I have arrived!!

Wow! Where to start?
Well, I am here safe and sound! The journey all went really smoothly, all to plan and I even got my bags at the end, Bonus! Then when I got to Entebbe a driver from the hospital was there to meet me. The drive was just over 3 hours long. To begin with I was just looking at everything in every direction I could! The driver was able to chat a wee bit in English which was nice. After a while my eyes kept closing no matter how much I wanted to see everything we went by!
In some ways Africa is just kind of like I imagined!! And in other ways I just couldn’t imagine it till I got here!
When we were driving along there was loads of people at the sides of the roads and such a range of different kinds of buildings made of all sorts of materials from wood shacks to brick buildings. The most random assortment of things were being transported on bicycles and Bodas (what they call their motorbikes) i.e whole families, more bananas than you have ever seen before all piled on, handmade wooden stools and really long sticks! I think I’ve seen more piled on one Boda than we would attempt in some cars!! It was pretty hot when I arrived but thankfully with the windows open in the car it wasn’t too bad! In the city the roads were crazy; cars in all directions, Bodas and cyclists just nipping in and out and people in among it all just trying to sell things and crossing the roads so bravely in front of all this mayhem!!
The actual roads were a lot better than I thought they would be! (Though that might have been helped by the comparison a bit of offroading in a Landrover on a dirt track at home on Saturday!) So most of the time we could have the windows open, then every now and then they would be shut and hot air from the air conditioning would be coming out full blast while we drove through dust clouds for a while. The roads near Kiwoko are a lot worse as it really is in the middle of nowhere. There is a wee village of Kiwoko which has build up while the hospital has been here.
So the driver dropped me off at the guest house and I was just starting to wonder what I should do next when Sarah appeared at my side!! So good to see her!  She’s so settled in and I feel like I’ve been transported to a completely different world!!
We had lunch which was prepared by the two ladies who work here which was lovely and then I got shown around by Denise who is from Northern Ireland and lives here with her family. The hospital is hard to describe, maybe a bit bigger than I expected but that’s probably just because of the various different buildings, not the actual size. A lot of the wards are quite cramped. There is different buildings for Maternity, Rehab, Men, Women, Kids, a seperate T.B one etc and then there is a lot of staff accommodation around the hospital and the guest house where me, Sarah and two other medic students are staying at the moment ...I think it’ll take a few days for me to find my feet and where all these things are!
Placement wise, I’m a bit unsure about it all really! It seemed really organised when I got emails with a placement handbook and information etc but I now realise that was from the UK physio who worked here for 8 years or so setting up the physio department and who has just left not long ago! So yeah, there are two Ugandan physios both guys. I’ve only met one of them and all he said was ‘Hello’. Apparently they are both quite relaxed, so I can see this being a wee bit frustrating, especially as I feel like there is so much I don’t know about physio, nevermind what or how they do it here!
Culture wise it is just all sooooo different! I reckon I could stay here for years and still just not understand African way of life or their mindset on various things! I’ve been getting stories and various scenarios from the other students in the guesthouse, but I’m sure I’ll face my own misunderstandings/culture differences soon enough!
I am basically free to do whatever until I start working Monday morning.
We had a relaxing morning today, we’ve just been for a walk around the hospital and through the village and now I’m updating you all! I think we’re heading in to a market later in Luweero which’ll be about 20minutes or so away by Matattu (their taxi/minibuses) which’ll be good to go and see. Tomorrow I’ll head to one of the churches round here, which I’m sure will be a little different to either LBC or Carrubbers!!