopped by a roadside vegetable stand. The veggies looked so fresh and delicious I got the craving to buy some and start cooking.

We arrived safely around 1:30pm and checked in to the Acacia Hotel. We met up with a friend from East Tennessee University (ETSU) and her pharmacy students. She has been here almost a month and her students joined her a couple of weeks ago. It was nice to hear about how they are rounding everyday and enjoying working with Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) students and pharmacy interns.  Unfortunately, the hospital situation with a severe lack of drugs is the same, if not even worse here in Mbarara. We shared a delicious late lunch at this lovely hotel.  I’ll share a bunch of photos and let them do the rest of the talking tonight.

There were actually 3 really nice sinks AND there was soap!

This is the water you flush down the toilet because the toilet doesn’t flush, despite the appearance.

This is the traditional toilet.

There were actually 3 really nice sinks AND there was soap!

This is the traditional toilet.

This is the water you flush down the toilet because the toilet doesn’t flush, despite the appearance.