Honest Thoughts on Uganda

Here are some more pictures I wanted to share from Uganda. I also want to talk a little bit about travelling to Africa and working with aid organizations there.

Me and some hippos. This is actually the first time I am posting my face on steemit!

Some people were worried when I told them about my travel plans for Uganda. However I have this optimistic view that makes me think nothing bad is ever going to happen to me... which might be a little naive to be fair. Although I do think your mindset and beliefs can actually influence reality.

There were very few moments when I did not feel completely at ease, but they were mostly my own fault - for example walking in back alleys at night. I also landed in Uganda the day before the presidential election which was risky as well, but I don't really want to go into Uganda's politics at this point.

I was not afraid of catching diseases either. My immune system works amazingly well (I haven't even had a cold for two years) and even though I got hundreds of mosquito bites I was lucky not to get malaria. In two months in Africa I never even had a stomach ache, although I ate street food and fresh veggies and fruit all the time. Uganda has the best avocados, jackfruits and mangos by the way.

Jackfruit tree.

Whenever I wanted to take a taxi (which are small busses) or a boda boda (which are moped taxis) or wanted to buy anything people tried to cheat me. Sometimes they just bluntly said: "You're white, so you're rich, you have to pay more". I tried never to get annoyed as I knew well where they were coming from. They don't know that I don't have a lot of money compared to actually rich people. At the same time I do have more money compared to the people there.

There were times when I got very annoyed though: I often went to the hospital or doctor with locals and the people there tried to charge us four times the normal prize for things like ultrasound etc. just because I - a white girl - was with them. This was just unfair for the local people that needed medical care.

Boda boda drivers.

Those pigs were held to pay for school fees.

Many people think of "third world countries" and all the problems there like poverty, famine and illness and want to help. I also have this urge inside of me to save the world and every single person on it. I had to learn to distant myself from that otherwise I'd lie in bed crying every day.

Aid organizations are a very sensitive subject in my opinion. Big organizations in the U.S. or Europe often are not very transparent. No one really knows where the donated money actually ends up. They also tend to want to dictate their ideas without really checking with the wishes of the local people. For example if you send stuff to Uganda for free, you might make locals go out of business because who's going to pay when it's also there for free.

In Kampala, Uganda's capital.

The worst thing an organization can do it making the people in third world countries dependent on them. I am not saying that all foreign organizations are bad, I simply don't know which ones to trust.

For this reason I worked with an organization from Uganda which was founded in a community to help itself. So for every action there was a direct result to be seen profiting the community (like free education, food for children, clean water, local farming etc.). There still were some aspects which made collaboration difficult at times like unreliability or questionable methods in school. But after all, I am just a girl and I was not there to tell them how to live there lives.

School uniforms are mandatory in all schools in Uganda which I find a bit stupid. Well, at least they look cute.

Busy roads in Kampala.

HOW FREACKING CUTE!

More baby animals.

Such beautiful colors.

Can I take you home?

Sunset.

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Check out my Africa series:
Animals of Uganda
Portrait Photos
Landscape Pictures
First Impressions