Category: Life of a Volunteer
Our Stories:
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In Photos: Pioneering Volunteer Adventure in Rwanda & Uganda
Today’s story will be the last for some weeks. Our home country Rwanda begins the annual commemoration of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi tomorrow. With GHE Youth Spaces — the core of the adventure presented in 10 images — we try to play our part in building a nation and a transboundary region where…
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Where Differences Can Still Be Made
We were visited by Laura and Hannah from Austria last week … as they came to Uganda attempting to better understand their late friend Carla Weinzierl. “Cala” was our remarkable veteran volunteer and frequent returnee. She took her own life in Vienna in 2020. Before we get into anything else, there is one important message…
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What Should I Expect in Terms of Cultural Shock?
Culture shock is expected, and even welcome, when you exchange a life in the West for a dive into African life. But your culture shock will inevitably be quite personal. Considering that I’m a fresh Gorilla Highlands Experts intern that will stay in Uganda for six months, my very recent arrival puts me in a prime position to share my…
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A Night Out with My Wife … or $100 Spent Changing a Life?
The wind and wonder of discovery engulfed me as I held on to my motorcycle taxi driver, Kacumbe, the consensus king of boda boda drivers in the Kabale square where I had travelled in southwestern Uganda. We were on our way to Lake Bunyonyi, a mystical highland lake that would capture a decade of my life with its people…
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“What’s a Gay?” and Other Ugandan Sexuality Questions
Weirdly enough, I didn’t sleep at all on the night of 31 May. I felt anxious, but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly was happening, I guess. I felt all befuddled in the late morning, but a text from my friend Kelvin immediately woke me up. It said that 44 people got arrested…
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Many Happy Returns
I’m Jon Lee, a consistent California connection, who has been writing, editing stories, and narrating videos for the Gorilla Highlands initiative for over a decade. I lucked into the discovery of these magical mountains. I was safely ensconced in a post-retirement life of plenty in a beach town, nursing an ember of long-ago third world adventure.…
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Reflections from My Mirror
Travelling to another country or region and encountering the people of those places, always comes with its own particularities and challenges. As a graduated anthropologist I’m supposed to be quite literate about “different cultures”. At least that is what I used to say when people asked me what it actually means to study Social and…
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How a Gracious Bird Taught Me a Lesson in Patience
Bunyonyi literally means ‘place of many little birds’, and everyone who has ever visited this lake in the southwest of Uganda, knows that that is not an exaggeration. From kingfishers who dive with their beaks straight down in the water, to the hamerkops waiting patiently on the riverbanks, to the gracious national pride of Uganda,…
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Kampala, Here I Come!
After my first month of exotic but basic living on the shores of Lake Bunyonyi I was ready for a deeper dive into Ugandan life. I’d occasionally visited the nearby town of Kabale for my supermarket needs or a change of environment, but I wanted to explore a bit. As someone who is used to…