Moroto, Karamoja

When I met anyone in Kampala and mentioned that I was going to be working in Karamoja the response was usually one of shock that anyone would consider living and working in such a remote, hot and difficult part of Uganda. Karamoja is seen as being a very different region culturally from the rest of Uganda and it has historically been beset with conflict, and is often badly affected by drought. I on the other hand was quite excited to be moving to somewhere that was going to be quite different from anywhere I had lived or traveled before.



We drove up from Kampala, starting out well with tarmac roads for most of the journey as far as Mbale, which is where things got a bit more interesting. From Mbale we turned onto marram or red roads. The towns we passed through became smaller and smaller, with traditional style thatched houses taking precedence the further north we traveled. Cars became less common, and we were often sharing the road with motorbikes, sometimes over loaded with 3 or more people or huge loads on the back, and cattle being herded often by small children.

We arrived in Moroto just after dark so we had to wait until morning to see where we were going to be living for the forseeable future. Moroto is a town of around 14,000 people set at the base of Mount Moroto, a beautiful and imposing range of mountains. It is fairly small and relatively easy to find your way around. At the center is camp swahili, where many people live and sell any and all sorts of produce. There are two main "supermarkets", which bear no resemblance to Tesco's or Sainsbury's, but sell a mish mash of different products, which can apparently vary from one day to the next. There are also a wide range of smaller shops which stock a similar apparently random range of products, so working out what you want to purchase and where to get it from is challenging! There are also lots of street food sellers along the main roads, most selling Chapattis which they will fill with a freshly made omelette and roll up into the local dish known as "Rolex".

Although there are a lot of NGO's in Moroto - some estimates say 54(!) which is huge given the population size, it is not terribly common to see a white person, or Muzungu, walking through town. We certainly drew a lot of interest as we walked through town getting our bearings, and we were followed by choruses from small children of "Muzungu, Muzungu" as they waved at us.

Although our houses were ready and waiting for us, they were unfurnished, and even though we had picked up a lot of household items in Kampala, we were still awaiting necessities such as gas, fridges and water filters, which were to be sent up from Kampala. So we had to stay in hotels for the first few weeks. Luckily there are a few hotels in Moroto as we became a bit like goldilocks - the first hotel was too loud, that was until we got to the second hotel where we discovered another Ugandan tradition - overnight church services on Friday night which run at full volume until 6am. Finally, hotel number 3, Mount Moroto seemed like a winner.

Mount Moroto hotel was situated a bit out of town (so less noisy!) in the foothills of Mount Moroto, and had lovely gardens in which you could sit and relax. We were reliably informed that it was the meeting spot for Muzungu's, as most NGO staff passing through Moroto stayed there, and it served a mix of local and international food, which was great news. It was not a bad place to spend our first 2 weeks in placement.

Orientation in Kampala

The flight from the UK to Uganda was long but I was lucky enough to get seated in an extra legroom seat with a whole row of seats to myself, so it wasn't too painful. Halfway there I enjoyed my last creme egg - deciding the chocolate was unlikely to last in the heat of Uganda without melting into a sticky mess.

I arrived in Kampala at around lunchtime on the 17th February 2018 after around 36 hours of travelling. As always when arriving in a new country having had little to no sleep for 2 days the immigration process was longer and more convoluted than it needed to be, but I eventually escaped the immigration queue, retrieved both my bags which had thankfully arrived in one piece and stepped out into Uganda.

It was hot and sunny and as we drove through Entebbe towards Kampala, but very green and lush, even allowing a glimpse of lake Victoria as we drove through. The traffic was absolutely crazy, cars and minibuses everywhere, sometimes on the wrong side of the road, all of which seemed to almost constantly be honking their horns.

I will skip over my first two days in Kampala as I discovered my newest architectural hate - all buildings in Uganda have vents built into the side of them. This is great to keep the buildings cool, but less good at keeping the noise out, and as I was staying in a hotel on the side of the main road it was pretty noisy. I was thankfully only there for 2 nights and come Monday morning my belongings were packed away again and moved to the VSO office to begin orientation.

It was a jam packed 2 days of briefings on topics ranging from Ugandan food, to how to book transport to health and security briefings. It was a lot to take in and a lot of new names and faces! But at least the VSO office is beautifully situated.

