Category: Life of a Volunteer
Our Stories:
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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…
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First GHE Interns’ First Ugandan Impressions
We are Mari and Niels, 25 and 23 years old and both students of International Cooperation at UCLL in Belgium, ready for our Ugandan adventure at Lake Bunyonyi. These are our first impressions from the country, after a week of acclimatisation in Entebbe and the first week on the ground at the lake. Mari: After a long but comfortable flight…
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Behind the Scenes of the Groundbreaking Pocket Guide
We feel that we have something world-class, a mini-magazine that has to stop being a shooting star and become the sun.
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Fearless Batwa “Pygmies” Begin to Learn English
Norah (see the video above) was one of the 10 Batwa “Pygmies” of Rwamahano who got a Batwa Community English Class certificate at Edirisa today. In other words, they completed an introduction to the English language to help them with their guiding and with the Gorilla Highlands Batwa Jamboree that they are co-organising (April 2019…
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Good Kind of Crazy: Volunteering and Hiking in Uganda and Rwanda
This has been an American year for the Gorilla Highlands team. The fourth US specialist volunteer of 2017, Benjamin Blayne Dawson from Florida, is flying home at this very moment, after volunteering in Uganda and Rwanda for two months. Benji B. has spent 90% of his time at Lake Bunyonyi, however, he has also visited…
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Behind the Scenes of Our Social Media Photo Month
June will be a month to savour on the Gorilla Highlands social media: each day will feature a richly explained photo moment from the heartbeat of Uganda and Rwanda. No matter whether you follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest, you will find them under the #PulseofUgandaRwanda hashtag. Be social, our friends, and spread…
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People of the Gorilla Highlands Are Characters
Before my arrival to volunteer in Rwanda and Uganda there seemed to be one phrase that I was told that hung over me: The people of the Gorilla Highlands are characters. I didn’t know quite what this meant at the time, but now this one statement has defined my experience. And so, the only way I can…
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9 Observations of Kigali, Rwanda, by an Expert Africa Amateur
Hello to all, my name is Anika Utke. I am an eighteen year old American and the newest addition to the Gorilla Highlands team. My life one year ago is unrecognizable from my life today. I was a kid in high school that had never been out of the country before and was spending countless…
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Background Story: Global Team behind the Video Map
Over three years, sleeping in grass-thatched huts and working in mud structures whose glass-less windows open towards a magnificent mountain lake, or from their homes across the globe, a small group of expert volunteers worked on a project like no other, the Gorilla Highlands Video Map. They cared about an outstanding region in the middle…
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