I am typing this while sitting in an office at TASO so I am sorry if I seem a bit rushed. Today has been a good day as well as yesterday. I will start with yesterday.

Apple and I went with a home-based counseling service where we traveled throughout this area and made house visits to people who are about to start on ARVs (the medication to slow HIV). It was actually a lot of fun. Apple and I got back here around 6:30. So we had a full day. I will show you some pictures as soon as possible, but that might not be tonight (I will explain further down). A lot of the people we met with yesterday were minors who had just received their CD4 results. Most of them were in school so we met with the parents, or grandparents in most cases, and explained how to take the medication and that they need support from the family. We ate nonstop. Every now and then, we would stop along the side of the road, roll the windows down, and buy food from the many street vendors. They would bring roasted plantains, roasted corn, and beef on a stick. It was wonderful. For 1 dollar, I could get three plantains, 1 corn, and a stick of beef. Not to mention we got food at every house we stopped at. One of them actually brought a big basket full of peanuts and dumped them on the floor of the LandCruiser. We then ate all of them. As for the trash we had leftover, it was usually thrown out the windows.
It was all organic stuff, so don’t worry. I literally could eat like that everyday. At the end of the day, we had more fruit in the back then we could handle. We had two huge Jackfruits (google it), several mangoes, apricots, passion fruit. We didn’t have room to put our feet on the ground.

I actually just had a funny thing happen to me. I was sitting here in this office, and the person who works in here came by with two Americans. So I told them what this office does and showed them some files and stuff like that. Then one of them (from Texas) asked me “So how many years have you been here in Uganda?” I started to laugh. They were amazed that I have only been here a few weeks. I didn’t think I had changed that much. I guess it was because I knew so much about what TASO is doing and knew all of the people walking around. I am still laughing actually.

So now I will tell you what exactly I am doing in this office. I have spent the entire day in this office handing out school supplies to children in primary and secondary schools. I know it seems kind of lame, but I am actually enjoying it. I listen in on the counseling sessions as well and talk to some of them. I actually feel like I am making a difference now. Only it took me two weeks to figure this out. Oh well. I can always come back later on. I also sat in on a meeting today that was kind of boring but I learned a lot. It was between the Center Manager here, the Project Manager whom I am under, and the Manager of the hospital’s cancer center. I think TASO is trying to partner up with them in order to bring more cancer testing into the center. They believe that there is a correlation between HIV and cancer. Mainly since HIV can weaken the bodies defense against cancer, but also because both of them are like a death sentence to the patients and many of them refuse to treat it. So they are trying to help the people who are both HIV positive and have cancer. Anyways, I won’t be getting back to the guest house until late tonight. I am going to a lecture tonight about sustainable living.