I was supposed to head straight to Moroto after 2 days of briefing, but as ever in Uganda, plans didn't quite run smoothly. I was delayed for a week, which was a bit frustrating, but gave me the opportunity to see a bit more of Kampala and to make sure I had everything I needed before I travelled. Sadly as no VSO volunteers were based in Kampala I didn't get a chance to meet any existing volunteers, which was a real shame, as when I did VSO in Mongolia the opportunity to meet current volunteers during orientation was really valuable.

Kampala itself is not the most exciting city I have ever visited. It does not have many tourist attractions. Most shops are organised into malls and in between offices and houses are located in gated compounds. But by the weekend I had obtained a list of recommended restaurants in Kampala and I sampled a fair few of them, knowing I wouldn't have the same food options once I relocated to Moroto.

Independence Monument, Kampala

View over Kampala from Acacia Mall

I was also able to make a good start on purchasing the items I would need for my house in Moroto - lots of these things were able to be purchased in Moroto, but we were advised to pick them up in Kampala as there would be more variety and choice. And we needed everything, from saucepans to stoves, to beds and kitchen tables!

Finally after almost 2 weeks in Kampala it was time to begin the long journey to Moroto - estimated journey time  - up to 12 hours!

Training and Getting Ready to go

Once I had a placement offer there were still a lot of hoops to jump through - all had to be completed as quickly as possible as VSO Uganda wanted me to start ASAP, and I couldn't tell work as my placement wasn't confirmed until I had completed all the clearance procedures and training. It was a whirlwind few weeks of medical check ups, dental check ups and much form filling in the run up to Christmas.

Much to my mother's delight one of the recommendations for my placement was that I learn to ride a motorbike, so over my Christmas break I took a day and a half of motorbike lessons at home in Northern Ireland. A few false starts, some wobbles and one wheelie later I successfully passed my CBT and spent some time riding around the back roads of Northern Ireland in the cold, wind and rain - I am sure it will be great preparation for the heat and dust of Uganda!

Finally, all my clearances came through in early January and my flights were booked for 17th February. The final steps to complete were handing in my notice at work, packing and saying goodbye to everyone in the UK. It wasn't all plain sailing (Boots in Northern Ireland in early February didn't quite have the amount of factor 50 suncream I needed!) but I managed to purchase everything I thought I might need for a year in Uganda, and eventually get it fitted into two bags in plenty of time to catch my plane.

Preparing for VSO - again!

Having just arrived in Kampala to start my new VSO journey I want to reflect on how I came to be here.

Facebook is reminding me on a regular basis that 8 years ago I was living in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia living in -40 degrees centigrade and having a great adventure as a VSO volunteer working with local organisations as a fundraising and marketing specialist. I returned to the UK to complete my legal training and qualify as a solicitor, but my VSO experience stayed with me. Having travelled, lived and worked overseas since Mongolia including in Zimbabwe and Madagascar, as well as doing lots of volunteering with the British Red Cross and Girlguiding, doing a long term volunteering stint again overseas has always been a possibility.

The VSO process has changed a lot since my previous experience, no longer are volunteers recruited for general pools of candidates, instead volunteers are recruited for specific vacancies which are advertised on the VSO website. I think this is a great change - you know a bit more about whether you will be a good fit for VSO's current needs before you even apply.

I had been applying for different posts for a while when I was contacted for an interview in October. I made my way through the first interview to check that my motivations and personal circumstancs were a fit for doing VSO now. Then it was on to the "competency" interview, identifying whether I matched the VSO volunteer competencies - 90 minutes of talking about me was a bit of a slog, but I was pleased to make it through and to be assessed as "suitable to volunteer with VSO".

The process then bore quite a few similarities to my previous experience as I was put forward for the couple of roles my recruiter and I thought I matched the profiles of and waited to hear back. Finally, I was selected to have a technical interview with the local office in relation to a resilience post in Uganda. This was different from my last experience with VSO, to get to actually speak to the local country office in advance of being offered/accepting a post meant that both I and they could assess whether I would be a good fit for this particular placement. I really enjoyed my interview with VSO Uganda and was delighted when they offered me the role within a few hours.